ABSTRACT
The European Council (EC) attempted to address energy security long before the Lisbon Treaty. The EC proposed to closely involve the Gas Coordination Group and to establish Preventive Action Plans and Emergency Plans. Hence, in the context of stable supplies from external suppliers EC policy makers noted that natural gas as a fuel source was becoming more important, and that some minimal coordination between member states was required regarding an approach to security of supply, in order to avoid distortions of internal market functioning. Quarrels between Russia and Ukraine continued over the course of 2014, and one of the issues of dispute was an open debt of several billion dollars for natural gas that had been delivered to Ukraine in 2013. Few national policy makers have thought of increasing imports of natural gas from neighbors as a viable strategy to deal with a supply disruption.
