ABSTRACT
While European member states appeared to converge on a shared stance towards Russia within the context of the Ukraine crisis, they took radically different positions regarding the energy partnership with Moscow. This became particularly evident when a new project to export Russian gas to the European Union, Nord Stream 2, was announced in the summer of 2015. Russian agency in the Ukraine and Syrian crises, as well as its alleged interference in Western elections in 2016–2017, reactivated long-standing European constructions of the Russian Other as a threat, which also had an impact on discourses and policies in the energy domain. Eastern European Union member states such as Poland, Slovakia and the Baltic States are particularly vocal in their criticism of Nord Stream 2 for both political reasons and because it would redirect gas flows and transit revenues away from their territory.
