ABSTRACT
Taking a multidisciplinary approach this chapter examines the practical but extremely complex problem of energy security in the wider European region (for the definition of multidisciplinarity, see Chapter 1). Energy security in the new millennium has re-emerged as a ‘high politics’ issue on the global level. Through history, energy has played an important role in economy and politics alongside other factors of production such as land, labour, capital and technology. Sources of energy have ranged from muscle as in the pre-industrial era, to steam engines and coal during the great industrialization, and increasingly to oil since the Second World War (Strange 1994: 186-9). However, today energy is perhaps more of a security problem than ever before. We now speak of a wider variety of energy problems than, for example, in the 1970s, ranging from fossil to nonfossil sources, to the development of new renewable energy technologies and the environmental and climactic consequences of energy production, transport and use. Moreover, energy security is significant for a plethora of actors ranging from energy producers to large consumers and transit states, and on to transnational actors involved in the planning, realization and funding of energy projects.
