ABSTRACT
Energy politics have played a significant role in transforming post-World War II Europe from a zone of conflict into a non-war space. The end of the Cold War marked a new era with the absence of superpower-driven security architecture, which translated into new opportunities but also challenges for the Europe of the early 1990s. The European Union (EU) had started to play an important normative role on the continent with its successful policy of enlargement. Nevertheless, the EU-pursued Energy Diversification Policy (EDP), involving both internalities and externalities, proved to be most challenging due to the lack of conceptualization of how to deal with the problems of rising energy dependence on the EU’s external energy suppliers. Also, the 2004 and 2007 enlargements brought in new member states which were heavily dependent on energy supplies from the Russian Federation.
