GETTING ENERGY TO EU · “Getting energy from Russia to Europe : Domestic political conditions in the energy-poor transit states of the former USSR and risks to energy transit to the European Union""""

The objective of this project is to develop the synergies between the applicant’s unique expertise on the energy-poor transit states of the Former Soviet Union (FSU), the intellectual and organizational resources of the Aleksanteri Institute as a rising center for Russian and Eastern European energy research, and the applicant’s extensive international academic network with the goal of creating new knowledge on the domestic politics of the energy-poor transit states of the FSU and their effects on EU energy security. To reach EU markets, oil and gas from Russia must transit through countries such as Ukraine and Belarus, whose unstable relationship with Russia has created risks for Europe’s energy security. These countries are also highly dependent on Russian energy, and states where energy and politics have been strongly intertwined. Yet we lack detailed knowledge about the ways in which domestic political factors affect their energy policies and energy transit relationship with Russia. This project seeks to fill this gap by analyzing the domestic political determinants of energy and transit policies in four energy-poor states, each also playing a role in the direct or indirect transit of Russian energy to the EU: Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Moldova. The project complements the strengths of the Aleksanteri Institute’s Eurasia Energy Group (which focuses mainly on the energy-rich FSU states such as Russia and Azerbaijan) by adding to it in-depth expertise on the energy-poor transit states. Central to the project is knowledge transfer to and from, and extensive discussions with, the Aleksanteri Institute and its academic networks in Finland and beyond, bringing added value to the European Research Area. Deliverables consist of a set of closely-related publications on the domestic political conditionants of energy policy in the energy-poor transit states, and a set of outreach activities aimed at European academic researchers, as well as policy-makers.