Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Perspective
  • Published:

The Eastring gas pipeline in the context of the Central and Eastern European gas supply challenge

A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 06 November 2017

This article has been updated

Abstract

Ever since the 2009 natural gas crisis, energy security has been a crucial priority for countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Escalating in 2014, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia further fuelled negative expectations about the future development of energy relations for the region predominantly supplied by Russia. As a response to the planned cessation of gas transit through the Brotherhood pipeline, which brings Russian gas to Europe via Ukraine and Slovakia, the Slovak transmission system operator Eustream proposed the Eastring pipeline. This Perspective analyses this proposal and argues that neither the perceived decrease in Slovak energy security nor the loss of economic rent from the international gas transit should be the main policy driver behind such a major infrastructure project. Although marketed as an answer to current Central and Eastern European gas supply security challenges, the Eastring pipeline is actually mainly focused on issues connected to the Slovak gas transit.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Eastring routing options.

Similar content being viewed by others

Change history

  • 06 November 2017

    In the version of this Perspective originally published, the accepted date was incorrectly given as 15 October 2017; it should have read 15 September 2017. This has now been corrected in all versions of the Perspective.

References

  1. Högselius, P. Red Gas (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

  2. Nosko, A. Energy Security in Transition: Coping with Energy Import Dependence in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. PhD thesis, Central Eur. Univ. (2013).

  3. Sencar, M., Pozeb, V. & Krope, T. Development of EU (European Union) energy market agenda and security of supply. Energy 77, 117–124 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Mišík, M. & Prachárová, V. Before ‘Independence’ arrived: Interdependence in energy relations between Lithuania and Russia. Geopolitics 21, 579–604 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Gałczyński, M., Ruszel, M., Turowski, P., Zajdler, R. & Zawisza, A. Global LNG Market (Ignacy Lukasiewicz Energy Policy Institute, 2017).

  6. Binhack, P. & Tichý, L. Asymmetric interdependence in the Czech–Russian energy relations. Energy Policy 45, 54–63 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Mišík, M. The influence of perception on the preferences of the new member states of the European Union: The case of energy policy. Comp. Eur. Polit. 13, 198–221 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Maltby, T. Between amity, enmity and Europeanisation: EU energy security policy and the example of Bulgaria’s Russian energy dependence. Eur.-Asia. Stud. 67, 809–830 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Szulecki, K., Fischer, S., Gullberg, A. T. & Sartor, O. Shaping the ‘Energy Union’: between national positions and governance innovation in EU energy and climate policy. Clim. Policy 16, 548–567 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Annual Report 2015 (Eustream, 2016).

  11. McGowan, F. Putting energy insecurity into historical context: European responses to the energy crises of the 1970s and 2000s. Geopolitics 16, 486–511 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Mišík, M. On the way towards the Energy Union: Position of Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia towards external energy security integration. Energy 111, 68–81 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Ropoza, K. Russia won’t renew gas contract with Ukraine. Forbes (25 July 2015).

  14. Tagliapietra, S. Energy Relations in the Euro-Mediterranean. A Political Economy Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

  15. Quarterly Report on European Gas Market Volume 9 (European Commission, 2016).

  16. Natural Gas Consumption Statistics (Eurostat, 2016).

  17. Austvik, O. G. The Energy Union and security-of-gas supply. Energy Policy 96, 372–382 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Energy Datasheets: EU-28 Countries (European Commission, 2017).

  19. Goldthau, A. Assessing Nord Stream 2: Regulation, Geopolitics & Energy Security in the EU, Central Eastern Europe & the UK (King’s College London, 2016).

  20. Afifi, S.  N., Hassan, M.  G. & Zobaa, A.  F. The impacts of the proposed Nabucco gas pipeline on EU common energy policy. Energy Sources Part B Econ. Plan. Policy 8, 14–27 (2013).

    Google Scholar 

  21. Franza, L. From South Stream To Turk Stream (Clingendael International Energy Programme, 2015).

  22. Construction of TurkStream Gas Pipeline’s Offshore Section Commenced. Gazprom (7 May 2017).

  23. Správa o Výsledkoch Monitorovania Bezpečnosti Dodávok Plynu za 2015 (Ministry of Economy of SR, 2016).

  24. Russia Plans to Stop Supplying Gas via Ukrainian Pipelines by 2020 (Natural Gas Europe, 2016).

  25. Projekt Plynovodu Eastring (Government of the Slovak Republic, 2015).

  26. Informačný Materiál na Rokovanie Rady Vlády SR pre Podporu Exportu a Investícií 23. 9. 2015. Sankcie Medzi EÚ a RF — Aktuálny Stav a Dopady (Ministry of Economy of SR, 2015).

  27. Eastring Routing (Eastring, accessed 31 August 2017); http://go.nature.com/2w7kN9P

  28. Capacity & Construction (Eastring, accessed 31 August 2017); http://go.nature.com/2xRtWYt

  29. Financial Sources (Eastring, accessed 31 August 2017); http://go.nature.com/2jKGkDB

  30. EU Invests €444 Million in Key Energy Infrastructure (European Commission, 2016).

  31. Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/89 of 18 November 2015 Amending Regulation (EU) No 347/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council as Regards the Union List of Projects of Common Interest (European Commission, 2015).

  32. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the Short Term Resilience of the European Gas System (European Commission, 2014).

  33. Fact Sheet: The Nord Stream Pipeline Project (Nord Stream, 2016).

  34. Nord Stream Utilisation Averages 80% in 2016 (Nord Stream, 2017).

  35. Siddi, M. The EU’s gas relationship with Russia: solving current disputes and strengthening energy security. Asia Eur. J. 15, 107–117 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Preprava Plynu zo Slovenska na Ukrajinu Medziročne Klesla (energia, 2017).

  37. Gas Interconnection Romania — Hungary (European Commission, 2013).

  38. Romanova, T. Is Russian energy policy towards the EU only about geopolitics? The case of the Third Liberalisation Package. Geopolitics 21, 857–879 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Jirušek, M., Vlček, T. & Henderson, J. Russia’s energy relations in Southeastern Europe: an analysis of motives in Bulgaria and Greece. Post-Soviet Affairs 33, 335–355 (2017).

    Google Scholar 

  40. The European Natural Gas Network (Entsog, 2015); http://go.nature.com/2ydXf3A

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency, grant no. APVV-16-0062, and the Faculty of Arts (Comenius University in Bratislava), grant no. FG13/2017.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Matúš Mišík.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

A correction to this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-017-0050-7.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mišík, M., Nosko, A. The Eastring gas pipeline in the context of the Central and Eastern European gas supply challenge. Nat Energy 2, 844–848 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-017-0019-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-017-0019-6

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing