Energy Security

The aftermath of the Ukrainian crisis, the Russian military intervention and the undeclared war in eastern Ukraine brought about a crucial change in the EU’s foreign affairs. The new understanding of a conflict-oriented and imperial rationality based attitude of the Russian leadership caused a substantial shift in the EU’s Russia-politics – and raises security questions not only at European level but also at the global scale.

Viktor Orbán’s evolving relations with the oligarchs both in Hungary and the wider region are having serious effects on Hungary’s energy strategy. Now, Putin is in town for meetings that will no doubt result in a new contract for the supply of gas, a development which will be to the benefit of a minority and to the detriment of most of the population, and which could also lead to tensions arising with the EU.

We should not forget what exactly provoked the mass protests that eventually led to the fall of the old regime in Kiev: it was the then President Yanukovych’s sudden decision not to sign the Association Agreement with the EU. Ten years after the ‘Orange revolution’, the dramatic change of events in February 2014 have given Ukraine and Europe a second chance.

The present crisis already appears to be as serious as the Great Depression of the Thirties, but what does it mean for the future of our economic system? And what is the Green alternative?