One European policy wonk says the European Union has become “too technocratic and business-oriented” in its relations with Russia, demonstrating a “narrow, almost provincial understanding” of events like the recent Russia-Ukraine gas crisis, which severely disrupted gas flows to many European countries. (See this chart for an interesting analysis of the geopolitics of Europe’s heavily import-oriented energy supply.)

“The problems caused by [the gas dispute] are clearly problems of a European nature and they will not be solved until the EU itself becomes a protagonist,” said James Sherr of the UK’s Chatham House in an interview with EurActiv Slovakia. EU countries must realize that “it is impossible to separate the purely commercial factors in this relationship from the political and geopolitical factors…First, in this crisis, Russia consistently and conspicuously behaved like a country that is not part of the Euro-Atlantic community and has no wish to be a part of it. Second, Ukraine conspicuously failed to behave like a country that wishes to be part of the Euro-Atlantic community.” 

The Black Sea region is a “vital point of connection between Europe and the wider Middle East,” Sherr said, and since “Russia is struggling to remain a major Black Sea power” it has “invested all of its efforts and continues to invest its efforts into making sure that no project occurs or succeeds without Russian participation.”