Energijos išteklių tiekimo saugumo pokyčių vertinimas: Europos Sąjungos atvejis ; Estimation of the changes in security of energy resources supply: the case of european union

Abstract

Almost all, without any exceptions, European Union countries face the threats in obtaining supplies of energy resources. In the light of it, the European Union implements an energy policy that helps in pursuing to solve energy security problems, but the latter is often facing challenges and achieved results are often weak compared to the dynamic environment. Considering the fact that consumption of energy will grow in the future, while volumes of production will grow, despite the rapid development of the modern technologies used in energy sector, in the political map of the world wee will see more countries dependent on energy imports and having negative energy balances. Thus, in the future the weight of energy supply security ensuring issue in agenda of international relations will maintain its relevance and will be of particular interest to the European Union, seeking to strengthen its competitiveness. This reflects the problem of this work. This work – Estimation of the changes in security of energy resources supply: the case of European Union – aims to fill an analytical gap existing in the energy policy. The objective of this Master's work is to assess the security of energy supply in the European Union and to propose direction of its increase. In order to achieve the Master's work objective there are set the following tasks: 1. To define meaning of the energy supply security in the theoretical context; 2. To formulate a model for the energy supply security assessment; 3. Employing formulated model to evaluate the security of energy supply changes in the European Union; 4. Through the evaluation results reveal the directions of enlargement of energy supply security. Master's work covers the subject of energy supply security assessment in the European Union. In the work there are applied different methods of research: a theoretical analysis, comparison, evaluation, modeling, statistical and mathematical calculations, interpretation. Analytical study in this Master's work has covered the subject of the distribution of trade (import and export) with the main energy resources (oil, gas, coal) by trade partner of twelve European Union countries. In this work the estimated the weight of energy resources in the national and international agenda justifies the importance of this factor to transformation of present and the future world. The approach of research, which to a significant extent is based on proposals submitted by E. Gnansounou, is supplemented and integrated by alternative indicators, which provide a model with theoretical value and extends the possibilities of using empirical data. It should be noted that in the master's work employed research without significant restrictions could be used in assessing the vulnerability not only of the import of energy resources, but also the threat arising from the acquisition of other resources in foreign markets. This underlines and extends the boundaries of the practical applicability of the model constructed in this work. In the author's opinion, the work reflects the theme formulated, the established objective and tasks are reached. The construction of a relatively specific analytic access required introducing a valid creative input and interdisciplinary assessment, that emphasizes scientific value and theoretical significance of the work. In the future, researches on energy supply security could be to enriched by analysis of investment into energy supply security, because the question on the balance between the costs for security enforcement and other areas remains open. Also, in order to diversify the markets there remains uncertain benefit of selected economic directions, the strength of external suppliers' interrelationships. These mentioned issues could be identified as issues for future researches pursuing to enhance the assessment of energy supply vulnerability.