Route 1 EU born from energy → Treaty of Paris 1951, coal + steel, war “materially impossible” → Mitrany’s functional interdependence → 2022 flips that founding strength into weakness /

Route 2 pre-war energy map: ~40% of imported gas, about a third of total energy from Russia → an asymmetric dependence sitting at the centre of EU energy needs → the crisis exposed it

founding bond (energy = peace) → dependence (40% gas / one-third energy) → coercion (exports curtailed, Nord Stream 1 offline) → price surge + supply insecurity → why Russia moved: Mearsheimer (NATO expansion) vs Sakwa (great-power reassertion), same energy bill for Europe → IEA: “first truly global energy crisis” → uneven exposure (Germany, Finland, Latvia, smaller states) → cohesion tested, not only economies → common answer: ~15% gas demand cut → diversification (US LNG scaled up; spare cargoes freed by China’s lower LNG imports) → acceleration (renewables, heat pumps, demand reduction)

the shadow is not total → coercion pushed the EU faster than the Green Deal alone had managed → but the cure carries its own cost → return to coal and nuclear against the net-zero 2050 promise

Route 1 interdependence inside the union = peace; asymmetric dependence outside it = leverage → IEA: damage lasting years → shadow real and long → diverse energy mix + strategic energy security /

Route 2 the shock did what the Green Deal alone could not → the crisis ends a dependence the union should never have carried → energy security, not cheaper gas, is the lasting lesson