European Union Energy Security and Foreign Policy Course

Course Philosophy

Three core principles guide this curriculum:

• Energy as a Strategic Dimension of EU External Action: Energy in the EU's external relations cannot be understood as a purely commercial or technical matter; it simultaneously constitutes a strategic vulnerability to be managed, an instrument of leverage to be deployed, and a domain in which the gap between the EU's supranational ambitions and its fragmented political reality is most clearly exposed.

• Analytical Pluralism: No single theoretical framework fully captures the complexity of EU energy foreign policy; liberal institutionalism, normative power theory, regulatory power analysis, strategic autonomy frameworks, and realist accounts of European strategic capacity each illuminate distinct dynamics while obscuring others, and rigorous analysis requires deploying them in combination rather than selecting one as the authoritative account.

• Institutional Reflexivity: The EU's self-presentation as a normative leader in global energy and climate governance must itself be subjected to analytical scrutiny; declared ambitions, structural capabilities, and actual outcomes frequently diverge, and analysis must hold that gap consistently in view rather than treating EU institutional self-descriptions as neutral accounts of European strategic behaviour.

Energy has been present at the foundations of European integration. The European Coal and Steel Community was built on the premise that shared management of strategic energy resources could make war between European states structurally impossible. Yet for much of the post-war era, energy remained a domain of national policy, its connection to foreign affairs treated as secondary to market logic and commercial diplomacy. 

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the energy crisis that preceded and followed it demonstrated the fragility of those assumptions with extraordinary speed and force. The European Union has since pursued the most ambitious reorientation of its energy foreign policy since the 1973 oil shock, but the structural conditions that made it vulnerable — geographic concentration of supply, ageing infrastructure, fragmented internal governance, and the competing priorities of twenty-seven member states — are deeply embedded and yield to political will only slowly.

This course examines the relationship between energy and European Union foreign policy as a sustained analytical issue. It asks how energy shapes the EU's strategic interests, its external diplomacy, its use of regulatory and economic instruments, and its ambitions for leadership in global climate governance. 

Students analyse the full range of tools through which the European Union pursues its energy foreign policy: infrastructure agreements and sanctions, market regulation and carbon border mechanisms, climate diplomacy and strategic partnership agreements, diversification initiatives and critical minerals governance. 

The course also examines the deep tensions within European energy policy: between member state sovereignty and supranational coordination, between market liberalisation and strategic autonomy, and between climate ambition and near-term security imperatives.

MODULE I: Foundations of EU Energy Foreign Policy

Week 1: Why has energy become central to European Union foreign policy?

Week 2: Can the European Union achieve strategic autonomy through energy policy?

MODULE II: Infrastructure Strategy, Crisis Response, and Sanctions

Week 3: Are energy infrastructures instruments of diplomacy or coercion?

Week 4: How do energy crises and sanctions transform European Union foreign policy?

MODULE III: Regulatory Power and the Green Transition

Week 5: Does the European Union exercise geopolitical influence through regulation?

Week 6: Is the European Green Deal a foreign policy strategy?

MODULE IV: Hybrid Security, Transition Dynamics, and the European Neighbourhood

Week 7: Are hybrid threats transforming European energy security?

Week 8: Is the global energy transition redistributing geopolitical power?

Week 9: Why do neighbouring regions remain central to European energy strategy?

MODULE V: Internal Governance, Global Reach, and Strategic Futures

Week 10: Can the European Union balance markets, sovereignty, and energy solidarity?

Week 11: Can the European Union become a global climate and energy power?

Week 12: What will European Union energy diplomacy look like in 2050?

Every week of this 12-week course is structured around four distinct learning pillars to ensure you build theoretical knowledge, practical skills, and critical awareness:

• Lecture: Core concepts, theoretical frameworks, and key debates.

• Workshop: Application of concepts to real-world empirical cases.

• Analytical Lab: Hands-on methodological training and data analysis.

• Reflexive Question: A direct challenge designed to unpack hidden systemic assumptions.

Deep Thinking

• What is the EU energy policy instrument, decision, or external relationship under analysis, and what are the verifiable facts about the institutional process, regulatory framework, energy flows, and key actors involved? (Empirical baseline)

• Which EU institutions, member state governments, and external partners shaped the outcome, and how did the structural tension between supranational ambition and member state sovereignty determine where authority actually sat? (Agential mapping)

• Which theoretical framework, drawn from liberal institutionalism, normative power theory, regulatory power analysis, geoeconomic theory, or strategic autonomy frameworks, best explains the EU's behaviour in this case, and what assumptions does it make about the relationship between energy, institutions, and geopolitical power? (Theoretical application)

• What does this framework fail to explain: where did institutional coherence break down, which external actors or member state interests resisted the dominant account, and how does the gap between EU rhetoric and material capacity reveal the limits of the chosen analytical lens? (Analytical limitation)

• How does this EU energy policy appear from the perspective of a partner state in the neighbourhood, a Global South economy dependent on affordable hydrocarbon energy, or a major competitor such as China or the United States, and what does that perspective reveal about whose interests EU energy governance primarily serves? (Reflexive critique)

Learning Outcomes

• Apply and critically evaluate theoretical frameworks for EU energy foreign policy: Explain and assess the major approaches — including liberal institutionalism, normative power theory, regulatory power analysis, strategic autonomy frameworks, and realist accounts of European strategic capacity — and apply them to specific episodes of EU energy statecraft, clearly identifying what each reveals and what it conceals about the relationship between energy, institutions, and geopolitical power.

• Analyse EU energy foreign policy across its full range of instruments and regional contexts: Assess how infrastructure diplomacy, regulatory power, sanctions, climate governance, and market mechanisms shape EU strategic interests and external behaviour across Russia, the United States, China, the Gulf states, and the European neighbourhood, while evaluating the structural tensions — between member state sovereignty and supranational coordination, between market liberalisation and strategic autonomy, and between climate ambition and near-term security imperatives — that limit and shape European strategic adaptation.

• Interpret primary sources and construct rigorous policy analysis: Critically evaluate EU policy documents, energy trade data, strategic frameworks, and regulatory instruments; compare EU energy diplomacy with that of other major energy actors; and construct independent, evidence-based analytical arguments that distinguish between EU institutional self-presentation and the structural realities of European energy statecraft.

• Develop strategic assessments and scenario-based foresight: Formulate professional-grade strategic analyses and policy recommendations under conditions of institutional complexity and geopolitical uncertainty, including scenario-based assessments of EU energy foreign policy over extended time horizons that engage with the structural forces shaping Europe's strategic options.

Assessment

Assessment 1: EU Energy Policy Analysis (35% | 2,500 words)
Students select a specific EU energy foreign policy instrument, agreement, or bilateral energy relationship from an approved list and produce a focused analytical assessment structured around the five-rule framework. The analysis must identify the stated objectives and institutional context of the selected instrument; map the EU institutions, member state governments, and external partners involved and assess where authority actually sat during the decision-making process; deploy at least two theoretical frameworks from the course to explain how and why the instrument was developed and to evaluate its strategic outcomes; and assess the gap between the EU's stated objectives and its observable results, including where institutional coherence broke down or member state interests diverged from the collective position. The analysis must conclude with a reflexive assessment of how the instrument appears from the perspective of a targeted or partner state, and what that perspective reveals about the limits of the dominant account. Submission Deadline: End of Week 7.

Assessment 2: Capstone Research Essay (55% | 5,000–6,000 words)
The primary summative assessment for this course is a research essay addressing a substantive analytical question about the role of energy in European Union foreign policy. Students may develop an argument arising from any area of the course, provided they engage with relevant theoretical and empirical debates, draw on EU primary sources and academic scholarship, and advance an original analytical claim. The essay must deploy multiple theoretical frameworks, engage with the specific thematic or regional context of the chosen question, and produce a well-reasoned conclusion that goes beyond description of EU energy behaviour to explain its institutional logic, evaluate its strategic effectiveness, and assess its implications for European foreign policy capacity. A one-page essay proposal with a preliminary bibliography is submitted at the end of Week 7 for formative feedback and does not count towards the word limit. Submission Deadline: Sunday of Week 14 (Formal Assessment Period, following the conclusion of Week 12 teaching).

Assessment 3: Seminar Participation and Analytical Engagement (10% | Ongoing)
Participation is assessed continuously throughout the semester. Marks reflect the quality and consistency of engagement across three interconnected dimensions: contribution to seminar and workshop discussions, demonstrating the ability to apply theoretical concepts to empirical cases and to challenge competing interpretations with reasoned argument; performance in the weekly Analytical Labs, showing growing proficiency in applying course methodologies to live data and case material; and conduct in simulation and debate exercises, including the willingness to defend positions under adversarial questioning, respond to new evidence, and revise conclusions accordingly. Attendance is a prerequisite for participation credit, but marks are awarded for the quality and intellectual rigour of engagement rather than for the volume of contribution.

Submission, Formatting Requirements and Academic Integrity

• All written work must be submitted as a PDF file, regardless of the word processor used.

• Use font at 12 points Aptos or Arial. Pages must be numbered. Include your name, student number, course name, assignment title, and word count on the first page; a separate cover page is not required.

• The word count stated in the assignment brief is a guide to scope and depth, not a rigid threshold. Work within 10% of the stated count in either direction. The word count covers the main body of the text, including in-text citations, but excludes the reference list, any tables or figures, and any appendices.

• All written work must follow APA 7th edition throughout. In-text citations use the author-date format: (Yergin, 2020) or Yergin (2020) argues that… For direct quotations, include the page number: (Yergin, 2020, p. 47). The reference list appears at the end of the document, ordered alphabetically by surname. Do not use footnotes for references; footnotes may be used sparingly for substantive clarifications that would otherwise interrupt the argument.

• Formal policies on academic integrity and the use of AI tools vary by institution and will be communicated where applicable. The question beneath those policies does not change: Is the goal to understand, or simply to appear to have understood? A qualification obtained without the knowledge it is meant to represent is a transaction, not an education, and it shortchanges the holder as much as anyone else. I invest genuine effort in connecting students to scholarship, practitioners, and professional networks that extend well beyond any syllabus. Whether that investment meets a reciprocal commitment is, in the end, a question of character rather than compliance.

Literature

• Balmaceda, M. M. (2021). Russian energy chains: The remaking of technopolitics from Siberia to Ukraine to the European Union. Columbia University Press.

• Badell, D. (2025). Norm contestation in EU foreign policy. Palgrave Macmillan.

• Gstöhl, S., & Schunz, S. (2021). The external action of the European Union: Concepts, approaches, theories. Macmillan International Higher Education.

• Keukeleire, S., & Delreux, T. (2022). The foreign policy of the European Union (3rd ed.). Bloomsbury Academic.

• Leal-Arcas, R. (2024). Research handbook on EU energy law and policy (2nd ed.). Edward Elgar.

• Siddi, M. (2023). European energy politics: The green transition and EU-Russia energy relations. Edward Elgar.

• Versolmann, I. (Ed.). (2025). The development of energy policy in the European Union: Continuity, critical junctures and change. Routledge. 

Research articles do not appear in the bibliography above. This is intentional. Each week, students are expected to identify a peer-reviewed article relevant to that week’s topic, bring it to the seminar, and share it with the group. The lecturer contributes selections alongside the class. This practice develops independent literature-searching habits, exposes the seminar to a wider range of scholarly perspectives than any fixed reading list could provide, and keeps the course in sustained contact with current debates in the field.

Course Structure and Content

MODULE I: Foundations of EU Energy Foreign Policy

Week 1: Why has energy become central to European Union foreign policy?

Core Question: What historical, political, and structural factors transformed energy from a domain of national commercial policy into a central dimension of European Union foreign policy?

Topics: Energy and European integration: from the Coal and Steel Community and EURATOM through the Energy Union and REPowerEU; strategic vulnerability and the politics of energy dependence; energy security as a dimension of EU external action; theoretical frameworks for understanding the European Union as a geopolitical actor.

Cases: The evolution of European energy cooperation across the Energy Charter Treaty, the 2006 Green Paper, the 2014 European Energy Security Strategy, and the 2022 REPowerEU Plan; European energy crises and their foreign policy consequences across five decades.

Analytical Lab: Students examine a set of foundational EU energy security documents, identifying the assumptions, interests, and strategic logics embedded in each and tracing how the framing of European energy vulnerability shifted across successive moments of crisis and institutional adaptation.

Reflexive Question: To what extent does framing the 2022 energy crisis as a moment of European strategic awakening obscure the degree to which the assumptions that made European energy dependence possible were themselves produced by specific institutional and commercial interests operating within EU governance?

Week 2: Can the European Union achieve strategic autonomy through energy policy?

Core Question: What would meaningful strategic autonomy in energy actually require for the European Union, and how far do current diversification strategies achieve it?

Topics: Strategic autonomy: definitions, dimensions, and the specific challenge of energy dependence; dependency, resilience, and diversification: concepts and trade-offs in EU energy policy; geoeconomics and the limits of market-based energy governance; crisis-driven policy change and its structural constraints.

Cases: Russian gas dependence: how it was built, why it persisted, and what dismantling it revealed about EU governance; REPowerEU and the diversification imperative: speed, costs, and the creation of new dependencies in LNG, solar supply chains, and critical minerals.

Analytical Lab: Students map the European Union's key energy dependencies across fuel types and regions, assess the degree of exposure in each, and evaluate the diversification options available, identifying where new vulnerabilities are created in the process of reducing old ones.

Reflexive Question: Does the concept of strategic autonomy, developed primarily in European defence debates, translate coherently to energy policy, or does its application to energy expose the concept's internal tensions and reveal that full autonomy may be structurally unachievable for a net energy importer of Europe's scale?

MODULE II: Infrastructure Strategy, Crisis Response, and Sanctions

Week 3: Are energy infrastructures instruments of diplomacy or coercion?

Core Question: How does infrastructure function as a diplomatic instrument, a strategic vulnerability, and a policy tool in European Union energy foreign policy?

Topics: Pipeline geopolitics: strategic influence, transit politics, and the coercive use of energy infrastructure; the Nord Stream projects: history, political controversy, and their destruction in September 2022; LNG infrastructure and the partial transformation of European supply geography; the Southern Gas Corridor and energy diplomacy in the Eastern neighbourhood.

Cases: Nord Stream 1 and 2: the politics of construction, operation, and destruction; the Southern Gas Corridor: Azerbaijan, Turkey, and the strategic diversification logic; European LNG terminal development and the emerging American export relationship.

Analytical Lab: Students analyse the geopolitical implications of a specified European energy infrastructure project, assessing the strategic interests of all parties, the dependencies created, and the conditions under which the infrastructure constitutes a source of EU leverage or a source of EU vulnerability.

Reflexive Question: Whose strategic calculation does infrastructure geopolitics primarily reflect, and how do the perspectives of transit states, supply countries, and communities living alongside European energy corridors challenge the Brussels-centred analytical frameworks through which EU infrastructure diplomacy is typically evaluated?

Week 4: How do energy crises and sanctions transform European Union foreign policy?

Core Question: What do energy crises and the development of energy-linked sanctions reveal about the European Union's capacity for strategic adaptation under pressure?

Topics: Energy crises as drivers of European foreign policy innovation: comparative analysis of 1973, 2009, and 2022; energy-linked sanctions: design, implementation, and strategic effectiveness; oil price caps and coalition diplomacy as instruments of economic coercion; the politics of member state consensus in sanctions adoption.

Cases: The 2022 European energy crisis: from market disruption to strategic rupture with Russian supply; European Union sanctions on Russian energy exports: phasing, exemptions, and the politics of member state consensus; the G7 oil price cap on Russian crude: design logic, implementation, and real-world effects.

Analytical Lab: Students reconstruct the decision-making process of a specified EU energy crisis, mapping the institutional actors, competing member state interests, and policy instruments deployed, then assess what the episode reveals about the European Union's capacity for collective strategic adaptation under conditions of acute geopolitical pressure.

Reflexive Question: Does framing sanctions as an instrument of EU energy statecraft overstate the degree to which the European Union exercises collective agency, and understate the degree to which sanctions packages reflect the aggregated national interests of member states rather than a coherent supranational strategy?

MODULE III: Regulatory Power and the Green Transition

Week 5: Does the European Union exercise geopolitical influence through regulation?

Core Question:  How far does EU regulatory power reach as a form of geopolitical influence, where does it stop, and what is its relationship to harder instruments of energy statecraft?

Topics: Regulatory power and the Brussels Effect: theoretical foundations and their application to EU energy governance; EU energy market rules and their externalisation into the neighbourhood and supply relationships; the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism as trade, climate, and foreign policy instrument; the limits of regulatory diplomacy and third-country responses.

Cases: The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism: design, international reception, and geopolitical implications; EU energy market rules and their application to Norwegian, Azerbaijani, and Algerian supply relationships; competition between EU regulatory standards and Chinese infrastructure governance norms in third markets.

Analytical Lab: Students evaluate the effectiveness of a specified EU regulatory instrument as a foreign policy tool, identifying the actors it constrains, the incentives it creates, the third-country responses it has provoked, and the conditions under which its influence is strongest and most contested.

Reflexive Question: Does the Brussels Effect in energy governance primarily serve the interests of European producers and consumers, or does it function as a form of regulatory pressure that imposes European governance standards on third countries whose political and economic contexts it does not adequately account for?

Week 6: Is the European Green Deal a foreign policy strategy?

Core Question: Which of the European Green Deal's external effects are intended, which are incidental, and which have yet to be fully reckoned with by European policymakers and their partners?

Topics: The European Green Deal: environmental ambition and its strategic implications for EU external relations; climate diplomacy and the EU's claims to global climate leadership; the Green Deal's effects on EU relations with fossil fuel exporters and developing economies; carbon border mechanisms, green trade policy, and diplomatic friction with major trading partners.

Cases: The Green Deal and its reception among African and Gulf energy partners; European climate negotiating positions at COP: leadership claims, coalition-building, and structural limits; industrial policy dimensions of the Green Deal and transatlantic friction arising from the United States Inflation Reduction Act.

Analytical Lab: Students assess the European Green Deal as a foreign policy instrument, identifying its primary intended effects, its unintended consequences for specific bilateral relationships, and the trade-offs it forces between climate ambition, energy security, and diplomatic partnership with states outside the European integration project.

Reflexive Question: How does the European Green Deal appear from the perspective of African or Gulf states that are being asked to decarbonise on a timeline and through conditions set largely by European interests, and what does that perspective reveal about the relationship between European climate leadership and European strategic self-interest?

MODULE IV: Hybrid Security, Transition Dynamics, and the European Neighbourhood

Week 7: Are hybrid threats transforming European energy security?

Core Question: What have hybrid operations against European energy infrastructure demonstrated, what remains genuinely ambiguous, and what institutional and policy responses are available to the European Union?

Topics: Hybrid warfare and the European energy dimension: concepts, actors, and instruments; the Nord Stream destructions: what is known, what is contested, and what changed for European security policy; cybersecurity threats to European energy systems and critical infrastructure; institutional and policy responses across the European Union, NATO, and member state approaches.

Cases: The Nord Stream pipeline sabotage of September 2022: evidence, attribution debates, and political implications; cyberattacks on European energy infrastructure: patterns, state actors, and governance responses; Baltic subsea cable incidents and the challenge of collective response below the threshold of armed attack.

Analytical Lab: Students are assigned roles within EU and member state institutions responding to a simulated hybrid attack on energy infrastructure, tasked with developing an attribution assessment, a coordinated institutional response, and a communication strategy for allied audiences. Simulation role assignments and instructions for the Weeks 10 and 11 Council negotiation are also distributed this week.

Reflexive Question: Does framing hybrid attacks on European energy infrastructure as acts of external aggression risk obscuring the degree to which European infrastructure vulnerability is partly a product of internal governance failures, under-investment, and the long-term prioritisation of commercial logic over security considerations?

Week 8: Is the global energy transition redistributing geopolitical power?

Core Question: How does the decarbonisation of the global economy reshape the material foundations of geopolitical power, and what does this redistribution mean specifically for European strategic interests?

Topics: Renewable energy systems and the redistribution of geopolitical power: theoretical frameworks and emerging evidence; critical minerals: strategic significance, geographic concentration, and European supply chain vulnerability; China's dominance in green technology manufacturing and its implications for European strategic autonomy; green industrial policy and strategic competition: the European Union's positioning.

Cases: The European Union's Critical Raw Materials Act: strategic logic, implementation gaps, and the adequacy of current instruments; Chinese dominance in solar panel and battery manufacturing: implications for European industry and supply security; hydrogen diplomacy: European ambitions, African and Gulf partnerships, and the competitive landscape.

Analytical Lab: Students evaluate the European Union's critical minerals and green technology strategy, assessing the adequacy of current policy instruments, identifying the most significant supply chain vulnerabilities, and recommending adjustments that balance economic efficiency with strategic resilience.

Reflexive Question: Who primarily benefits from the dominant Western framing of the global energy transition as an opportunity for strategic realignment, and how does that framing appear to states in the Global South that lack the financial and technological resources to participate in the transition on the terms European policymakers are setting?

Week 9: Why do neighbouring regions remain central to European energy strategy?

Core Question: How does the European Union manage the persistent gap between strategic necessity and political constraint in its neighbourhood energy policy?

Topics: The European neighbourhood as an energy strategic environment: supply options, governance challenges, and competing great power presence; North Africa: gas supply, governance concerns, and the linkage between energy and migration policy; the Eastern Mediterranean: hydrocarbons, unresolved sovereignty disputes, and competing EU member state interests; the Caspian corridor: Azerbaijan, Turkey, and the politics of strategic transit.

Cases: Algeria as a European gas partner: supply capacity, political conditionality, and governance concerns; the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum and the management of overlapping sovereignty claims; Azerbaijan and the Southern Gas Corridor: diversification achieved and its structural limits.

Analytical Lab: Students develop a European Union energy partnership strategy for a specified neighbourhood region, identifying the supply potential, the political and governance obstacles, the appropriate EU instruments, and the risks of reproducing dependency in new geopolitical forms.

Reflexive Question: How does the EU's energy engagement with its neighbourhood appear from the perspective of North African, Caspian, or Eastern Mediterranean states that are being asked to adapt their energy governance to European market standards while receiving political treatment that does not fully reflect their strategic importance?

MODULE V: Internal Governance, Global Reach, and Strategic Futures

Week 10: Can the European Union balance markets, sovereignty, and energy solidarity?

Core Question: How far can twenty-seven distinct national energy strategies be coordinated into something coherent enough to constitute a genuinely collective European geopolitical position?

Topics: The internal energy market: liberalisation, integration, and strategic limits; energy solidarity: the legal framework, its political limits, and its performance under conditions of acute supply disruption; national energy strategies and their implications for EU external coherence; supranational authority and member state resistance in energy governance.

Cases: The 2022 gas solidarity regulation: design, implementation, and the politics of burden-sharing; German energy policy and its European consequences across Energiewende, Nord Stream, and the 2022 strategic reversal; Central and Eastern European member states and the politics of coal phase-out and supply diversification.

Analytical Lab: Students represent assigned member states in a structured EU Council negotiation over a proposed energy solidarity measure, advancing national position papers that reflect real distributional interests and political constraints, and engaging with competing proposals from other delegations. This is Part One of the two-session strategic simulation.

Reflexive Question: Does the analytical distinction between the European Union's internal energy governance and its external energy foreign policy hold in practice, or does internal fragmentation so thoroughly determine external capacity that the two cannot be meaningfully separated in analysis?

Week 11: Can the European Union become a global climate and energy power?

Core Question: What kind of power can the European Union realistically exercise in global energy and climate governance, and through which instruments is it most credible?

Topics: The European Union as a normative and climate power: theoretical frameworks and empirical limits; EU-China energy and climate relations: competition, selective decoupling, and negotiated interdependence; EU energy partnerships with Gulf states: hydrocarbons, renewables, and hydrogen ambitions; the Global Gateway and European competition with the Belt and Road Initiative in energy infrastructure.

Cases: The European Union's Global Gateway energy commitments in Africa: scope, financing, and political conditionality; EU-China relations in the context of green technology competition and multilateral climate negotiations; European partnerships with Gulf states: LNG supply security, renewable energy development, and the politics of conditionality.

Analytical Lab: Students continue the simulation from Week 10, reaching or failing to reach negotiated outcomes on the proposed energy solidarity measure, then deliver individual five-minute reflective presentations on their strategic experience and what it revealed about the European Union's capacity for collective energy statecraft and its external credibility. This is Part Two of the strategic simulation.

Reflexive Question: To what extent does the European Union's self-presentation as a global climate and energy leader accurately describe its structural influence, and to what extent does it function as a narrative that European institutions deploy to maintain relevance in global energy governance despite limited coercive capacity?

Week 12: What will European Union energy diplomacy look like in 2050?

Core Question: What plausible scenarios exist for EU energy foreign policy by 2050, and what key variables will determine which trajectory proves more accurate?

Topics: European hydrogen diplomacy: ambitions, partnerships, and the emerging competitive landscape; artificial intelligence, data centres, and the reshaping of European energy demand and supply security; future infrastructure: smart grids, long-distance interconnectors, and the geography of a decarbonised European energy system; scenario analysis for EU energy foreign policy in a post-fossil-fuel international order.

Cases: The European hydrogen strategy and its partnership implications for North Africa, the Gulf, and Ukraine; AI energy demand scenarios and their implications for European supply security and import dependency; contrasting scenarios for European energy geopolitics in 2050: solidarity and strategic coherence versus fragmentation and new dependency.

Analytical Lab: Students work in teams to construct and present two contrasting scenarios for European Union energy foreign policy in 2050, specifying the key variables, driving forces, and strategic implications of each, then subject each other's scenarios to critical scrutiny in open seminar discussion.

Reflexive Question: How do the assumptions embedded in European strategic forecasting about the pace of decarbonisation, the behaviour of major competitors, and the preferences of Global South partners shape which energy futures appear plausible and which are rendered analytically invisible by the frameworks themselves?

*** This course is designed to be adaptable. The weekly structure, assessment components, and reading load can be adjusted to suit the requirements of a particular higher education institution or the context of individual tutoring, and can be scaled to meet the demands of bachelor’s and master’s degree students alike. The analytical framework and intellectual ambitions of the course remain constant; the format is a starting point, not a constraint.

Updated – June 2026

I have done my utmost to ensure everything is correct, but if you spot any mistakes, please let me know, as I am only human after all. Additionally, if you have a recommendation for another excellent book that could enhance this course, please do share your suggestions.

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