A recurring topic in European public dialogue the past few months refers to the necessity for the EU to adjust its goals and policies to fit the realities of a changing world. The view that I would add to these notions is that it’s not so much the changes in the world that we, in Europe, need to adjust to, but rather its ever-enduring realities. In the energy sector, an example of such a reality has to do with our ability to efficiently address climate change globally by switching swiftly to full electrification of our energy mix and eliminate hydrocarbons in Europe. Although the EU has been correct about the urgency and severity of the problem of climate change and the necessity to significantly lower global CO2 emissions, it has kept quite out of touch with reality regarding the path to do so and in particular regarding the technical, social and political limitations in the intensity and adoption rate of Renewables and the electrification of Europe’s energy mix.

The high penetration rates of Renewable Energy Sources across Europe although welcomed by all, has now exposed all the shortcomings of an incomplete internal energy market that leads to energy bottlenecks, price spikes, and political tensions both among member states and also with neighboring countries. At the same time, the enormous capital required to build new electricity grids in the EU has shattered illusions of a cheap energy transition, while the lack of large-scale electricity storage technologies has dispelled expectations of eliminating natural gas from the EU’s energy mix. In addition, severe shortages in reliable and flexible domestic base-load power generation have awakened countries to the critical role of natural gas (and nuclear energy) in electricity production.

This shift in perception seems to have materialized lately through a rather visible change in the rhetoric towards natural gas that is now acknowledged by a growing number of political leaders across Europe as a critical element in Europe’s energy mix for the next few decades.

However, while such a shift to a more “realistic” view of the energy transition is quite welcomed since it can help address the shortcoming of Europe’s energy system, we need to be careful not to go overboard with our reaction. The revived interest for natural gas carries the potential to generate intense -negative- political ripples across Europe since it inevitably involves third-party players.

In Germany for example, a country that has -up until recently- championed for a fast and absolute abolishment of all hydrocarbons, the shift towards supporting natural gas has sparked vivid arguments about the necessity to return to extended imports of Russian natural gas in order to lower the cost of energy and therefore rise the competitiveness of German industrial exports. It is needless to say that such argumentation is quite dangerous, and we need to remember that it is these exact arguments that brough us to the energy crisis of 2021-22.

A renewed, central, role for natural gas in Europe, while inevitably necessary, does increase our vulnerability from third parties. Norway for example, the country that after the energy crisis emerged as EU’s biggest supplier of natural gas, has just suffered a government collapse when the eurosceptic Centre Party quit the government in a dispute over the adoption of European Union energy policies. The strong presence of eurosceptic forces in Norway, combined with equally strong environmentalist, carry the potential to present danger for the uninterrupted flow of natural gas to the EU markets and households.

Such political ripples are extended also in the Balkans region, where Russian influence is far from eliminated, while in the Western Balkans, Turkish influence powered by Russian-originated natural gas is growing. Since the complete shutdown of the Ukrainian route of Russian natural gas to the EU in the end of December ’24, there is a growing support and “glorification” of the role of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline that is suppling large quantities of Russian natural gas in the region, accompanied by arguments for its expansion. Turkey has been trying to appease European anxiety for the growing role of Russian gas in the region by calling these gas volumes “Turkish mix” implying that the natural gas in the pipeline (and its future extensions) can be a blend of Turkish, Azeri and Russian gas, and even of LNG imported from the US. However, the reality of the Turkish market is that its own needs for gas are so big that all the (small and insignificant) local production, together with imports from Azerbaijan and the US are directed towards the 50 bcm/y local Turkish market and in practice the only gas left to be shipped to the Balkans is Russian gas.

The revived interest for natural gas in Europe, generates significant impact also further south in Europe, regarding the development of natural gas exploration in Greece and Cyprus. In the last few weeks, Chevron, the third-largest oil & gas company (by market cap) in the world, has submitted a non-binding expression of interest for one open offshore block at Greece’s south-west seas with the Greek government welcoming the company’s expression of interest. At the same time, Exxon-Mobil, the second-largest oil & gas company in the world, that owns two offshore fields in the outer south-west waters of Greece, is expected to announce the initiation of test drilling in the Greek waters in April ‘25, while just this January it started exploratory drilling in Block 5 of Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone.

Greece has been also moving intensely with completing the gas corridor between Athens and Skopje, while it is among the strong promoters for upgrading the operational capacity of the revived Vertical Corridor, a natural gas pipeline that connects Greece’s two LNG regasification terminals with SE Europe and aspires to transport non-Russian natural gas to all the countries in the region reaching all the way up to Ukraine.

Natural gas seems to enjoy a renewed era of wooing from EU countries, and to a large extend this is a development towards the correct direction when it comes to bringing balance to Europe’s energy system. However, balance is the key to this development. If Europe is not careful and balanced with its newly-found appreciation for natural gas, it might find itself non only with an unwanted delay in the energy transition, but also among new, intense, political tension across multiple of its regions and borders.

* Michalis Mathioulakis is an Energy Strategy Analyst, the Academic Director of the Greek Energy Forum, and an ELIAMEP Research Associate on energy issues.