This book analyses whether the EU’s drift towards European strategic autonomy presents a challenge or a window of opportunity for its small member states to advance their security interests. The ...volume presents small states’ perceptions of European strategic autonomy, highlighting their expectations and concerns. The chapters focus on the depth and breadth of European strategic autonomy, national security considerations, assessment of the impact on transatlantic relations, the expected outputs, and its potential impact on the EU’s institutional structure. It also shows how systemic circumstances and the interests of powerful states, either belonging to the EU (France, Germany, and Poland) or having a significant say in European security architecture (the US), establish opportunities and constraints for the small states to shape European strategic autonomy. In particular, the study focuses on the diverging interests of the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, and the Netherlands. It demonstrates that, in most cases, European strategic autonomy is perceived not as an alternative to NATO but as a supplementary element that could facilitate the development of national military capabilities, indigenous defence industries and resilience to non-military threats. Ultimately, the book suggests that national approaches towards European strategic autonomy mainly stem from pragmatic national security and foreign policy considerations, while largely ignoring grand strategic ideas. This book will be of much interest to students of European politics, security studies, and international relations. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Lithuanian foreign policy perceives International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as an organization with the most significant authority in nuclear safety, capable of assessing Ostrovets NPP's compliance ...with international nuclear safety standards objectively. Simultaneously, the IAEA is one of the most important international institutions through which Lithuania sought to reveal the shortcomings of the Ostrovets NPP while attempting to legitimize its critical position towards the power plant. Given the relevance of IAEA in Lithuanian foreign policy, the article examines IAEA's public discourse on nuclear energy in Belarus. It aims to assess its role in the process of legitimizing Lithuania's opposition to Ostrovets NPP. After analyzing the IAEA’s leadership statements, the official press releases and the reports published by the peer-review missions during 2007 – 2020, the paper concludes that the IAEA formed a public discourse that exclusively favoured Belarus and significantly contradicted to Lithuania's official position. In this way, the IAEA did not legitimize Lithuania's foreign policy towards Ostrovets NPP. On the contrary, the organization supported nuclear energy development in Belarus. In relation with the findings, the paper provides three suggestions for reshaping the role of IAEA in Lithuanian foreign policy.
The infrastructural dependency of the Baltic States on Russia, even a quarter of a century after the collapse of the Soviet Union, has lead to technological dependence and the maintenance of ...relations between scientists, business groups and political decision-makers. All this has further strengthened Moscow’s tools in the area of energy geopolitics in the Baltic region. On the other hand, use of the so-called “punishment” instruments, intended to force other states to review their policies toward a Moscow leaning direction, has actually failed. Looking back, one may even say that the result was opposite: an aggressive Russian policy encouraged smaller countries to seek alternative supply routes, other partners and directions for integration. In this context, Lithuania may only appreciate that Moscow was not active enough in applying the positive instruments – offering preferential loans for the development of energy infrastructure, providing discounts for purchased resources etc. Namely these tactics would, in the long run, only increase the damage for Lithuania as an importer of energy resources. Thus, Russia’s pressure (primarily in the field of natural gas supply and pricing) did not force the Baltic States to act in accordance with its guidelines, for example, to refrain from criticizing the Nord Stream or postpone their integration into the network of Continental Europe.
Lithuanian foreign policy perceives the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as an organization with the most significant authority in nuclear safety, capable of objectively assessing the ...Ostrovets NPP’s compliance with international nuclear safety standards. Simultaneously, the IAEA is one of the most important international institutions through which Lithuania sought to reveal the shortcomings of the Ostrovets NPP while attempting to legitimize its critical position towards the power plant. Given the relevance of IAEA in Lithuanian foreign policy, the article examines IAEA’s public discourse on nuclear energy in Belarus. It aims to assess its role in the process of legitimizing Lithuania’s oposition to Ostrovets NPP. After analyzing the IAEA’s leadership statements, the official press releases and the reports published by the peer-review missions during 2007–2020, the paper concludes that the IAEA formed a public discourse that exclusively favoured Belarus and significantly contradicted Lithuania’s official position. In this way, the IAEA did not legitimize Lithuania’s foreign policy towards Ostrovets NPP. On the contrary, the organization supported nuclear energy development in Belarus.
The article analyses Lithuanian foreign policy in respect of the Ostrovets NPP from December 2008 till 2019. The aim of the article is to examine the goals of the Lithuanian foreign policy, its ...measures and outcomes. The analysis of official documents and high-level meetings was used to achieve this aim. The documents helped to reveal the strategic and economic features of the Ostrovets NPP, the official Lithuania’s position and its change. Meanwhile, the study of high-level meetings helped to determine the direction of Lithuanian foreign policy, its objectives, ways to justify them and means of their implementation. The study revealed that Lithuania opposed the construction of the Ostrovets NPP throughout the entire period under analysis, but initially it did that indirectly, emphasizing the issue of nuclear safety, and since mid-2016, the indirect resistance has gradually turned into a direct one - this nuclear power plant was considered a Russian geopolitical project. Although Lithuania’s interests with regard to the Ostrovets NPP have not been consistently represented at the highest political level during the period being analyzed, the country’s foreign policy can still be considered sufficiently effective. Lithuania successfully raised the issue of nuclear safety internationally, which eventually made Belarus to partially comply with Lithuania’s requirements for the admission of international experts. When it comes to constraining the supply of Belarusian electricity, Lithuania was able to agree on a favorable scenario for the synchronization of electricity systems of the Baltic States through Poland, securing Warsaw’s support. Nevertheless, attempts to constrain the supply of Belarusian electricity till the synchronization can only be effective if Lithuania succeeds in reaching agreements with Latvia and Estonia.
The article argues that despite the evident link between political environment and security of energy supply, political elements are not sufficiently represented in contemporary scientific ...literature, namely in indexes that are designed for the assessment of security of energy supply. In an attempt to fill this gap, the article presents an innovative methodology for quantitative assessment of the political vulnerabilities on security of energy supply and applies it to the analysis of the Baltic States.
The proposed index determines the plausibility of the occurrence of threats of a political nature on the security of energy supply and defines it as political vulnerability. The application of index methodology to an analysis of the Baltic States has revealed that the overall political vulnerability on security of energy supply is the highest in Lithuania, considerably lower in Latvia, and the lowest in Estonia. The analysis has shown that political vulnerability has increased in Lithuania due to the closure of Ignalina NPP and an increase in energy import quantities from politically unstable countries, such as Russia. On the contrary, political vulnerabilities on the security of the energy supply have decreased in Latvia and Estonia due to the increase of consumption of indigenous energy. However, preliminary calculations show that political vulnerabilities should decrease considerably in 2015 in Lithuania due to the diversification of the natural gas supply.
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The development of nuclear power in Belarus is an important issue addressed by Lithuanian foreign policy due to a mixture of geographic, political and nuclear safety concerns. Despite the pronounced ...relevance, the topic has received very limited academic attention. The paper attempts to fill this gap by identifying key objectives of Lithuanian foreign policy towards Ostrovets NPP and strategy for attaining them. The research is based on the analysis of high-level meetings and statements of six Lithuanian decision makers and a wide range of official documents. The paper argues that despite the apparent focus on nuclear safety of Ostrovets NPP, Lithuanian foreign policy aims to prevent its construction or at least to prolong the process. In order to do this, Lithuanian pressures Belarus via European Union and other international organizations and platforms by highlighting the nuclear safety issues of the plant, Belarusian non-compliance with Espoo and Aarhus conventions and presenting it as matter of international concern.
The development of nuclear power in Belarus is an important issue addressed by Lithuanian foreign policy due to a mixture of geographic, political and nuclear safety concerns. Despite the pronounced ...relevance, the topic has received very limited academic attention. The paper attempts to fill this gap by identifying key objectives of Lithuanian foreign policy towards Ostrovets NPP and strategy for attaining them. The research is based on the analysis of high-level meetings and statements of six Lithuanian decision makers and a wide range of official documents. The paper argues that despite the apparent focus on nuclear safety of Ostrovets NPP, Lithuanian foreign policy aims to prevent its construction or at least to prolong the process. In order to do this, Lithuanian pressures Belarus via European Union and other international organizations and platforms by highlighting the nuclear safety issues of the plant, Belarusian non-compliance with Espoo and Aarhus conventions and presenting it as matter of international concern.
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