Several European states depend on Russia as their sole supplier of natural gas, yet Brenda Shaffer’s case studies of Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Hungary show that single-supplier states can still secure adequate gas security without necessarily adding new supply sources or cutting their share of Russian gas.
She finds that the most effective strategies are state-led: expanding storage capacity, enforcing strict emergency response rules, stockpiling alternative fuels for power plants, and in some cases keeping strategic energy infrastructure under state ownership even where that means resisting EU unbundling and market liberalization rules.
