The question of energy security of the European Union (EU) has come high on the
European political agenda since the mid-2000s as developments in the international
energy sector have increasingly been perceived as a threat by the EU institutions
and by the Member State governments. The externalisation of the EU’s internal
energy market has in that context been presented as a means to ensure energy
security. This approach, which can be called ‘post-modern’ with reference to Robert
Cooper’s division of the world into different ‘ages’,1 however, shows insufficiencies in
terms of energy security as a number of EU energy partners belonging to the
‘modern’ world do not accept to play the same rules. This consequently poses the
questions of the relevance of the market-based approach and of the need for
alternative solutions. This paper therefore argues that the market-based approach,
based on the liberalisation of the European energy market, needs to be complemented
by a geopolitical approach to ensure the security of the EU’s energy
supplies. Such a geopolitical approach, however, still faces important challenges
