CEPA introduced a broad vision earlier this year for the integration of gas markets from the Baltic to the Black and Aegean Seas to build on radical changes that are now afoot in central and eastern Europe.
This vision is now starting to take shape.
Numerous companies are exploring opportunities to sell gas shipped from the Baltic Sea to Ukraine or other neighbors.
Others have worked to open new transmission corridors to allow access to new supply routes from the south.
This trend is expected to gather momentum as US liquefied natural gas (LNG) producers and government representatives from both sides of the Atlantic meet in Athens on November 6 and 7.
The goal is to thrash out several new supply deals with regional buyers in Greece, Poland, and Ukraine.
After years of inertia and reliance on Russian gas, Central and Eastern Europe is now seeing a flurry of new corridors opening up. The gas they transmit will be cheap and plentiful.
Using existing infrastructure, new routes are emerging to link LNG import terminals in Germany, Italy, Poland, Greece, and Croatia, or indigenous production facilities in Romania, Norway, and Denmark, to landlocked countries in the region.
These are driven by several factors.
The expiry of Russia’s transit agreement with Ukraine in January and the EU’s plan to fully phase out Russian gas by 2028 have left an important gap.
Prior to its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia accounted for about 45% of the EU’s total imports. As of 2025, that share has dropped to less than 10% largely because Russia itself severed supplies in the expectation it would force Europe to abandon Ukraine. It failed.
Now, it is becoming clear that the loss of Russian gas could hardly have come at a better time.
Global LNG production is forecast to surge as output in the US and Qatar doubles in the second half of this decade.
On the other hand, with few exceptions, global energy demand has been sluggish, reflecting slowing economies and fears linked to geopolitical volatility.
One rare pocket of demand growth is forecast to be Central and Eastern Europe, where many countries that had traditionally depended on coal are now set to switch to natural gas as a transition fuel towards full decarbonization.
It is difficult to recall a moment in recent times when the region’s energy needs have aligned so neatly with the plethora of new supply options.
Nevertheless, to reap the full benefits of this alignment and ensure fair and equal chances for all, countries also need to agree on a few concrete issues. That will require an advanced level of regional coordination and a willingness to embrace change.
Firstly, they should understand that the region’s security lies in its unity. Demand for one or two extra billion cubic meters in one small landlocked East European country is hardly likely to attract a flurry of suppliers. However, extra demand of 430bn cubic meters — the expected requirement for the full region over the next 25 years — will very likely see a long line of suitors queuing to offer competitive deals.
Secondly, Central and Eastern European countries need to acknowledge their shortcomings and urgently address their shortcomings.
Unlike Western Europe, which is blessed with developed import and transmission infrastructure as well as liquid, functional markets, Central and Eastern Europe is a patchwork of countries with divergent regulations, quirks, or (bad) habits mostly inherited from their communist past.
Some measure gas in cubic meters, others in kilowatt-hours; some trade in euros, others in local currencies; some see benefit in working with their neighbors, others engage in petty squabbles.
These differences are already giving foreign investors pause for thought.
Global LNG producers have neither the time nor the patience to sort out parochial disputes over metering stations, transmission tariffs or gas quality specifications that have come to dominate heated discussions within the region.
While recognizing the importance of working together, the region also has to devise a concrete plan to remove inherent barriers.
One low-hanging fruit would be a switch to the euro. Such a switch could happen for gas trading purposes well before member states actually adopt the European currency, and would help to remove conversion costs.
Another step would be for EU member states and their immediate neighbors in the Western Balkans, Ukraine, and Moldova to apply EU rules uniformly at border points. Candidate member states like Ukraine and Moldova are now sometimes more diligent in applying these rules than neighbors that are EU members.
Regulatory alignment costs nothing but helps to streamline business relationships.
Transmission tariffs charged by operators to ship gas across the region have been a major barrier to integration. The loss of Russian gas, which had paid for the use of network usage, prompted regulators to increase tariffs to exorbitant levels.
While different countries have different constraints when calculating these fees, there is also a lot of room for subjectivity and self-serving behavior.
This must go.
Rising energy costs have been a pain point for Europe’s embattled economies in recent years, but many fail to see that a great portion of the increase has been linked to local tariffs and taxes rather than the actual price of the resource.
Central and Eastern European countries need to coordinate on tariff alignment to ensure they reflect shared goals of supply security, efficiency, and cost optimization.
Abundant opportunities are opening up for the region. Will it find the wisdom to seize them?
Aura Sabadus is a senior energy journalist writing for Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS), a London-based global energy and petrochemicals news and market data provider. She is also a Non-resident Senior Fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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