Europe's US gas dependence creates strategic vulnerability

Europe thought it had solved its energy security problem. By cutting off Russian pipeline gas after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the continent forced itself into a rapid, expensive diversification that looked like strategic autonomy. The replacement came largely in the form of liquefied natural gas shipped across the Atlantic from the United States. A study published this month by the Clingendael Institute in The Hague, the Ecologic Institute in Berlin and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs reveals the scale of the swap, and the new vulnerability it has created.

The great swap: from Russian pipes to American ships

In 2019, Russian pipeline gas accounted for 60% of all gas imports into the European Economic Area, the 27 EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. By 2025 that share had collapsed to 8%. The void was filled almost entirely by American LNG. Imports of US liquefied gas to the EEA rose 61% in 2025 alone and stood 485% above the 2019 level. By December, US cargoes made up 59% of all LNG entering the EU. The UK, no longer part of the single market but physically integrated into the same gas grid, covered 50% of its demand from domestic production and 33% from EEA imports in 2024; the remainder came as LNG, of which 68% originated in the United States.

The speed of the transition is unprecedented. Europe built new regasification terminals, chartered floating storage units and rewrote supply contracts in a matter of months. The economic cost was substantial, spot prices in 2022 and 2023 reached multiples of pre-war norms, but the political logic seemed sound. The United States was a NATO ally, a democratic partner and, until recently, a predictable supplier. That assumption is now being tested.

Washington's new doctrine: energy as leverage

The study points to the US national security strategy published in November 2025, which states in terms that energy dominance "when and where necessary, enables us to project power". That phrasing is not abstract. In recent weeks President Trump has threatened tariffs on European allies to pressure Denmark over Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Danish kingdom and a NATO member. The link between trade coercion and energy supply is no longer theoretical.

Professor Kacper Szulecki of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs draws a historical parallel. The Reagan administration in the 1980s attempted to dissuade European countries from building pipeline infrastructure to import Soviet gas, arguing it would create strategic dependence. The effort failed partly because liquefaction technology did not yet exist at commercial scale; Europe had no practical alternative to Russian pipes. Today the technology exists, and the United States is the primary beneficiary. "We have to acknowledge the new reality of Donald Trump's American energy dominance and look at Europe's imports cautiously," Szulecki said.

Britain's exposure matches the continent's

Raffaele Piria, the senior researcher at the Ecologic Institute who initiated the report, emphasises that the United Kingdom is not insulated by Brexit. "The UK is affected by exactly the same geopolitical and economic vulnerabilities as the European Economic Area, and in fact it is physically and economically fully integrated in the European gas grid and gas market," he said. British gas storage is even more limited than the EU's, and the interconnectors linking Bacton, Zeebrugge and Calais mean that price shocks in one part of the system transmit instantly to the others. The UK's domestic production is declining, North Sea output has fallen steadily for two decades, and new licensing rounds have become politically contentious.

This integration means that any disruption to US LNG flows, whether from a deliberate policy decision in Washington, a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, or a shipping bottleneck at the Panama Canal, would hit British industrial users and household bills with the same force as in Germany or Italy. The study argues that the UK's absence from the EU's joint gas purchasing mechanism, established in 2022 to aggregate demand and strengthen bargaining power, leaves it structurally weaker in negotiations with suppliers.

Low storage and a cold winter: the immediate risk

The most urgent concern is not a hypothetical embargo but the interaction of market fundamentals with political tension. EU gas storage sites ended the 2025 injection season at their lowest fill level in years, below even the depleted stocks seen at the start of the Ukraine war. A cold winter would draw down those reserves rapidly. If prices spike simultaneously, driven by weather, by competition for Asian cargoes, or by tariff threats, the continent could face what Szulecki describes as "a really dramatic energy crisis in the coming months".

The European Commission has acknowledged the storage deficit. In a communication last autumn it urged member states to accelerate filling targets for the 2026 season, but the regulatory framework allows flexibility that some governments have used to delay purchases. Industry groups in Germany and Italy have warned that current wholesale prices, while well below the 2022 peaks, are still double the 2010, 2019 average, eroding the competitiveness of energy-intensive sectors such as chemicals, steel and fertilisers.

Brussels searches for alternatives but finds few

Policymakers in Brussels are aware of the bind. The EU is reportedly considering retaliatory trade measures against the United States over the Greenland tariff threat, but internal discussions have highlighted the asymmetry: Europe can tax American bourbon or motorcycles; it cannot easily replace 59% of its LNG imports. Alternative suppliers exist on paper, Qatar, Algeria, Nigeria, Norway, but each faces constraints. Qatar's expansion projects will not deliver significant new volumes before 2027. Algerian pipeline capacity is largely maxed out. Nigerian output has been hampered by theft and underinvestment. Norwegian production is in long-term decline.

The EU's joint purchasing platform, AggregateEU, has conducted tenders for non-Russian gas, but the volumes contracted remain a fraction of total demand. The platform's design, voluntary participation, no obligation to buy, limits its market power. Some diplomats argue that the only credible counterweight to US leverage is a coordinated threat to restrict European market access for American energy companies, but that would require unanimity among 27 member states, several of which prioritise transatlantic relations over energy autonomy.

The long-term answer: faster renewable transition

The study's central recommendation is that Europe must treat the current dependence as a temporary bridge, not a permanent architecture. "In the medium to long term, Europe should accelerate the transition to an efficient and modern energy system based on indigenous renewable sources," the paper concludes. That means faster permitting for wind and solar, massive investment in grids and storage, and a decisive shift of industrial heat processes from gas to electricity or green hydrogen.

Progress is visible but uneven. The EU added a record 56 gigawatts of solar capacity in 2024, and wind installations rebounded after a slow 2023. The REPowerEU plan, launched in 2022, has channelled billions into heat pumps, building renovation and electrolyser capacity. Yet gas still provides roughly 20% of the EU's electricity generation and a much larger share of industrial heat. The European Commission's own impact assessment for the 2040 climate target assumes gas demand will fall by 60% between 2025 and 2040, a trajectory that requires policy consistency across multiple political cycles.

A structural shift, not a cyclical dip

What distinguishes the current moment from previous energy crises is the structural nature of the dependency. The 1973 oil shock was a supply restriction by producers; Europe responded by diversifying sources and improving efficiency. The 2022 gas shock was a supply restriction by a single pipeline supplier; Europe responded by switching to a single maritime supplier. In both cases the vulnerability came from concentration. The difference now is that the concentrated supplier is a military ally whose leadership has explicitly articulated a doctrine of using energy exports as an instrument of statecraft.

The numbers leave no room for ambiguity. A 485% increase in US LNG imports over six years, a collapse of Russian pipeline share from 60% to 8%, and a storage deficit that exceeds the war's starting point, these are not cyclical fluctuations. They are the fingerprints of a strategic reorientation that happened faster than the political safeguards to manage it. The next few months will test whether Europe's gas infrastructure can withstand a winter without Russian pipes and without American goodwill. The answer will shape the continent's energy policy for the next decade.