Security of Gas Supply in the Countries of the Visegrád Group

In spite of efforts on the part of the European Union to promote renewable sources of energy, conventional resources such as oil, natural gas and coal still dominate in individual EU energy mixes. With the rising costs of resources, their uneven distribution and limited supply, each state is busy trying to ensure its energy security. Secure and stable supply of energy resources has becoming the main preoccupation, especially in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Over the recent years, the Visegrád Group states have made particularly intensive efforts to ensure their supply of natural gas. The unstable political situation in the east of Europe as well as changes in natural gas markets (shale gas revolution in the USA, increased importance of LNG) gave rise to new challenges when it comes to ensuring gas security, but also new opportunities to become independent of eastern imports. It is precisely the fact of being dependent on natural gas imported from Russia that determines the situation of Visegrád Group states. The present paper tries to analyse the situation in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary in terms of security of their natural gas supply.