The Specifics of German and French Approaches to the EU Foreign Energy Strategy Realization (2021-2023)

Throughout the last two decades, the external energy strategy of the EU Member States has been greatly influenced by the formulation and establishment of the shared EU external energy agenda. The EU external relations in the context of the trade of energy resources has seen a great shift towards the creation of coherent policy for all the members of the Union. Before the signing of the Paris Agreement and further drafting of the European Green Deal, EU countries had full autonomy over their energy sector, while the subsequent centralization of those divided sectors established norms and goals, rather than firm regulations. Thus, the shared external energy strategy of the EU was born. In December 2021, with the delaying of the certification of the Nord Stream 2 project and Russia's first signs of rearrangement of the energy relations with the EU and subsequent beginning of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine in February, Europe’s energy supply saw a drastic shift, which greatly influenced its shared external energy strategy. That shift presumed an active role of the state within and outside the boundaries of the EU for the stabilization and securing of the necessary energy supplies. The primary purpose of this research is to analyze the external energy strategy of France and Germany within the shared energy strategy of the EU and to show how they managed their external energy relations during the research period. The main goal of this paper is to find out how this management reflects the external energy agenda of the EU and to conclude if there are deviations from the said shared strategy from the side of either France or Germany.