The establishment of the IEM have challenged the longstanding European politics of energy security. Especially in the gas sector, the traditional institutional structure, mainly based on a combination of national politics and bilateral energy diplomacy with the ‘national champion’ being responsible for securing the supply of each country independently, is currently under a process of transformation that could lead to a pattern of more Europeanized energy policy or to a period of uncertainty and vulnerability of MS security of supply.
Taking the Italian gas sector as an example, the paper examines the emerging MS national and foreign politics in the new EU security of gas supply architecture. In particular, the paper aims at analysing the new patterns of energy security by contrasting, in comparative historical perspective, the ‘old’ Italian gas pipeline and infrastructure politics and energy diplomacy with the ‘new’ strategy exemplified by the government support for the Trans-Adriatic-Pipeline Project.
