CYIL vol. 10 (2019)

BIRUTĖ PRANEVIČIENĖ – VIOLETA VASILIAUSKIENĖ CYIL 10 ȍ2019Ȏ is China.” 100 But the large fossil fuel producers, such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Saudi Arabia are missing. The IEC covers some of the most relevant energy challenges of our century, including “the growing weight of developing countries for global energy security, the “trilemma” between energy security, economic development and environmental protection, the need for diversification of energy sources and routes, the role of regional integration of energy markets” 101 It can also be stated that it “promotes mutually beneficial energy cooperation among nations for the sake of energy security and sustainability. The International Energy Charter thus fits well into the global policy agenda reflected”. 102 Conclusions The theories of state security have been moving from the traditional concept of state security as that of safety from military threats to broader concept of security encompassing military, political, economic, social and environmental sectors. If there is a security risk in these sectors, then a state, society, and its members are affected to some extent. It can be noted that the content of the notion of national security depends to the large extent on the state’s ability to retain its independence, identity and functional integrity. Hybrid threats to states increase in number but are not easy to define. Usually such tactics is employed by states willing to coerce the opponent into acting a specific way. It is sometimes described as multi-domain coercion and may include cyber-attacks, economic blackmail, information warfare and exploitation of ethnic divisions, among other actions. They are usually defined as having interstate, asymmetric nature, are multi- and cross-dimensional and usually take form of probing, shaping, blurring and blending actions. One of the essential sectors that can be targeted by the hybrid actors and can create a strong effect to the society of a particular state is the energy sector the action on which may cause strong consequences. In European Union, it is stressed that the dependency on a single or major energy provider is a source of energy vulnerability. Further factors that are important to energy security are geological, geopolitical, and economic threats, aging infrastructure, terrorist attacks, natural events or intermittency of solar and wind energy, and so on. The ones that are dependent on the will of the opposing state and used by that state to achieve their political aims may be called hybrid threats to energy security. One of the essential cooperation means in energy field in international arena is the so- called Energy Charter process. It is based on both political (1991 European Energy Charter and 2015 International Energy Charter) and legally binding documents (1994 Energy Charter Treaty). Even though far from all the world states are members of this process, it still has exceeded the boundaries of one or two continents and is developing into a worldwide process towards energy security, efficiency and reducing of vulnerabilities in this sector. The important provisions of the abovementioned documents regarding energy security are those pertaining to liberalisation of investments, and thus diversification of energy supply sources, transit rules and other provisions ensuring the safe delivery of energy to every state. 100 Ibid. 101 The International Energy Charter. https://energycharter.org/process/international-energy-charter-2015/overview/ [accessed 31 May 2019]. 102 Ibid.

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