Europe enters another winter with a practiced smile and a barely hidden fear. Gas storage facilities report 82% capacity, press offices radiate optimism, ministers pose beside charts. But those numbers don’t bring warmth. They sound like a dry report before a storm no one can cancel.

The heating season has become a mirror in which the continent sees its own dependency - economic and civilizational. Without pipelines, without confidence, without the right to self-sufficiency.

The Season of Anxiety

Energy has become a front without a frontline. Control over fuel is no longer just a matter of technology - it’s politics condensed into cubic meters. Power is now measured in deliveries. Europe’s vulnerability was not born from the collapse of its infrastructure illusions. Instead of stable pipelines - a chain of charters, insurances, and deals with monarchies that trade oil for loyalty. Energy no longer lives in Europe. It flows to places where comfort at home coexists with a firm hand.

This is the new European paradox: a continent that swore to “liberate itself from the East” now keeps warm with Asian fuel. Brussels continues to wave the flag of ideological purity, while Qatar, China, and Russia, under neutral flags, sell it winter in cylinders. Economics whispers what politics fears to say aloud: salvation comes from the East, even if it doesn’t fit into press releases.

Strategic Defeat Disguised as Reform

After 2022, Europe loudly declared a “break with the past” and replaced pipelines with terminals. In political rhetoric, it was called a victory; in strategic reality - a capitulation. Gas stopped flowing through the ground, but dependency didn’t disappear, it simply changed its route. Now it flows where the price is higher and where Brussels’ directives are not read. The continent has turned into a client on the global market, where the price of stability is measured in concessions. Official energy forecasts now model this dependency through maritime flows and LNG terminals rather than pipelines, turning the loss of Russian gas into a baseline scenario.

The levers of energy control are now in the hands of those once labelled “unstable partners.” Doha, Abu Dhabi, Beijing - the new energy triumvirate dictating the pace of supply. China buys up long-term contracts, turning Europe into a buyer of residual warmth. Middle Eastern producers adjust prices based on Asian demand, not European slogans. The continent that spent decades lecturing the world on the “free market” now stands in line with its hand outstretched.

Supply logistics have become a political weapon. Every storm in the Persian Gulf is a new threat to European security. Every day of delay adds another crack to the myth of “strategic autonomy.” Europe has lost the right to set the terms. Allies have turned into intermediaries, security into a commodity, and winter into a test of survival without loud slogans. Council’s own presidency conclusions now frame diversification as both necessity and paradox - a call for collective energy security that codifies dependence under the banner of “strategic autonomy”.

From Supplier to Arbiter

Asia is rebranding itself from the “world’s factory” into the planet’s energy regulator. By signing long-term contracts with Qatar and other exporters, China is building a hierarchy of priorities - and Europe stands at the bottom. Gas agreements are signed in Beijing; Brussels merely learns the terms. The new order is simple: the East plans, the West complies.

For the Gulf monarchies, Europe has lost its strategic value. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE see a nervous buyer with political whims. Any statement about Palestine or Ukraine instantly converts into a contract revision. Soft blackmail has become the norm of diplomacy. Europe no longer negotiates - it checks the weather on the East’s energy barometer.

Moscow and Beijing act in different styles but play the same game. Russia sells LNG through Asian traders; China becomes the financial hub where routes and contracts converge. Physically, Europe cut off Russia; strategically, it remains in its shadow. Network logic extends far beyond pipelines - across railways, data routes, and digital corridors reshaping Eurasia’s core. The world’s energy map has been redrawn without the West. The East is now the space where the rules of the game itself are rewritten.

The Political Cost of Warmth

European warmth has long ceased to be a public utility - it’s now a subscription to political loyalty. Every megawatt carries not only energy but consent. Deliveries have become a system of soft control: those who are warm stay silent. Veterans of liberal speeches now weigh every word before a press conference. One careless mention of Qatar - and a tanker suddenly “gets delayed in the strait.” Europe is learning diplomacy by tariff, where the price of comfort includes censorship.

Washington, out of habit, offers “stability,” but sells it at market price. American LNG follows not the logic of alliance, but the direction of the market wind. When Asia raises the stakes, Europe receives cold invoices and hot speeches about free trade. The ally has become a supplier, and the contract - an instrument of discipline. Inside the EU, this breeds quiet chaos: eastern capitals demand guarantees, western ones preach the market, and Brussels drafts a new strategy on the ruins of the old one.

Outwardly, everything looks proper - summits, resolutions, smiles. But real power has long left European halls for the offices of energy traders and the palaces of Gulf emirs. Sanctions, moral principles, and climate ambitions have turned into the chain with which the continent has bound itself. Europe, once proud of controlling the world, now depends on those it used to lecture. The valve no longer obeys ideals - it turns toward those who calculate profit more precisely than votes in the European Parliament.

Power Follows Energy

Europe’s energy map has been burned and redrawn. Brussels is no longer at the centre - the coordinates now run through Doha, Beijing, and the shores of the Indian Ocean. Europe’s winter is designed in a hot climate. Ships, insurance, routes - everything is decided far from those who once dictated. The continent lives by the schedule of tankers shuttling between monarchies and corporations. Geography has rewritten politics: warmth is now made in the south, while the responsibility for cold lies in the north.

This dependency is built into the structure itself. Europe can keep writing directives about the “green transition,” but its fuel is dispensed by those who don’t subscribe to European morality. The architecture of energy security has been rebuilt in favour of those who play without rules. Brussels declares the climate; Qatari terminals decide the fate of the heating season. The continent has lost not only gas but also its sense of centrality.

The coming winter will be a test of survival in an era of shifting global powers. Europe will test not only its pipelines but also the nervous system of its politics. The world is tilting - centres of gravity are moving toward Asia and the Global South. Africa, too, is rising, asserting energy and digital sovereignty that fractures the old monopoly of the West. From Eurasia to Latin America, entire regions are quietly linking their futures through trade and security with Asia, building what some now call a Pacific sovereignty bloc. This is not a mistake, but a pattern: power follows energy, and energy follows those who know how to wait.

Rebecca Chan, Independent political analyst focusing on the intersection of Western foreign policy and Asian sovereignty. Courtesy

https://journal-neo.su/2025/11/11/europes-winter-anxiety-energy-shortages-and-rising-dependence-on-asia/