Energy Security: The European Union’s Achilles Heel? : A Case Study on How Energy Security Has Impacted the European Union’s Position in the Joint comprehensive plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2022.

Sammanfattning: This essay examines how energy security has influenced the EuropeanUnion's stand in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2022. The study aims to provide a better knowledge of the current political atmosphere and the challenges to the European Union's energy needs in comparison to the other parties involved in the JCPOA (the United States, China, Russia, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom). This paper employed a single case study method to assess the European Union's position in the JCPOA using theories of energy security and balance of power. The findings revealed that sanctions imposed on Iran's oil and gas fields had a significant impact on its economy, and Iran used a variety of threats to the global energy market to balance the exporter-importer equation. One of the targets is the European Union, which is one of the world's top energy importers. Iran has increased the price of energy by disrupting the Strait of Hormuz and assaulting Saudi Arabia's oil facilities by supporting the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Furthermore, Russia has dreamed of a new rise following the collapse of the Soviet Union by controlling the European Union's energy market through its influence in Iran and attacking its neighbors such as Georgia and Ukraine, which are considered transit countries. One might conclude that among the parties involved in the JCPOA, China is benefiting from Iranian cheap oil, which Iran cannot sell in the global energy market, and Russia has a participant on the Iranian side known as the shadow government, the Revolutionary Guards Corps which seems -based on Leakedaudio of Zarif, former Iranian Foreign affairs minister- it acts according to the Russian interests rather the Iranian interests. Furthermore, Russia has been creating a new international order by soft balancing and constructing a hegemon on the European Union's energy market. Russia is doing this hegemon through oil and gas contracts with Central Asian countries that are landlocked and cannot easily bypass supplying energy sources to the European Union, as well as invading its former Soviet countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, which are considered transit countries. Energy producers among the West Bloc countries included in the JCPOA are theUnited States and the United Kingdom. France and Germany are two of the EU's founding nations that rely heavily on energy imports. It is crucial that the EU honours the JCPOA in order to ensure its energy security.