Retrospective analysis of the development of the energy crisis in the European Union

The purpose of the article is to analyze the current economic state of the European Union in the context of the progressive energy crisis. The article characterizes the importance of energy as the most important area of human economic activity for the world economy, identifies the causes and scale of the current energy crisis, examines the directions of countering the energy crisis in the European Union on the example of Germany and France. Within the framework of the conducted research, both general scientific methods (abstraction, analysis, synthesis, analogy, comparison) and methods of comparative legal and content analysis are used. The analysis showed that the crisis phenomena in the energy industry are predetermined by three main groups of causes - natural, geopolitical and economic. The article substantiates the characteristics of the European Union as the center of the modern energy crisis, indicating the conditions for the emergence of a crisis situation in Europe in recent years, which are not related to the special military operation conducted by the Russian Federation in Ukraine. In conclusion, the article substantiates the lack of a strategic nature of the anti-crisis policy of the European Union in the energy sector. The results of the conducted research can be useful for economists involved in the world economy and international economic relations, as well as for undergraduates, undergraduates and postgraduates.