Energy Security Risk Across the European Union: Converging or Diverging?

In this paper, we present the results of a study examining whether the European Union, where countries act in common on many issues such as monetary policy, abolition of borders and mobilization of labour and capital, also constitutes a union in terms of energy security. From this point of view, whether the energy security risk in the European Union has converged or not is tested by using various analysis methods covering the period 1980-2018 for 17 EU countries. The findings of the study not only reveal whether individual countries converge to the group average but also show whether the group as a whole forms a convergent outlook. The linear unit root analysis indicates that each country is in a stochastic convergence process towards the group average. In addition, time series beta convergence analysis, which takes into account country- -specific structural break periods, is applied and the convergent-divergent situation of each country before and after the break is revealed. Following this determination of individual countries, whether the sample as a whole constitutes a convergent process is tested with sigma and panel beta convergence models and it is determined that the 17 countries subject to the analysis form a convergent outlook as a whole. A robustness check is also made via a nonlinear time series analysis and the previous findings are confirmed.