In the 21st century, it has become even clearer that political considerations come sooner than economy when global goals and concepts are at stake. Unfortunately, it will be an exaggeration to say that the contemporary globalized world is ruled by markets only. More and more often economy follows political decisions and that brings turmoil into the well-being of even the most developed members of the international community. Number one area of such unbalanced approach is energy, in particular oil and gas.
There is a number of economic factors that determine the political weight of a particular country. It is definite that a volume of GDP and amount of foreign investments, GDP per capita, export/ import ratio and technological strength are among them. But in case of Eurasia, as a whole, and the Black Sea region in particular, this list is not complete without energy infrastructure considerations. For example, in terms of GDP or level of technology, Russia cannot compete with the vast majority of the EU member states and yet it is an important supplier of natural gas to Europe and oil to the world market.
