Security of Supply and Energy Policy in Western Europe

Abstract

The point of view from which this article is written is that the world-wide trend toward increased use of oil involves Western Europe in greater risks of interruption of supplies than it does the other major world consumers (the United States and the USSR), who produce most of their own oil; and that the implications of permitting the trend to continue to develop at its present rate should be seriously reconsidered. The trend toward increased use of oil in Western Europe has been clear for some years, as it was for the United States a bit earlier and has become for the USSR more recently. What is somewhat alarming at the present time is that the process is speeding up in Western Europe and that resistance to it is weakening.