The risk of European fragmentation amid CSEE energy uncertainty Andrés Cala, Geopolitical Energy Analyst, Montel

In this session, Montel's Geopolitical Energy Analyst Andrés Cala delivers a frank assessment of the fault lines fracturing European energy solidarity, and why the CSEE region is at the centre of it.

Andrés maps the uncomfortable reality facing Hungary and Slovakia: with 80–95% Russian dependency on oil and gas, these are not countries that can simply pivot overnight. Against a backdrop of blocked EU loans to Ukraine, stalled sanctions packages, threatened gas flow cuts, and looming elections, he argues the EU's slow-moving decision-making machine is dangerously ill-suited to the pace of events.

Key topics covered include:

• Why Hungary and Slovakia's energy dependencies make them structural vulnerabilities inside the EU

• The limits of LNG as a realistic replacement for pipeline gas in landlocked, cost-sensitive economies

• Turkey's role as a potential southern back door — and the constraints on that route

• Greece–Bulgaria interconnection capacity and what's actually being used

• Why the vertical gas corridor debate is less about infrastructure and more about who pays

• The transparency and liquidity gap in CSEE gas markets

• Whether EU market design reforms are sufficient — and Andrés' blunt answer: no

He closes with a wider challenge to Western European leaders: peripheral countries, whether in the east or the south, will not remain committed to a project they feel is being played unfairly. Fragmentation is not a distant risk. It is already underway.

A sharp, unfiltered perspective for anyone tracking European energy policy, gas market dynamics, or geopolitical risk.