Baltic states on the way towards energy isolationism: united or divided?

The flip side of the European Union’s policy aimed at accelerating the fourth energy transition has been energy isolationism — namely, the pursuit of quantitative indicators characterising a country’s energy balance without considering their impact on the energy balance of neighbouring countries. This article examines energy isolationism using the example of Lithuania’s 2022 initiative, which called on the three Baltic States to disconnect from the BRELL synchronous power grid — linking them to Russia and Belarus — before 2025. According to a plan developed in 2018, they were originally scheduled to disconnect in 2025. However, Latvia and Estonia did not support Lithuania’s initiative and, after negotiations lasting until mid-2023, agreed to adhere to the original timeline. The article analyses these negotiations as minilateral — multilateral discussions involving a small number of participants — which differ in nature from both bilateral negotiations and large-scale multilateral negotiations with numerous participants. Using game theory, the article presents a model of these negotiations. In practical terms, the ‘three-player, three-option’ model explains why the failure of negotiations followed by Lithuania’s unilateral desynchronisation from BRELL was the least probable scenario from the outset. More broadly, the model demonstrates that no two Baltic States with similar negotiating positions could accept any outcome other than their most preferred one, even if accepting a different outcome would allow the third state — with a divergent negotiating stance — to avoid its least preferred option. The article concludes that the inability of the majority to compromise with the minority prevents minilateral cooperation among the three Baltic States from evolving to a higher level — comparable to the more advanced minilateral cooperation seen among the Nordic countries.