Energy Security or Energy Governance? Legal and Political Aspects of Sustainable Exploration of Shale Gas in Poland

This paper analyses prospects for an institutional structure to govern and ensure environmentally sustainable exploration of unconventional (shale) gas in Poland. Shale gas developments in the United States (US) ignited a widespread policy and law debate in Europe about the prospects of emerging fuel. In Poland, the debate has developed particularly high expectations on both the Government and the Public’s side, ascribed to future exploration and production of unconventional gas from shale formations. To ensure a balance between energy security prerogatives and resource governance responsibilities, Warsaw has sought to organise a top-down approach to shale gas exploration in Poland with an enhanced role-playing of the Government and its respective Ministries, particularly the Ministry of Environment in absence of an Energy Ministry proper. What can be referred to as a state-centric model toward exploration of shale gas, the Polish case study evidences opportunities as well as challenges in replicating the US’s revolutionary gas production developments and it continues to have an impact on embryonic structure of energy governance in Poland. Utilising theories of politicisation and governance, the paper argues that the state-centric approach to the emerging resource may be inadequate to initiate a large-scale energy security change the country longs for. The state-centric approach and lack of a robust legal framework may have been the key challenges to the rise of shale gas momentum which peaked in early 2010s. Exodus of key commercial actors from the Polish market in the last couple of years may harbinger inevitable decline of future shale gas exploration and production as much needed financial and technological stimulus may be lacking