What does Europe’s neighbourhood hold for the EEU?

At the outbreak of the crisis in Ukraine everyone, especially those at the eastern end of the EU thought that a repetition of the 2009 scenario was on the cards. Then, countries who were almost entirely dependent on Russian gas supplies suffered losses, both in the private sector and in households. Yet it didn’t turn out that way. Something had changed between 2009 and 2014 that prevented Russia from acting as it had in the early crisis. There are three factors that helped those countries who were fearful of Russian gas supplies being switched off.