From times immemorial the prosperity of every political, ideological or economic union has de- pended more or less on resource availability. No matter what age or country we observe, the human resources along with the natural ones are the factors that have always determined the dominant authorities worldwide. That is why, if we want to objectively foresee an economy’s future, we have to look closely at the way it obtains and handles its resources. However, in the dawn of the 21st century, the European Union, with its Single Mar- ket of over half a billion consumers, continues to demand and hence to import more and more human capital and natural resources from rival economies. This paper aims to explain the essence of the resource dependency problem and to give reasons for the EU’s inability to be a more self- sufficing and independent economic unit. Also an explanation of the importance of the problem is given, as well as its expected negative consequences in the near future.

Nowadays out of all the most influential players on the world market, the European Union with few exceptions suffers the greatest shortage of basic and crucial to the economy resources, as for instance crude oil, natural gas, coal and enriched Uranium. In order to meet their enormous industrial and domestic demands and to continue developing, most of the members of the EU import a great deal of their needed goods from economies, which are in the first place their competitors. As a result of this, the normal economic growth of the EU depends largely on external factors, controlled by countries and unions, which will not always have the same interest in the well-being of united Europe. In addition to this, Eurostat estimations anticipate that the population growth in the EU will be mainly de- pendent on migration up to 2025, which means that even the workforce and the manpower are now presenting an uncertainty and instability. It is an indisputable fact that more austere measures should be rapidly taken in order for the European Union to secure and strengthen its position as the world‘s dominant and prevailing economic leader without being to such a great extent in the hands of external powers.

To begin with, in order to analyze such a large- scale problem, one should basically try to under- stand and at least enumerate the main reasons for the EU’s resource dependency and the possible outcome. Firstly, we should take into consideration that the territories of the EU are in principle relatively poor in petroleum, natural gas and even in coal especially when we compare the available amounts of the resources with the necessary ones, which the continent’s developed industry and infrastructure need in order to function properly. It is the distribution of the natural resources across the continent and the world, which actually deter- mines at most the constant scarcity and therefore the dependence of the EU on territories, which are able to provide and exchange these resources. In addition, the North Sea oil and gas fields have al- ready been exploited beyond their peak, leaving Europe even more dependent on non-EU countries for future supply. Consequently, according to Eurostat, in 2010 – 55% of the energy in the EU was imported, whereas 80%, 56% and 77% of the EU-27’s imports of respectively natural gas, crude oil and hard coal came from countries beyond the EU. Such a great dependency is obviously a major security weakness and in respect of that, monopolists such as Gazprom are rightly considered by experts dangerous for the independency of Europe – as the lack of alternative energy sources often leads to speculation and crises like the interrupted gas flows in January 2009 or the war in Libya in 2011.

Moreover, as reported by the European Commission on security of energy supply (November 2000) – if no action is taken, it is predicted, that the EU‘s energy dependency will climb from 50% in 2000 to 70% in 2030. By 2030, about 90% of EU oil needs and 66% of its coal consumption will have to be covered by imports, whereas over 60% of EU gas imports are expected to come from Russia with overall external dependency expected to reach 80%.

Naturally, measures have been taken and even though EU really made hard attempts in the last decades to reduce its dependency on outside factors, in 2010 only 18% of its energy came from renewable sources, whilst a significant part of the rest is still produced with the help of imported re- sources. To counter that, The European Commission adopted its second strategic energy review in November 2008. This addressed how the EU could reduce its dependency on imported energy, thereby improving its security of supply, as well as reducing its emissions of greenhouse gases. The review encouraged energy solidarity among Member States, proposed an action plan to secure sustainable energy supplies, and adopted a package of energy-efficiency proposals aimed at making energy savings in key areas, such as buildings and energy-using products.

What is more, although in the last 10 years there was a gradual decline in the share of crude oil and petroleum products, solid fuels, and nuclear energy in total gross inland consumption, the energy dependency especially on natural gas actually in- creased gradually, instead of declining as foreplanned. Simply put, that means that if the same tendencies continue, a future European Union in 2030 or 2050 could turn out to be a higly-developed puppet in the hands of more primitive societies, which only possess huge amounts of important re- sources. Of course, such an irrational distribution of wealth could lead only to confrontations, as, for example, the current situation of the technologically advanced, but resource-lacking EU slightly resembles the pre-World War II embargoed Japan just before the attack of Pearl Harbour.

Furthermore, as many of the EU citizens are part of a strong consumer society and maintain a very high average standard of living, there are many problems related to overconsumption and hence inefficient distribution of wealth. A good example of this, is the Eurostat statistic related to the EU consumership, which shows clearly that throughout the period 2001-2011 there was a substantial increase in the total consumption expenditure of households (11,400 Euro per capita in 2001 vs 20 000 Euro in 2011), of which only a little over a fifth (21.9 %) was devoted to housing, water, electricity, gas and other housing fuels. Additionally, the amounts of municipal waste in EU-27 constitutes 260 million tonnes (nearly 500 kg per capita) in 2009, which was high above the average world- wide. That is another reason for the wide discrepancy between EU’s always increasing demands and the impossibility to meet its own needs. As a consequence, again measures were taken and campaigns were launched and strategies were formulated by the EU institutions in order to reduce the thrown-away waste and the senseless consumerism. However, although such actions may have had a slight effect, in general more tangible response is needed for a drastic change to occur. If nothing decisive is done for the overconsumption to be cut back, it is very likely that in the distant future most of the EU’s intellectual capacity and efforts will be directed to overcoming the local pro- blems with waste and overproduction instead of creating and distributing more wealth or achieving new scientific or economic successes. Besides better efficiency in regards to consumption has proved to be a good solution for territories, lacking significant natural deposits.

Apart from that, the insufficient human resource respectively working hand will also be a huge problem for the EU. A serious demographic decline is facing Europe and namely the EU in the last 60
years. Many members of the union are expected to experience a considerable decrease in population over the coming decade, as birth rates are low with the average woman having 1.6 children. Also the high death rate (an average of 10.33 for every 1000 citizens) and the effect of the two world wars on the latest European generations continue to be a problem for many of the developed countries like Germany or Austria. The gradual increase in life expectancy is also one of the contributing factors to the ageing of the EU-27’s population – alongside relatively low levels of fertility that have persisted for decades. These factors on their own, account for the desperate need of the EU for cheap man- power and fresh healthy population. For example the Turkish “invasion” of Germany and the timidly answered migration of the former European colo nies to the continent are a proof for the EU’s economy thirst for young and strong workers. In 2005 in Germany, France, Great Britain and Spain alone there were respectively 10.1, 6.5, 5.4 and 4.8 mil- lions of mostly young aged immigrants searching for work. Nonetheless, the chaotic and unnatural settlement of millions of low-educated and extremely poor people has led and will continue to lead to confrontations with the indigenuous higly-developed European population, even higher criminal rates and more issues with hunger and health care.

All things considered, the EU should probably try harder when it comes to resource dependency and management. In order for the EU members to be sure of a brighter and more prosperous future, the available should be consumed more cautiously and effectively, while the imports should constitute only a small percentage of what we need to meet our needs. That is why better policies should be adopted towards consumerism and demographic issues. Of course capitalism is mainly about ex- changing wealth, so it is impossible and naïve not to depend on outside factors and powers, but in order for the EU to be a dominant and powerful economic unit in the future, it should first lessen its dependency maximally and try to set the new trends instead of just following them. In that way I hope a better future will await Europe in 30 or 50 year from now.