Ever since the 2009 natural gas crisis, energy security has been a crucial priority for countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Escalating in 2014, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia further fuelled negative expectations about the future development of energy relations for the region predominantly supplied by Russia. As a response to the planned cessation of gas transit through the Brotherhood pipeline, which brings Russian gas to Europe via Ukraine and Slovakia, the Slovak transmission system operator Eustream proposed the Eastring pipeline. This Perspective analyses this proposal and argues that neither the perceived decrease in Slovak energy security nor the loss of economic rent from the international gas transit should be the main policy driver behind such a major infrastructure project. Although marketed as an answer to current Central and Eastern European gas supply security challenges, the Eastring pipeline is actually mainly focused on issues connected to the Slovak gas transit.

自2009年天然气危机以来，能源安全一直是中欧和东欧国家的至关重要的优先事项。乌克兰和俄罗斯之间的冲突在2014年升级，进一步加剧了人们对该地区主要由俄罗斯供应的能源关系未来发展的负面期望。为了响应计划中的停止通过Brotherhood管道进行天然气运输的计划，该管道将俄罗斯天然气通过乌克兰和斯洛伐克带到欧洲，斯洛伐克的传输系统运营商Eustream提出了Eastring管道。该观点分析了这项提议，并认为，斯洛伐克能源安全的感知下降或国际天然气运输带来的经济租金损失都不应该是此类重大基础设施项目背后的主要政策驱动力。