ENERGY INTENSITY OF THE DANUBE REGION COUNTRIES – DECOUPLING ANALYSIS OF ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH.

The territory of the Danube Region represents one fifth of the European Union´s total area and is home to more than 100 million inhabitants. The Danube Region is characterized by a divergent group of 11 countries (9 of them are EU member states, 5 are non-EU countries) concerning the process of integration and the preconditions in geographic, economic, cultural and socio-demographic terms. In order to increase growth and strengthen cooperation at a macro-regional level, the European Union established the Danube Region Strategy with eleven priority areas, among them one focusing on energy. The aim of the paper is to perform quantitative evaluation on the relationship between economic development and energy consumption based on decoupling model theory. The paper focuses on the case of the Danube region countries in the period of 1994 – 2014. Throughout 20 year period examined, the countries spread out into different forms of decoupling. The results of analysis suggest that in most observed partial variables occurs the absolute or relative decoupling of economic growth and energy consumption, what can be considered as positive trend. Though decoupling index convey a positive message, the Danube region countries will need to accelerate their implementation of new policies, while restructuring the ways how they meet their demand for energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]