The EU faces three paths out of the Strait of Hormuz crisis. None is painless. The wisest course is to pursue all three simultaneously, but in the right order of priority.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has exposed a structural vulnerability that European policymakers long preferred to ignore. Roughly 20m barrels of oil per day once passed through that narrow chokepoint. In mid-September, still only 16 vessels crossed it daily (it has picked up since), against 138 before the war. The economic consequences for Europe are severe. The political consequences may prove worse.
Three serious proposals have emerged by analysts from Chatham House, a British think-tank. Each addresses a different time horizon, and each carries distinct risks. Together, they define the menu from which Brussels must now order.
The case for adaptation
The most instructive precedent comes from an unlikely source. China is the oil importer most exposed to the Hormuz crisis, importing 70 per cent of its oil with roughly half from the Gulf. Yet it has also been the least disrupted. The reason is structural, not a sting of good luck.
Beijing entered the crisis with an estimated 1.4 billion barrels in storage. It amounted to around 360 million in government reserves and the rest in commercial tanks. This totals at least three months of imports.
Depending on China’s low-carbon technologies and critical inputs may impact countries’ ability to implement the green transition more broadly. — Sam Geall, Chatham House
When Gulf supplies collapsed, China drew on those stocks while quietly diversifying. Roughly one-third of the barrels it lost from the Gulf were replaced from elsewhere, such as Brazil. The rest went unreplaced; China simply burned less oil, because its electrified economy allowed it to.
“An electrified economy can use less oil without using less transport,” writes Chatham’s Sam Geall. Electric vehicles accounted for more than 60 per cent of domestic monthly vehicle sales in China in the first half of 2026. The resilience was not accidental. Back in 2003, CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao coined the term ‘Malacca Dilemma’, referring to the energy chokepoint in the Strait of Malacca. Energy security has underpinned Beijing’s low-carbon industrial strategy ever since.
Europe’s adaptation problem
Europe has neither China’s stockpiles nor its electrification depth. The International Energy Agency’s 32 members (spanning the oil importers of the rich world) carried out their largest-ever emergency stock release in response to Hormuz, releasing more than 400m barrels in total, including 172 million from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That is a one-time buffer, not a strategy.
Worse, the adaptation path carries its own trap. “We still have too many dangerous dependencies,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in her State of the Union address. “We are more than 80 per cent dependent on China for many critical raw materials, 90 per cent for some rare earths. We need to urgently procure and build up our reserves.”
The warning is pointed. In 2024, China produced more than 90 per cent of the polysilicon, wafers and cells, and 86 per cent of the modules needed for solar energy globally. Accelerating electrification without diversifying supply chains risks replacing the bloc’s dependency on Gulf oil with another, a dependency on Chinese clean technology.
As Mr Geall notes, this risk differs from fossil-fuel dependence: “Disruptions to oil and gas have an immediate impact that can be felt in higher prices. No navy can blockade the sun or wind. But depending on China’s low-carbon technologies and critical inputs may impact countries’ ability to implement the green transition more broadly, rather than hitting short-term supply.”
The case for bypassing Hormuz
Adaptation is therefore necessary but insufficient. It is the long game, and Europe needs a short game too. The short-to-medium game on offer is infrastructure; that is, building physical alternatives to the Strait. Iraq, Syria and Lebanon are already moving in this direction, and the opportunity is real.
Baghdad is pursuing a new pipeline that would carry Iraqi crude oil westwards to the Mediterranean, reviving and expanding the historic Kirkuk–Baniyas corridor. The new network, which has a proposed initial capacity of around two million barrels per day, would allow Iraq to divert a substantial share of its exports away from Hormuz. Estimates put the cost at around $15bn, with construction likely to take around four years.
We are more than 80 per cent dependent on China for many critical raw materials. (…) We need to urgently procure and build up our reserves. — Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president
The EU’s Global Gateway initiative provides a ready-made vehicle for co-financing such corridors — and for attaching governance conditions that purely commercial lenders cannot. For Brussels, supporting the Iraq–Türkiye Ceyhan expansion is the lower-risk entry point. The route is partially operational, the political environment in Türkiye is complex but manageable, and it avoids the most volatile sections of the Levant.
The risks, however, are considerable. Renad Mansour (of Chatham House, too) is direct: “Whether Iraq, Syria and Lebanon can take advantage of this opportunity will help determine whether they can shape the post-war regional order, or whether it is once again shaped around them.”
Iraq, Lebanon and Syria all sit near the bottom of Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index. Over 100 attacks on energy assets occurred in the first six months of the war alone. The Khor Mor gas field in Iraq has suffered repeated rocket and drone attacks blamed on militias.
Infrastructure without institutions
There is a deeper problem. “Connectivity is not the same as sovereignty,” Mr Mansour writes. “New pipelines, railways and trade corridors can offer these states alternatives to the dependencies of the old order, but alone they cannot produce sovereignty. That requires institutions capable of delivering and protecting these projects.”
This is the bypass strategy’s central weakness. A $15bn pipeline through eastern Syria, where ISIS has attacked oil wells and tanker trucks, requires a level of state capacity that none of the three transit countries currently possesses. The EU can finance steel; it cannot, in four years, build functioning states.
The bypass route is worth pursuing selectively, particularly where existing infrastructure reduces construction risk. But it cannot be Europe’s primary answer to a crisis that is happening now.
The case for negotiating the strait open
The fastest path to normalcy—if it can be achieved—is a negotiated reopening of the Strait itself. Nitya Labh of (you guessed it) the Chatham House International Security Programme lays out what that would require. It is a daunting list, if there ever was one.
The June Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Iran was a first attempt. It failed. “The June MOU demonstrated that the basic elements of a US–Iran agreement are conceivable,” Ms Labh writes. “Its collapse illustrated that political commitments without robust implementation mechanisms and authorities are unlikely to hold.”
New pipelines, railways and trade corridors can offer these states alternatives to the dependencies of the old order, but alone they cannot produce sovereignty. — Renad Mansour, Chatham House
The lesson is technical, not merely political. “A successful agreement on Hormuz requires above all a technically precise, reciprocal, and verifiable process that focuses on restoring freedom of navigation,” Ms Labh argues. “It is unlikely to be effectively addressed through another vague Memorandum of Understanding, or as part of a wider grand bargain.”
What that means in practice: agreed traffic lanes with specified coordinates, vessel eligibility rules, mine-clearance protocols, a joint incident-reporting mechanism, and a monitoring body with a narrow operational mandate. Oman has already begun this work. In August, Iran and Oman moved toward an arrangement for jointly managing maritime traffic. It is a step towards establishing a temporary navigational corridor, a joint mine-clearance project, and information-sharing arrangements. The meeting to finalise it was postponed in September following US pressure.
Europe’s diplomatic role
This is where the EU has an underused asset. The UK and France have already organised a multinational coalition to help restore shipping through the Strait. The EU, through Operation ASPIDES (currently focused on the Red Sea), has the institutional machinery to contribute naval monitoring and escort capacity. Extending its mandate into the Gulf of Oman would require a Council decision under the Treaty on European Union; but the political groundwork is already being laid.
More valuably, the EU can supply what Ms Labh identifies as essential: “neutral technical experts” to monitor agreed routes, document incidents, and report violations. This is precisely the kind of role that neither Washington nor Tehran can credibly fill for the other — and that Brussels, with its record in technical standard-setting and multilateral process management, is well placed to play.
The diplomatic track is the cheapest of the three strategies and potentially the fastest. It is also the most fragile. US President Donald Trump has already rejected Iran’s proposal at the UN General Assembly. Approaching elections in the US and Israel may interfere further. Some issues, such as Iran’s charging of tolls on transiting vessels, could remain a significant political obstacle for months.
Up to Brussels
The honest conclusion is that no single strategy is sufficient. Adaptation addresses the long run but not the present. Bypass infrastructure addresses the medium term but not the immediate crisis, and only where governance conditions allow. Diplomatic reopening addresses the immediate crisis but depends on variables outside European control.
The EU’s sequencing should reflect this. First: support the Oman-led technical process now, contribute neutral monitoring capacity, and push for ASPIDES mandate expansion. Second: use Global Gateway financing selectively for the Iraq–Türkiye corridor, with strict anti-corruption conditionality.
Third: accelerate domestic electrification and stockpile expansion. At the same time, enact supply-chain screening to prevent Chinese clean-tech dependency from replacing Gulf oil dependency.
Predicament and opportunity
The legislative tools exist in outline. Council Directive 2009/119/EC governs compulsory oil stocks; Regulation (EU) 2022/1032 governs gas storage. Both need strengthening. New instruments—a joint emergency purchasing mechanism, a clean-tech supply screening regulation, an extended maritime security mandate—will require political will that the crisis may finally provide.
“Both the US and China have shown they will use supply as a weapon,” Mr Geall concludes. “A Europe that cannot answer in kind will have its energy choices made for it.” That is the sharpest summary: Europe’s predicament is also its opportunity. The Hormuz crisis did not create Europe’s vulnerabilities. It merely made them impossible to ignore.
