The EU's Power in the Russia–Ukraine Crisis: Enabled or Constrained?

Abstract

The article presents conclusions of this Special Issue. It first summarizes the empirical findings of the individual contributions to this Special Issue in terms of whether EU power was enabled or constrained in response to the crisis. Second, the article synthesizes these findings to advance some overarching arguments about the EU as an actor in this crisis, and the types of power that were evident in this case. Third, it examines the significance of the study overall, and highlights some key policy implications. Finally, the article takes a broader perspective, and suggests that this framework is valuable more generally for understanding how various crises might impact the EU as a foreign policy actor.

Consensus against all odds: explaining the persistence of EU sanctions on Russia

“…Various studies have evaluated the economic and political impacts of the bans on Russia (Christie 2016;Connolly 2016;Gould-Davies 2020;Moret et al 2016), of Russian countersanctions against EU imports (Hedberg 2018), or the cost of EU sanctions for its member states (Dobbs 2017;Moret and Shagina 2017), while others explain the EU's decision to impose sanctions on Moscow (Sjursen and Rosén 2017). For some scholars, the imposition of sanctions on a major power like Russia underscores the normative character of EU foreign policy (Karolewski and Davis-Cross 2017). However, a majority of studies focus on distilling the implications of sanctions imposition on Russia for leadership in EU foreign policy.…”

“…Capitalizing on these divisions, Russia has attempted to split domestic opinion in EU member states in the hope of obstructing the renewal of sanctions and, more generally, EU foreign policy (Karolewski and Davis-Cross 2017;Natorski and Pomorska 2017). Moscow strengthened bilateral ties with selected EU capitals, supported Kremlin-friendly parties, spread disinformation ahead of elections and imposed counter-sanctions in the form of a food embargo which penalized vulnerable EU economies (Karlsen 2019;Orenstein and Kelemen 2017).…”

United we stand in metaphors: EU authority and incomplete politicisation of the crisis in Ukraine

“…Intense debates and diplomatic work allowed them to find common ground (Youngs 2017). Member states' criticism of the decisions that were reached did not lead to the contestation of their implementation (Karolewski and Cross 2017). Even mainstream newspapers in several European Union countries contributed to the legitimation of EU policies of support for the Ukrainian government and the placing of responsibility for the conflict onto Russia (Ojala and Pantti 2017).…”

“…These developments constituted, in parallel to those of the wars in Syria and Libya, the stimuli for the Review of the European Neighbourhood Policy (European Commission/ states polarization about the nature of appropriate response to the crisis, which mobilized a wide range of EU institutional actors in search of unitary response to the unprecedented crisis of the European international order. In spite of divergences within the EU, the EU repeatedly adopted unanimous decisions to support Ukraine as well as gradually introduce sanctions against Russia (Natorski and Pomorska 2017;Giumelli 2017;Cross and Karolewski 2017) even though EU member states preferred different approaches (Nitoiu 2016). The consensus that was reached in response to the crisis was even more striking given its far-reaching changes to the EU's existing approach towards the EU neighbourhood and Russia (Youngs 2017).…”

The different faces of power in European Union–Russia relations

“… 1. A recent exception is the Special Issue of the JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies on European Union (EU) power in the EU–Ukraine crisis (Cross and Karolewski, 2017; Karolewski and Cross, 2017). See also Forsberg (2013). …”