United in Diversity? A Study on the Implementation of Sanctions in the European Union

Abstract

The implementation of European Union (EU) policies has been investigated for several policy areas, but Decisions made under the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) have rarely been considered. While many CFSP measures are applicable throughout the EU without the need for further action on the domestic level, some Decisions must be implemented by Council Regulations. These Council Regulations adopted with the intent to implement CFSP Decisions have qualities of Directives, which delegate implementing tasks to member states and require transposition. The aim of this article is to investigate whether restrictive measures imposed by the EU are uniformly implemented across the member states, and, if not, to what extent implementation performance varies. We observe significant differences in implementation performance across member states. The findings of this article are twofold. First, we claim that implementation and compliance studies should involve CFSP decisions more systematically. Second, empirical confirmation is provided of how uneven transposition and application occurs also in CFSP matters. This study is based on empirical work that consisted of desk research and semi-structured interviews with national competent authorities of 21 EU member states taking place between March 2020 and January 2021.

Instrumental goals shape EU citizens' attitudes to the Russia–Ukraine war over time

“…Second, to our knowledge, there is no previous research on how instrumental goals influence people's war‐related responses over time. In this study, combining and extending the literature on social psychology (Scheepers, 2008; Sherif & Sherif, 1969; Teixeira et al, 2011) and international relations (Giumelli et al, 2022), we showed that instrumental goals of an observer (i.e., Greeks in this contribution) prevent people from supporting war victims (e.g., Ukraine) and prompt them to take the side of an offender (e.g., Russia) as long as maintaining positive relationships with the offender is profitable to them. These findings are in line with the international relations literature which reveals an uneven application of EU policies and directives among EU member states and the resistance of certain member states to (Giumelli et al, 2022).…”

“…Scholars claim that EU member states vary in the way in which they implement EU legislation (Thomann & Sager, 2017; Versluis et al, 2011; see also Steunenberg & Toshkov, 2009) with some countries being willing, some unwilling and some just being unable to implement EU laws and policies (Börzel et al, 2010; Di Lucia & Kronsell, 2010; Treib, 2014). Differently put, despite the pressure on unanimously implementing official EU decisions such as adopting restrictive measures (i.e., sanctions) against countries that threaten EU values, some EU countries are either less willing or less capable to comply with EU regulations and prefer to act in line with their national goals (Giumelli et al, 2022). This happens because decisions made by the EU are often costly to citizens (Schwebach, 2000).…”

“…Many citizens see the restrictive measures against Russia as ineffective (Jenkins, 2022) because their consequences, along with the countermeasures taken from Russia (Russian News Agency, 2022), have hit the European economy hard (European Investment Bank, 2022). Indeed, restrictive measures are not only costly to the targets (Biersteker et al, 2016; Giumelli, 2013; Giumelli et al, 2022; Gordon, 2011) but also to the senders/punishers (Schwebach, 2000), and in the case of the EU sanctions against Russia, to the EU members states and individual citizens (European Investment Bank, 2022). Stopping the purchase of Russian oil and imposing individual travel bans and asset freezes following the annexation of Crimea in 2014 (Council of the European Union, 2022c) and the invasion in Ukraine in February 2022 (European Commission, 2022a) has increased uncertainty and brought about major disruptions to world trade (Noack & Brady, 2022), all heavily experienced by EU citizens (Government of The Netherlands, 2022; see also Gravity Model for the estimates of sanctions' consequences to the sanctioning countries; Hufbauer et al, 1990).…”

“…For instance, Teixeira et al (2011) found that when instrumental concerns of a group are at stake, people are more willing to put identity concerns aside and come closer with the adversary group and explore mutually beneficial solutions (see also Hamlin & Jennings, 2007). Therefore, although honouring the superordinate EU identity might be important to the EU members states (Crisp & Hewstone, 2007; Dovidio et al, 2007; Schmid et al, 2009; for relevant research in international relations, see also Giumelli et al, 2022), when the EU membership is considered to be “costly” to a state member's national interests and when collaborating with another outgroup (i.e., Russia in this case) is seen as more profitable, people may respond with violations of the EU regulations and with decreased identification with the EU identity over time.…”