The war in Ukraine, the EU’s geopolitical awakening and implications for the “contested neighbourhood”

ABSTRACT

This article looks at how the Russian invasion has reshaped the EU's Eastern neighbourhood policy and subsequently how has the new policy affected the strategies of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries. We systematically review policy responses to the war of the EU and the countries of the EU-Russia contested neighbourhood and identify new patterns in foreign policy behavior of these states and key domestic policy changes. We specifically highlight the shift in two key attributes of the EU's foreign policy, which has traditionally defined its neighbourhood policy: its relations with Russia and the inclusiveness of the EaP countries in the European project.

We make two arguments: first, the crisis and new risks in the region has created a demand and opened a geopolitical dimension to the EU neighbourhood policy, which required Brussels to fill a hard security vacuum in its own policies in the neighbourhood, which invoked an application of new instruments to deter Moscow and support EU's Eastern allies. Second, the crisis contributes to even faster erosion of the post-Soviet space and a new regional fragmentation along geopolitical lines. Finally, the question of sustainability of these changes and their effect on the EU as an actor remains open.

KEYWORDS:

• EU foreign policy
• Russian invasion
• EU-Russia relations
• contested neighborhood
• enlargement
• ENP
• Central Asia

Acknowledgements

We thank the editors, the reviewers and Paul D'Anieri for their excellent suggestions and comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Minsk-2 is a 13-point agreement that was signed in February 2015 by representatives of Russia, Ukraine, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the leaders of two pro-Russian separatist regions. It set out military and political steps designed to end the war in Eastern Ukraine. The Normandy Format is a diplomatic platform for high-level political discussions on resolving the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. In 2014, the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) of Russia, Ukraine, and the OSCE was set up as a platform for technical consultations on political, security, economic, and humanitarian issues, which later involved representatives of the separatist regions.

2 Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that a number of EU companies continue to work in the Russian market, and Brussels is either unwilling or unable to address the issue.

3 During a joint monitoring mission to Tbilisi in June 2023, with EU Sanctions Envoy David O’Sullivan and Director General, Economics, Science and Technology at the UK Foreign Office, Kumar Iyer, James O'Brien, the Head of the Office of Sanctions Coordination in the United States, lauded Georgia’s efforts in preventing the circumvention of sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. O’Sullivan, although disappointed with Tbilisi’s decision not to join the EU sanctions, emphasized that the authorities had demonstrated a “serious commitment” to preventing Georgia’s use as a platform for Russia’s sanctions evasion. See https://civil.ge/archives/549926.

4 The crisis erupted in June 2019 due to the presence of Russian MP Sergei Gavrilov in the Georgian parliament, which triggered public unrest. In response, the government promised to amend the electoral system, but failed to do so in 2020, provoking a new wave of public protests. Following the opposition’s refusal to accept the result of the 2020 parliamentary election and the detention of leader of the opposition Nika Melia on 23 February 2021, the EU intervened to mediate the conflict and brokered the “April 19” deal, which included electoral and judicial reforms.

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Notes on contributors

Ryhor Nizhnikau

Ryhor Nizhnikau is a Senior Research Fellow in Russia, the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood and Eurasia programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. He works on Russia’s and the EU’s policies towards Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, and studies the institutional transformations and political developments in these countries. He received his PhD in Political Science from Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu. He was a visiting fellow at the Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies and the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, and a visiting lecturer at the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University and the University of Helsinki.

Arkady Moshes

Arkady Moshes is Programme Director for the Russia, EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood and Eurasia research programme. He is also a member of the Programme on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia) at George Washington University. Moshes’ areas of expertise include Russian foreign policy, European-Russian relations as well as internal and foreign policy of Ukraine and Belarus. He received his Ph.D in history of international relations from the Russian Academy of Sciences (1992). Before moving to Finland in 2002, he had been working in the Institute of Europe in Moscow since 1988. From 2008 to 2015 he was an Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House. From 2017 to 2022 he was a member of EU-Russia Expert Network (EUREN). He has been a visiting scholar at the Danish Institute for International Studies (2002) and the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University (2016), a Public Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2007) and a regular guest lecturer at the NATO Defence College (2005–2010, 2013–2015) and Geneva Center for Security Policy (1998–until present).