Constructing an ‘emotional community’ in times of crisis: the EU’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022

ABSTRACT

How does the EU use emotions in its response to international crises arising from norm violations? In order to answer this question, the article focuses on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and theoretically, it draws on the sociology of emotions literature. The article argues that EU institutional actors use emotions to construct an ‘emotional community’ through their discourses during major crises. More specifically, the article shows that emotions matter in the EU’s crisis response in three ways: First, emotions serve to construct and endure a community of values. Second, emotions frame policy options for determining the EU’s reaction to the crisis. Third, emotions construct emotional boundaries between European emotional community (norm followers/the EU) and norm violators at the international level. By applying ‘emotional community’ concept to a new territory, i.e. the EU, the article aims to broaden our understanding of the EU’s international identity construction in times of crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• EU foreign policy
• Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
• emotions in foreign policy
• norm violation
• emotional community
• qualitative content analysis

Introduction

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on the 24^th of February 2022. In Brussels, a few hours later, Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union compared the invasion to the Second World War (Borrell 2022). Later that day, an extraordinary European Council was held to discuss Russia’s act of aggression, which was ended by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel’s remarks calling for courage, unity and decisiveness to retaliate Russia’s war of aggression (Michel 2022). A couple of days later, similar and several other emotions were in the air during the European Parliament’s first plenary session held after the invasion, where Ukrainian President Zelenskiy addressed the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) via a video link (Boffey 2022). During his passionate speech, Zelenskiy explained the tragedy Ukrainian men, women, and children were facing in their fight for survival, their homeland, freedom, and for Europe. During the same plenary, the President of the Parliament, Roberta Metsola praised ‘brave [Ukrainian] women forced to give birth in metro stations next to their Kalashnikovs’ and heroes fighting in Ukraine for European values (European Parliament 2022). These examples from the first week after the invasion illustrate the prevalence of emotions in EU institutional actors’ discourses.

Indeed, previous studies have already shown that emotions matter in analysing European Union (EU) politics and policies (for an overview see Gürkan and Terzi 2024). Some studies highlighted the role of emotions in legitimizing EU discourse (Gürkan 2021), framing its policy options (Sanchez Salgado 2021a) or even driving its action (Beauregard 2022). One interesting subfield addressed the linkage between the EU’s norms and emotions (Terzi, Palm and Gürkan 2021). In particular, scholars claimed that emotion norms, i.e. the rules regulating the appropriateness of emotions in a given situation, serve to construct emotional experience and collective identity of the EU (Koschut 2024). However, despite the recognition that emotion norms are key in sustaining a community, and regulating power relations in international relations (Koschut 2020a), in particular in times of crisis (Koschut 2020b; Sanchez Salgado 2021b), we still miss a systematic analysis of how EU institutional actors use emotions in constructing the EU’s identity. This gap is especially surprising given that EU institutions’ use of emotions might create the EU’s emotional reality and affect European publics’ way of feeling through ‘contagion’ (Mercer 2014, 527). Also, when EU representatives express a set of emotions, this constructs what the EU stands for in international relations as well as the emotional context in which European leaders take decisions (Pace and Bilgic 2018, 508).

To fill this gap, the article explores how emotions are employed in the EU’s response to international crises arising from norm violations. The main purpose is to uncover whether the EU shares emotional patterns when its norms are violated internationally, and if yes, what are these patterns, and do they warrant an EU-level coordinated response? The article’s main research question breaks down into the following questions: First, what is the nexus between international norm violation and emotions triggered in the EU? In other words, what type of international norm violations yield which emotions in EU foreign policy? Second, what is the nexus between emotions and action in EU foreign policy in the cases of internationally transgressed norms? Put differently, what type of reaction/action/non-action do we observe in EU foreign policy when the EU expresses certain categories of emotions?

The article approaches these questions from the sociology of emotions in the case of the EU’s response to the invasion. Drawing on recent arguments about the EU being an emotional community (Koschut 2014; Terzi, Palm and Gürkan 2021), I argue that EU institutional actors (re-)constructs the Union as an ‘emotional community’ through their discourses, when the Union’s norms are violated in the international realm. Emotional communities are defined as groups in which members use similar emotional expressions and display similar emotions in the face of the same social situations (Rosenwein 2006). These communities are sustained by a system of feeling whereby the members share the same understanding of what is valuable or detrimental to them; feel the same; and community members’ emotional expressions follow a similar pattern. I further argue that the usages of emotions not only serve to construct and sustain the Union as a community of values, but also condition its subsequent action. In this article, I conclude that while justifying the EU’s response to the invasion, EU leaders continuously rely on a specific system of feeling and a set of feeling rules, and these rules, in return, are closely linked to the EU’s actions in the international arena.

As such, I respond to the three questions raised by this special issue: the pattern concerning the intensity and the content of emotions expressed at the EU level; the role emotions play in EU foreign policy; and how emotions enable the EU. In this way, I seek to provide three contributions. First, by systematically applying ‘emotional community’ concept to a new territory, i.e. the EU, the article aims to bring a new perspective to the EU’s international identity construction. Second, the article links emotional community literature to community’s external action by showing how some emotion categories are closely linked to a set of action tendencies. Third, I move beyond the dominant academic focus on the content of norms (Wiener 2004) or the agents of norm contesters (Dandashly and Noutcheva 2022) by shifting the focus on the impact of norm contestation on the norm promoter (EU) itself.

In order to answer the main research question (how emotions are employed in the EU’s crisis response), the article studies the shared discourses of the European community as expressed in the official statements/declarations issued by the two main institutions, namely the European Council and the High Representative. These texts are long negotiated, commonly agreed statements, which reflect the joint view of 27 member states. Therefore, they include, and at the same time construct, the community’s common system of feeling. I analysed the data through qualitative content analysis (QCA) to uncover the EU’s emotional patterns and subsequent action patterns. I conducted a more detailed interpretive analysis of a select number of extracts to complement QCA. This in-depth analysis highlighted the reliance on emotional language to delineate the boundaries between the in-group (European emotional community) and the out-group (norm breakers).

In terms of case selection, the article focuses on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The case is illustrative of which/how emotions are expressed by the EU in a case of gross norm violations and what these emotions mean in terms of EU foreign policy responses. This is so because the invasion triggered several emotions not only among European societies, but also EU leaders, hence compelled the EU to take immediate action (in a variety of ways, including sanctions) against the norm transgressor. Furthermore, the invasion is an extreme case of norm contestation as Russia openly and grossly violated several of the EU’s constitutive norms (European Council 2022a). Therefore, the case is rich in terms of what the article aims to explain: (1) the variation in the content of violated norms and emotions expressed; and (2) the plurality of emotions expressed, and EU action taken as a reaction. This variation renders the case an ideal one for analysing norm violation-emotion-action patterns in European emotional community building.

The article is structured as follows: The first section introduces the conceptual framework, i.e. emotional community; and sets prior expectations about how an emotional community should ‘feel’ and ‘behave’ in times of crisis. It does so by linking emotional communities to action tendencies when the norms of the community are transgressed. The second section gives an account of the methodological considerations. The third section presents findings and discusses their significance for enhancing our understanding of the role of emotions in the EU’s response to norm violations with a particular focus on community building. The conclusion discusses how these findings relate to the broader questions set in this special issue and raises new questions for future research.

Emotional community

The concept of ‘emotional communities’ as developed by the historian Rosenwein (2006, 2) refers to the existence of ‘groups in which people adhere to the same norms of emotional expression and value – or devalue – the same or related emotions.’ These groups are bound together by a set of collectively shared emotions and similar expression of these emotions. Hence, an emotional community can be distinguished (from other groups) through ‘fundamental assumptions, values, goals, feeling rules, and accepted modes of expression’ (Rosenwein 2006, 24). This view is grounded in the cultural psychology approach to emotions which suggests that the history and culture of the community shape and condition its collective emotions (Mesquita, Boiger, and De Leersnyder 2017). According to this view, emotions are formed as a result of a process of appraisal, which is shaped by a group’s ‘notion of what was good or bad’ (Rosenwein 2006, 14). These judgements (about what is good or bad), are in turn, shaped by collective memory, and current values and goals. Therefore, in accordance with the Introduction to this special issue, I start with the assumption that the EU’s appraisal process, which also involves collective memory, leads to emotions¹, and these officially expressed emotions constitute an essential feature of the European emotional community, reflecting, but also constituting its identity. This implies that, in order to decode the identity of a community (the EU), one should seek to uncover specific systems of feeling that sustain this community.

The literature on the sociology of emotions refers to these specific systems of feeling as ‘emotion culture’(Goffman 1983). Drawing on Goffman, Hochschild (1979) postulates that the members of society engage in strategic performances, and emotions they display reveal the emotion culture of a given society. Emotion culture refers to a set of complex ideas about what the members of the community should feel, and emotional responses the members are expected to give. The emotion culture distinguishes an emotional community from others as it is made up of two basic norms peculiar to each community: feeling rules (or emotion norms²) and display rules. Feeling rules are about the appropriateness of emotions that the members of the society can feel (what is the appropriate emotion/what people ought to feel) (Turner and Stets 2005, 36). Display rules are about the appropriateness of the expression of norms in a specific situation and they guide the expression of emotions. These two sets of norms – feeling and display rules – make the emotion culture of a community and guide its subsequent action in a particular situation. Hence, while the existence of an emotional community is dependent on a distinctive emotion culture, feeling and display rules are the constituent elements of the community’s emotion culture.

Here it is important to emphasise that the community’s emotion culture is strictly related to the collective memory³ of a political entity. Since political entities ‘are not “natural”, they needed to be imagined, but also, they have to be constantly remembered, reimagined, and reproduced’ to justify that they ‘represent a coherent people’, hence to justify their existence’ (Subotić and Zarakol 2020, 103). This ‘imagining process’ connecting the past to the present and future takes place through collective memory. Political entities’ attempts to (re-)construct a collective memory has implications for the community’s emotion culture in two ways: First, collective memory, in particular how the past is being narrated, shapes ‘emotional entitlements and obligations’ in international relations (Gustafsson and Hall 2021, 977). Because historical narratives determine the collective role identities, they condition the expression of some emotions, impose emotional obligations on the community members and determine emotion culture of the community. For instance, the recurrent narrative that the EU is a ‘peace project’ (see Borrell 2024) echoes the past, but at the same time, prescribes the EU’s obligations for preserving peace in the present and future. Similarly, after the invasion, several EU leaders’ plea for supporting Ukraine was framed in an emotion discourse invoking the past as a shared memory (‘war is back in Europe’), but at same time, eliciting strong emotions justifying EU action in the present (see Von der Leyen 2022).

Second, collective memory underwrites the political entity’s identity. Collective memory is a ‘record of resemblances’ through which the process of remembering constructs the shared characteristics and similarities of the group (Bachleitner 2021, 26). Hence collective memory’s ‘function is to develop the several aspects of one single content – that is, the various fundamental characteristics of the group itself’ (Halbwachs 2011, 147). In this way, collective memory constitutes the negotiation of the past and present through which community members define their individual and collective selves (Olick 2003 quoted in Bachleitner 2021, 26). However, collective memory can only perform its identity building function if it is underpinned by emotions (Subotić and Zarakol 2020, 104). This is why collective emotions expressed by EU elite are key for understanding how leaders construct community’s identity by bridging the past and present, and what the nature of this identity is.

Indeed, emotional community concept offers a new perspective for studying the EU’s international identity. Among scholars, whether the EU has a distinctive foreign policy identity is a heated debate (Christiansen, Erik Jørgensen, and Wiener 2001; Keukeleire and Delreux 2022; Manners 2002; Smith 2014). However, most scholars agree that the EU tries to project a distinctive identity in world politics (Smith 2014). Emotional community concept contributes to this debate in two ways. First, through the study of shared emotion culture as expressed in elite’s discourses, we can understand what is special about the EU as a community. As feeling rules guide what the community’s particular emotion should be in a certain situation, and prescribe obligations for acting in a certain way, they might give us clues about the characteristics of EU identity, such as which norms matter to the EU, who belongs to the community and who is an outsider. In this way, emotional community concept, might enlighten the substantive content of the EU’s foreign policy, hence its shared normative framework. Second, emotional community concept, if combined with collective memory, might also tell us the foundations of the EU’s emotional narrative in collective identity construction. While the former, i.e. studying European emotional community for uncovering EU identity, is the central focus of this article, the latter, i.e. the foundations of the EU’s emotional narrative, remains beyond the scope of this article.

The study of the EU as an emotional community has thus far remained limited, and has focused mainly on collective memory (Koschut 2014, 2024; Palm 2021). These studies have concluded that the members of the EU adhere to the ‘same norms of emotional expression’ as they share an emotional history of grief and trauma (Koschut 2014). Some studies have focused on the role of emotives and emotional beliefs in overcoming hate between countries emanating from WWII, hence in building a community through emotions (Palm 2018). Other scholars have addressed the EU’s strategies in building its community, such as blaming and shaming, which contributed to the creation of boundaries between the EU and outsiders (Koschut 2018a). A few case studies also focused on the role of feeling rules in EU policy-making (Sanchez Salgado 2023).

This article builds on this emerging literature on emotional (EU) community and the sociology of emotions. The originality of this article lies first in the fact that it concentrates on emotional community building by EU institutional actors in foreign policy. Its focus on norm violations in the international arena allows me to analyse the substantive content of EU foreign policy. Furthermore, the article’s focus on unstudied actors, namely the High Representative and the European Council allows to capture how EU institutions use emotions in community building when addressing both internal (European publics and member states) and external (international community) audiences. Second, the article systematically links community’s (EU) feeling rules to subsequent action it takes. In this way, it shows how the European emotional community acts in times of crisis.

Emotional community during crisis times

In this article, a crisis for the EU external action is assumed to arise when the norms the EU stands for are violated. The article defines norms as ‘standards of appropriate behaviour for actors with a given identity’ (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 891). In her classification of norms, Wiener (2014, 2) distinguishes between fundamental, organising principles and standardised procedures. The article focuses on the constitutive norms which refer to the ‘foundational values and principles’ of the EU (Michalski and Danielson 2020, 334). As suggested by Manners (2002), the EU’s constitutive norms include five core principles, namely, the centrality of peace, liberty, democracy, the rule of law and human rights. This normative basis guides and conditions the EU’s external relations, and determines its international identity. However, these foundational norms are increasingly contested, or even violated by international actors leading to crisis situations for the EU. These crisis moments constitute a test case for an emotional community for various reasons:

First, during crisis situations, the expression of feeling rules at the macro-level provides stability of the group. In crisis moments, an entity perceives a serious threat to its ‘self’, which is accompanied by a high degree of uncertainty (Brack and Gürkan 2021; Sanchez Salgado 2021b). During these moments, community members try to make sense of the situation under time pressure (Boin ‘t Hart and McConnell 2009), sometimes conflictual emotions are expressed or simply the community is confused about what to feel, which direction to take. Here feeling rules guide, manage and control inconsistent or conflictual emotions (Koschut 2014). In the case of the EU, member states might have diverging interests. But ultimately, the declarations made by EU actors on behalf of the EU, reflect shared emotions, which, not only make the community (EU) distinguishable from other communities in world politics, but also provide a roadmap for members by indicating which direction to take.

Second, if the community leaders fail to react to serious norm breaches that matter for the community, this might lead to an identity crisis for the community as emotions are strictly connected to a group’s identity. As noted by Mercer (2014, 522), ‘[w]ho we are is what we feel. Identity and emotion depend on each other.’ Third, indifference to the breach of the EU’s constitutive norms might lead to norm decay in international relations as this lack of reaction would imply a tacit approval of their violation (Deitelhoff and Zimmermann 2020). As noted by scholars, one way to identify the existence of an international norm is to check the strength of emotions that are expressed when the norm is violated (Hall 2015, 48–52; Smith 2024). In a nutshell, non-reaction when community’s norms are violated might have a tectonic impact on the community by resulting in an identity crisis or identity transformation.

If norm contestation and norms’ violation matter so much for the community’s identity as well as for the stability of its norms in international politics, how should one expect emotional community (the EU) to feel and act in times of crisis? First, in cases where the constitutive norms of a collective entity are violated, the members are expected to experience – feel – a set of similar emotions, usually negative ones such as disappointment, disapproval, contempt, resentment or anger since emotions are the carriers of values (Koschut 2018a). The expression of negative emotions serves two functions: on the one hand, they mark the red lines up until where a given norm can be contested (Smith 2021). On the other hand, negative emotions sustain and reproduce the emotion culture of the community by reminding the community members of what matters to them (Koschut 2018a). Besides negative emotions, norm violation might also evoke positive emotions (togetherness, belongingness, pride, etc.) within the group, which reinforces the feelings of belonging to a group (Ahmed 2012). In this way, the expression of appropriate emotions disciplines the community, sustains political order and ‘underpin[s] the moral hierarchy of values and beliefs by assigning emotional meanings to rules and norms’ (Koschut 2020a, 8).

Against this backdrop, I expect EU institutional actors to express consistent and regular emotional expressions in reaction to norm violations, which should reflect the emotion culture of the Union. In accordance with the Introduction to this special issue, by ‘consistency’, I mean that EU actors are expected to maintain ‘the same emotional stance in the face of developing events.’ In other words, EU leaders are expected to use same or similar appropriate emotional expressions every time same norm breach that matters to the EU occurs, and this norm breach-emotion pattern should be sustained over time.

Second, in addition to some emotion patterns, one should also expect to see some action tendencies that accompany the expression of emotions. Action tendencies imply the readiness to carry out certain behaviour linked to a specific emotion. Theories on emotions agree that emotions give meaning to situations and motivate action (Barrett 2017; Mesquita, Boiger, and De Leersnyder 2017). Because of their social nature, emotions or the emotional interpretation of the situation by a given community, help achieve certain social goals, such as modifying relations with another entity; re-establishing social status or mitigating the negative consequences of exclusion (Frijda and Mesquita 1994; Mesquita, Boiger, and De Leersnyder 2017, 98). In this way, through emotions, individuals, but also communities, ‘take a stance and (intend to) establish a connection with the world around them’ (Mesquita, Boiger, and De Leersnyder 2017, 96). Hence, emotions attribute meaning to the events around us, they carry action tendencies, and they push an entity to redefine its relationship or take stance vis-à-vis the situation (Frijda 2007, 4).

For example, anger emerges as a response to a wrongful violation of a norm or interest that matters to the community. It conveys to the ‘blameworthy party’ that a redline has been crossed, that the conduct is ‘unjust, unfair, or wrong’, and in this way, it serves to maintain and protect what actors value (Hall 2015, 46–47). This is why the expression of anger corresponds with a tendency to move against, punish or harm (Frijda 2007, 34). Whereas sympathy emerges in response to perceived ‘undeserved suffering’ of others, and generates ‘a tendency to comfort and aid others in their time of distress’ (Hall 2015, 90). Fear, on the other hand, arises when an entity perceives that it has lost power or status in a situation (Turner and Stets 2005, 216). Fear is associated with a tendency to move away (flight response), but also, it might lead collectivities to become aware of their interests, and to take actions for restoring their power to realize interests (Barbalet 1998). Against this backdrop, I expect EU institutional actors to express anger against Russia, which should then be followed by a set of punitive actions. Whereas the EU’s expressions of sympathy are likely to correspond with offers of support, and gestures of aid to Ukraine. Finally, I expect emotional expressions related to fear/anxiety to frame decisions aimed at enhancing the EU’s power or mitigating its status loss as a result of the crisis.

Two broad categories of social goals, namely affiliative and distancing functions are particularly relevant for the current study (Fischer and Manstead 2016). While emotions with an affiliative function serve to ‘establish and maintain cooperative and harmonious relationships’, distancing emotions serve to ‘differentiate or distance the self from others’ (Fischer and Manstead 2016, 425). For example, some emotions like pride, love, sympathy might serve to bind the community together, hence perform an affiliative function; whereas other emotions such as anger, hate or contempt might play a role in distancing the community from others. In this way, emotional expressions contribute to structuring relationships of the Self with the Other by creating emotional barriers (Koschut 2020a; Zarakol 2010). These barriers determine the nature of contact between insiders and outsiders, i.e. those who follow norms and those who breach them in international relations (Koschut 2020a; Mercer 2014, 523).

Bringing together action tendencies and affiliative/distancing functions of emotions, one would expect an emotional community to express a set of distancing emotions that should frame its readiness to react against norm violators. In the same vein, one should observe the expression of a set of socially engaging (affiliative) emotions framing a set of positive action vis-à-vis community members. In conclusion, I expect EU leaders to express a set of emotional patterns involving action tendencies geared towards regulating the relationship both within European emotional community and between the European emotional community (EU) and the Other (Russia). The following section will test these propositions, namely the existence of norm breach-emotion patterns as well as emotion-action patterns in the case of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Data and methods for analysing European emotional community

The data include all the formal/institutional communications issued by the European Council and the Council of Foreign Affairs on behalf of the EU following the decision of the Russian Federation to recognise as independent entities and to send Russian troops to certain areas of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions on the 22^nd of February until the end of May 2022 (Annex 1). The selection of these texts is related to these actors’ role in the formulation of the EU’s response during a diplomatic crisis. Furthermore, these statements reflect the common position of all the EU member states as the focus in this paper is the EU’s response as a collectivity, hence on the formal EU statements that involve elements of the EU’s emotion culture.

I used qualitative content analysis (QCA) to analyse the corpus. The difficulties related to researching emotions in world politics are well-known in the literature (Bleiker and Hutchison 2008; Clément and Sangar 2018). These derive from the nature of emotions: ‘emotion is hard to define, hard to operationali[s]e, hard to measure, and hard to isolate from other factors’ (Mercer 1996 in Clément and Sangar 2018). In this regard, QCA has several strengths: First, it helps the researcher study the object of interest, in a more systematic, condensed, and rather objective manner compared to exclusively interpretivist approaches. This is especially important in emotion research as emotions are hard to grasp, and their presence, intensity, and labelling depend to a great extent on the subjective interpretation of researchers. This is why QCA through transparent and systematic analysis increases the replicability. Second, if combined with the quantification of the results, as it is the case in this study, QCA becomes an ideal instrument for establishing relationships between different categories. For instance, in this study, quantification of results helped me trace how emotions precede action or how they relate to identity and norms.

Third, while the method enables the researcher to focus on theory-guided prior expectations in the form of broad categories (i.e. norm breach-emotion-action patterns), the possibility to design the coding frame inductively avoids the risk of imposing decontextualised understandings of emotions. Although emotion scholars used this technique in previous research (de Buitrago 2018; Gürkan 2021), the coding system is usually created deductively (Heller 2018) leaving less room for bottom-up, inclusive formulations of coding categories that can capture better the elusive nature of emotions. The coding protocol I used in this study, is both theory-driven as it includes the main postulates of emotional communities and inductive as I developed the categories in a completely bottom-up way from the corpus.

However, QCA has its limitations. First, it does not allow the researcher to discern whether emotions are genuine or used instrumentally in the EU’s discourses (Heller 2018). Second, given ‘different subjective understandings of emotions’ among individuals, and even its changing interpretation for the same person, inter-coder as well as intra-coder reliability remain weak (Heller 2018). In this study intra-coder reliability was ensured through three different rounds of coding with an interval of four months. Third, the method does not engage in a critical analysis of textual data, hence does not reveal hidden meanings. This is why, I conducted a more detailed interpretive analysis of a select number of extracts to complement QCA.

I formulated the coding scheme inductively in the following way: The first reading of the corpus served to identify meaning units (main concepts) in the data by focusing on the main variables: norm violations (which norms are violated), emotions (which emotions are attached to a given violation of a norm) and action (which foreign policy decision was taken as a response). These meaning units were then converted into coding units by focusing on the terms and language used by EU actors (Strauss 1987). Through this ‘bottom-up approach’, I identified the subcategories for each variable resulting initially in three main categories (norms, emotions, action) and 32 subcategories (10 for norm violations, 11 for emotions and 11 action types adopted by the EU). In this first round of coding, all the norms that were stated to be breached by the EU were mapped. This included international law, peace, rules-based order, the right to self-determination, sovereignty, territorial integrity, security and stability, freedom and democracy, human rights and the EU’s security and stability.

In the second category (emotions), I labelled emotions that were both explicitly mentioned and implicitly recalled by EU institutional actors. While the former group includes words that refer directly to emotions (such as horror, dangerous, pride), the latter group of words includes emotions that are tacitly implied. In this second group, I interpreted the emotional meanings in two ways. First, I focused on connotations which contain ‘a context-invariant value judgement or opinion that conveys the emotional attitude of the speaker’ (Koschut 2018b, 284). Here, the focus was on the words that are emotionally loaded, and their mere utterance triggers certain emotions regardless of the context and time, such as war, aggression, and violence that involves anger or resentment. Second, I interpreted the meaning of expressions or sentences in the text by focusing on their intended meanings in the coded passage (for example ‘express concern’ refers to anxiety whereas ‘hard-hitting measures’ refer to revenge while expressions of ‘determination to act’ refer to resolve). In this way, although non exhaustive, I mapped repeatedly stated emotion categories which include ‘resolve, revenge, solidarity, disappointment, anger, guilt, sadness, pity, pride, fear and anxiety’.

The third category (EU action) includes a complete list of all the measures the EU actors took in responding to the crisis during the first three months of the invasion. This category includes condemnation, statement of unity-togetherness/international engagement, sanctions, promise to deepen the EU’s relations with Ukraine, military aid, financial aid, threat to adopt more sanctions, call on Russia to stop war, humanitarian aid, further EU integration (in the form of energy independency, defence integration and ensuring strategic autonomy) and the EU’s support for Ukraine in the investigation and prosecution of any international crimes committed by Russia.

Following this initial coding which identified main themes and patterns in the data, in order to facilitate coding and the analysis of data, several subcategories were amalgamated into one main category. Main subcategories of norms (peace, rules-based order, right to self-determination, sovereignty, territorial integrity, security and stability) were grouped under the category of international law as EU institutional actors use these various norms interchangeably in their communications. As for the emotions category, in order to facilitate the analysis, emotions that followed a certain emotional expression pattern were merged under a single subcategory. For example: pity, sadness and guilt were experienced exclusively in connection with ‘solidarity with the victims of war’. This is why these emotions were regrouped under ‘sympathy/solidarity’. In the same vein, fear and anxiety were expressed by similar emotion words rendering the distinction between these two emotion categories difficult to articulate. This is why these two emotions were also merged under a single label of fear/anxiety. The resolve to defend international law was also used together with the feeling of togetherness (the resolve to act together to defend international law). Hence these two emotions were addressed under the same category (resolve/togetherness).

Turning to the action category, subcodes were streamlined into four categories which cover all the instruments the EU utilized for responding to the crisis: (1) verbal instruments (which include condemnation, statements of unity-togetherness/international engagement, promise to deepen the EU’s relations with Ukraine, threat to adopt more sanctions, call on Russia to stop war); (2) aid (which include humanitarian, financial aid and the provision of military equipment to Ukraine, assisting Ukrainian authorities to facilitate the investigation and prosecution of any international crimes committed by Russia against Ukraine); (3) sanctions; and (4) further EU integration. In this way, I formulated the final coding scheme, which includes three main codes and 13 subcodes (Annex 2)

The coding unit in this study was the idea rather than an entire text or a core sentence or a word. The coded idea could span the length of a sentence or an entire paragraph. Only those ideas/statements that included the three categories (norm violation, emotion and a proposed action) were selected as coding units. Accordingly, all the coding units included at least one subcode from each category. This implies that the coded passages contain a statement about which norm was violated (codes 1–4), which emotion was expressed in the face of a given norm violation (codes 5–9), and which action preceded or followed this emotion (codes 10–13). In the same statement or text, each time one of these subcategories changed, a new coding unit was created. For example, if the same norm violation is followed/preceded by two distinct emotions, I coded these coding units (emotions) twice. Similarly, if the same norm violation and the same emotion leads to different actions, I coded separately each time the action changed. This was necessary to control the changes in the norm-emotion-action chain. However, in order to avoid data repetition in the coding scheme and to uncover main norm-emotion-action patterns in the same passage, I only coded the dominant idea when an idea pertaining to a subcode was dominantly used together with minor words with connotations of a different subcode. The dataset generated in this way consists of 87 coded statements which include at least one subcode from the main categories (i.e. norm, emotion, and action).

Emotional patterns in the EU’s response to Russia’s invasion

I analysed coded statements in two stages to answer main research question (how emotions are employed in the EU’s response to an international crisis arising from norm violations?). In the first stage of the analysis, I examined the interplay of norm violations with the emotions expressed by the EU. In order to uncover the pattern in norm violations and ensuing emotions, I calculated (norm violation-emotion) correlation score as the percentage of all the statements per specific norm and emotion categories to all the emotion statements coded for a given norm violation category (five rows under the category ‘norms violated’, see Table 1). These percentages reveal not only the connection between a given norm violation and emotions expressed by the EU, but also the emotional intensity of a given norm violation for the EU compared with other norm violations (Table 1).

Table 1. The interplay of emotions with violated norms and action taken by the EU during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (February 2022-May 2022).

	Emotions expressed by the EU
Codes	Subcodes	Resolve/ togetherness	Sympathy/ solidarity	Anger/ revenge	Fear/ Anxiety	Pride	all emotions in connection with a given norm/action category (%)	N
Norms violated*
	Int. law	19,51	19,51	60,97	0	0	47,12	41
	Freedom and democracy	0	20	10	0	7	11,49	10
	Human rights	0	69,23	26,92	0	3,84	29,88	26
	EU’s security and stability	0	0	10	90	0	11,49	10
all norm violations		9,19	32,18	39,08	10,34	9,19	100%	87
Action taken**
	Verbal instruments	25	28,57	32,14	0	14,28	32,18	28
	Aid	0	70,37	14,81	0	14,81	31,03	27
	Sanctions	4,34	4,34	91,3	0	0	26,43	23
	Further EU integration	0	0	0	100	0	10,34	9
all actions in connection with a given emotion category (%)		9,19	32,18	39,08	10,34	9,19	100%	87
Number of coded statements (N)		8	28	34	9	8	100%	87

*The percentage of all the statements which include both a specific norm and emotion category to all the statements containing all emotion categories coded under a specific norm category.

**The percentage of all the statements involving both a specific emotion category and a given action category to all the statements containing all emotion categories coded in connection with a given action category.

In the second stage, I analysed the interplay of various emotion categories with the action taken by the EU to uncover whether specific action tendencies are accompanied by a particular emotion expressed by the EU (emotion-action nexus). To do so, I calculated (emotion-action) correlation score as the percentage of all the statements involving both a specific emotion category and a given action category to all the statements containing all emotion categories coded in connection with a given action category (five rows under the category ‘action taken’, see Table 1). These values help, on the one hand, to observe the intensity of a specific emotion involved in a given action, and on the other hand, to compare the saliency of various emotion categories leading to the same action tendency. This is necessary for understanding whether one specific emotion category is more prone to generate a specific action tendency in the EU. Finally, I also calculated the percentage of all the statements which include a norm violation-emotion category, and (separately) emotion-action category, to all the statements coded. These values help understand which norm violation was more emotional for the EU (or accompanied by more emotion words compared with other norm violation subcodes) as well as trace which emotion statements the EU used more often to justify a given action tendency (Table 1 see the column ‘all emotions’).

Three findings stem from this analysis. First, it is possible to discern regular norm-emotion patterns in the EU’s reaction to the crisis (summarised in Table 2). While the EU’s stance on human rights violations is communicated very frequently through emotions relating to sympathy and solidarity (human rights violations-sympathy/solidarity nexus scored 69,23% of all the emotions expressed in connection with human rights violations); the breaches of international law are criticised through emotion words mostly pertaining to the anger/revenge category (60,97% of all the statements related to the violations of international law are accompanied by the expressions of anger), and the feelings with regard to the violation of the EU’s security and stability are conveyed regularly through the negative emotions of fear/anxiety about the EU’s future (the violations of the EU’s security and stability-fear/anxiety nexus amount to 90%) (Table 1).

Table 2. The nexus of norms-emotions-action in the EU’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Violated Norms	Emotions	Action
International law	Anger/revenge Resolve/togetherness	Sanctions Verbal instruments
Human rights Human rights (war crimes)	Sympathy/solidarity Anger/revenge	Aid Sanctions (5^th package)
EU’s security and stability	Anxiety/fear	Further EU integration

The only exception to the human rights violations-sympathy pattern is the emotional expressions accompanying the decision to adopt sanctions in response to the massacres in the town of Bucha and other Ukrainian towns. In this case, the EU named these gross human rights violations ‘war crimes’ and criticized them in reference to the principles of international law. Consequently, the massacres of Bucha, among EU leaders, triggered first anger (against Russia) followed by sympathy (for the victims), which led to the adoption of sanctions. This explains why the breaches of international law are also accompanied by positive emotions (in 19,51% of all internal law violation instances) among EU institutional actors. In other instances, when the EU criticized the violation of human rights in relation with the loss of life or Ukrainian people fleeing their home, these criticisms were met with the sentiments of solidarity with the victims, which legitimized the adoption of various aid packages.

This regular norm violation-emotion pattern informs us on the EU’s international identity as these emotional displays not only communicate what norms matter to the EU as a community, but also convey the limits of permissible norm violations. In this regard, in relation to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, from the EU’s perspective, the respect for international law and human rights stands out as the two most important values considered to be threatened since their violations scored the highest emotional intensity (47,12% of all the norm violations invoking emotions pertain to the international law violations followed by the breaches of human rights which scored 29,88%). By expressing anger, which is the most frequently coded emotion category in the EU’s response to the crisis (39,08%), followed by sympathy for the victims (32,18%), EU institutional actors construct appropriate feelings at the height of the crisis. While emotion words related to anger signal that Russia crossed the red lines, the expression of sympathy for Ukrainians manifests the importance the EU attaches to the respect for human rights. As noted by Smith (2021), these two emotion categories complement each other: while the EU expresses a strong negative feeling (anger) vis-à-vis norm transgressor to communicate the ‘perceived significance of the issue at stake’ (Hall 2015, 47), it also transmits sentiments of solidarity with the victims of norm violators, which is in line with the EU’s characterization as a normative power at least in rhetoric.

In the light of the data at hand, one cannot infer whether the EU feels certain emotions genuinely or displays them strategically in response to the violation of its constitutive norms. Nonetheless, this pattern indicates the pertinence of emotions in framing issues in foreign policy, in strengthening the EU’s argumentation about what is right and wrong, and finally, in defining how the European community should feel and act in international politics. In this way, emotions contribute to the construction of the EU’s identity through ‘emotional governance that defines normality and order’ (Koschut 2020a; Pursiainen and Forsberg 2021).

The second set of findings relates to a regular emotion-action pattern (summarised in Table 2). In the EU’s official statements, sentiments of anxiety about the EU’s future exclusively results in a set of decisions concerning further EU integration (fear/anxiety-further EU integration nexus scored the highest value with 100% amongst all the emotion statements correlating with this action). This finding is in line with the sociological theories of emotions. According to the power-status theory (Kemper and Collins 1990) power is defined as ‘the ability to compel others to follow one’s wishes and directives’, and when an agency perceives a loss of power or status in a situation, it feels negative emotions such as anxiety or fear. Drawing on Kemper and Collins’ theory, Barbalet (1998) argues that fear not only leads collectivities to become aware of their interests, but also to mitigate the causes of their lack of power in order to increase their power to fulfil their interests (Turner and Stets 2005, 257). In this way, fear leads to change in times of crisis. This explains why the EU’s appraisal of the situation as a security threat to its values and stability leads to a set of action for restoring its power in world politics (for a typical statement exemplifying this see European Council 2022b).

In the same vein, feelings of anger/revenge lead very often to the adoption of sanctions by the EU (anger/revenge-sanctions nexus represents the second highest score of regularity with 91,3%). This pattern confirms theoretical expectations about anger. Anger, as a reactive emotion, is closely associated with retaliatory, punitive and confrontational acts and motivates the agency to maintain and protect what actors value by striking back, opposing or hurting (Frijda 2007; Sanchez Salgado 2021a).

I also observed regularity in the expressions of emotion categories underpinning a set of action tendencies in the sympathy/solidarity category which leads to the decisions concerning the allocation of aid to Ukraine (the allocation of aid was justified through the expressions of sympathy/solidarity in 70,37% of all the instances). The observation with regard to the regularity of same emotion category being linked to the same action tendency is supported by the usages of two other emotion categories: pride and resolve/togetherness. A closer qualitative analysis of data indicates that while the former usually precedes the feeling of solidarity with the victim, which leads to the allocation of aid, the latter is regularly used to enhance the emotional expression of anger/revenge, which, then leads to the adoption of sanctions. This proximate usage of emotion categories magnifies the strength of emotions expressed. For example, pride about Ukrainian people who defend Europe’s freedom and democracy enhances the need to offer support to Ukraine (see for example European Council 2022b). In the same vein, statements of unity and decisiveness to act together with the international community are very often communicated close to the expressions of anger with a view to making the EU’s political signal more credible and strengthening its message that the violation of the international law is unacceptable not only to the EU, but also to the international community (for a typical statement exemplifying this see European Council 2022c)

These regular patterns do not necessarily imply that emotions drive EU action. This regularity in the behaviours associated with particular emotions rather indicates that the EU does not express emotions in a random way or spontaneously as in individuals, and emotions do not result in an impulsive EU action. Nevertheless, this regularity in the EU’s officially expressed emotions leading to specific policy options provides clues for understanding the EU’s emotion culture. As the EU is a multi-layered bureaucratic machinery, the ultimate decision on which emotion should be expressed in the face of a specific norm breach is taken through an institutional appraisal process (see the Introduction to this special issue). As a result of this institutional process, the EU expresses certain emotions that are appropriate, and act according to the necessities of these emotions.

It would be wrong to say that the EU institutional actors always express and act in accordance with the gravity of the situation in every international crisis or during the entire duration of a crisis. Indeed, there are many cases where the EU uses emotion words but fails to act, resulting in an emotion-action gap (Smith 2021, 2024). However, in the case at hand, one can conclude that the EU institutional actors abided by and actively constructed a set of feeling rules indicating how the EU should feel and react to the crisis. Furthermore, in the case under study, the EU’s official expressions of emotions framed subsequent EU action in accordance with the laws of action tendencies (Frijda 2007, 33–35).

Third, in EU statements, emotion categories serve to construct emotional boundaries between insider and outsider groups. A qualitative in-depth analysis of the data indicates that the EU, through emotional expressions, constantly creates two groups: an in-group, which includes the EU, Ukraine, and the international community that defend international law, peace and rules-based order; and an out-group, which includes norm violators, namely Russia and Belarus. While the EU applauded Ukraine’s and Ukrainian people’s courage in defending international law and European values, it expressed strong emotions such as solidarity with Ukraine and anger against norm violators. In accordance with prior expectations, the anger toward the outgroup is accompanied by the desire to confront and punish them. Instead, positive feelings of unity, togetherness, solidarity and pride enhance the cohesiveness of the in-group (Mackie, Smith, and Ray 2008, 1874). Furthermore, the feeling of belongingness (Europeanness, i.e. norm violations happening in Europe) emerges as a key emotion facilitating the adoption of aid packages towards Ukraine. In this way, by expressing positive emotions performing affiliative functions, and negative emotions performing distancing functions, the EU constructs how the European community (the inner group) should feel and act in the face of norm violations, and determines the nature of the in-group’s relationship with the out-group.

Conclusion

This article analysed how EU institutional actors used emotions in constructing an emotional community during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. By shedding light on the emotional patterns in the EU’s reaction to the invasion, the article sought to uncover feeling rules and system of feeling that sustains European community. The main conclusion of this article is that emotions do matter in the EU’s crisis response. They matter in three ways: First, emotions serve to construct and endure a community of values. By consistently attributing emotional values to norm violations, EU institutional actors continuously define appropriate group emotion. In this way, they express, reinforce and maintain group identity vis-à-vis not only an internal audience (EU citizens and member states), but also an external audience (third countries).

Second, emotions accompany EU policy options, in other words, they enable the EU by justifying the adoption of new policies or actions. Although determining whether the EU’s emotional displays are sincere or tactical goes beyond the remit of this article, the analysis showed that particular types of norm violations tend to evoke consistently particular emotions leading to a particular set of actions. In this way, emotions enable the EU ‘to adopt new and stronger forms of action to further its interests and values’ (Introduction to this special issue). Third, emotions structure relationships both within the community (EU) and between the European emotional community and the outer group in international relations. Here, emotions perform affiliative and distancing functions, and construct relationships between the in-group (EU) and the out-group (Russia) (Koschut 2020a, 15).

The article’s main contribution is thus to bring in the concept of emotional community to further our understanding of the EU’s foreign policy response. Over the last decade, EU foreign policy scholars’ attention has shifted from traditional approaches for studying EU foreign policy, i.e. ‘internal convergence/coordination’; ‘distinctive EU power’; and ‘EU external governance’, to the new ones, such as the external perceptions of the EU or outside-in perspectives (Gstöhl and Schunz 2022; Youngs 2021, 26). European emotional community complements – not replaces – these traditional and more recent approaches by offering a new way for studying EU foreign policy. It adds an ‘emotion’ perspective to the social construction of both convergence/unity among community members, and the EU’s foreign policy identity. Furthermore, the findings in this article suggest that by studying the EU as an emotional community, we can gain better understanding of how community building efforts relate to third countries by creating emotional boundaries in world politics. This opens new doors for investigating the EU’s emotional resonance with outsiders in future studies. The second major contribution of the article is methodological. It introduces an inductively formulated coding scheme, and suggests combining QCA with quantifications of results as well as with interpretive analysis. In this way, it aims to contribute to emotions research both in IR and in European studies.

Further research could focus on how European citizens perceive EU institutions’ attempts to construct an emotional community via written documents or speeches, and to what extent the EU’s articulation of certain emotions fits with citizens’ feelings in the face of international crises. Given the mediated character of emotions between individual political leaders and citizens, researchers might also study the key role media plays in the construction of the EU as an emotional community across European countries and through diverse sources ranging from social media to print media.

Other interesting avenues for future research would be to investigate to what extent EU-level expressed emotions perform engaging functions in relation with non-EU member states, hence serve to enlarge the boundaries of European emotional community beyond 27 EU member states. Similarly, how the EU’s emotional language commits its disobedient members to future action, overcomes division within the community, hence stabilises the emotional community, or the implications of persistent divisions between the community members, might constitute an important agenda for future research. For example, Hungary’s objection to certain sanction packages against Russia or its blockage on measures aimed at assisting Ukraine’s defence, might be analysed through the prism of emotional community. This could help us understand some critical aspects of the EU’s crisis response, such as the EU’s difficulties in securing unity among its member states, but also in ensuring international community’s support to its sanction regime against Russia.

Acknowledgments

The final stage of this research has benefitted from the Starters Grant from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, and the research was undertaken within the framework of the research project EUMOTIONS (The Role of Emotions in EU Foreign Policy).

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap.

Notes

1. In line with the Introduction to this special issue, the article approaches emotions from social constructivist perspective and defines social emotion as ‘a feeling that has intrinsic importance to an actor in some relationship with an entity’ (Mercer 2014, 516).

2. In this article, I use ‘emotion norm’ and ‘feeling rule’ interchangeably (on this see Koschut 2020b, 93).

3. On collective memory in IR see (Bachleitner 2021; Bell 2006; Halbwachs 2011; Hutchison 2017).

Annex 1.

The list of coded data: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 2022

Table

Document	Date	Genre	EU institutional actor
Russia-Ukraine war 2022
Remarks following the Special European Council on Ukraine	25 February 2022	Declaration	European Council President, Charles Michel
Remarks at the press conference following the European Council meeting	25 March 2022	Press remarks	European Council President, Charles Michel
Address to the Ukrainian people	27 February 2022	Formal address	European Council President, Charles Michel
Address to the Ukrainian Congress of local and regional authorities	27 April 2022	Formal address	European Council President, Charles Michel
Remarks at the High-level international donors’ conference for Ukraine	5 May 2022	Remarks	European Council President, Charles Michel
Europe Day statement in Odesa, Ukraine	9 May 2022	Statement	European Council President, Charles Michel
Remarks following President’s meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy via video conference in Odesa, Ukraine	9 May 2022	Remarks	European Council President, Charles Michel
Joint statement by the members of the European Council	24 February 2022	Joint statement	European Council
Special meeting of the European Council – Conclusions	24 February 2022	Conclusions	European Council
Informal meeting of the Heads of State or Government Versailles Declaration	11 March 2022	Declaration	European Council
European Council meeting – Conclusions	25 March 2022	Conclusions	European Council
Statement on Russian aggression against Ukraine 22 February 2022	22 February 2022	Statement	Presidents of the European Council and Commission
Declaration on behalf of the European Union on the decisions of the Russian Federation further undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity	22 February 2022	Declaration	High Representative, Josep Borrell
EU adopts package of sanctions in response to Russian recognition of the non-government controlled areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine and sending of troops into the region	23 February 2023	Press release	High Representative, Josep Borrell (on behalf of the Council)
Press remarks after extraordinary informal meeting of EU Foreign Ministers	22 February 2022	Press remarks	High Representative, Josep Borrell
Declaration on behalf of the European Union on the invasion of Ukraine by armed forces of the Russian Federation	24 February 2022	Declaration	High Representative, Josep Borrell
Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine: EU imposes sanctions against President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov and adopts wide ranging individual and economic sanctions	25 February 2022	Press release	High Representative, Josep Borrell (on behalf of the Council)
Extraordinary Foreign Affairs Council	25 February 2022	Press release	High Representative, Josep Borrell (on behalf of the Council)
EU adopts new set of measures to respond to Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine	28 February 2022	Press release	High Representative, Josep Borrell (on behalf of the Council)
EU imposes sanctions on state-owned outlets RT/Russia Today and Sputnik’s broadcasting in the EU	2 March 2022	Press release	High Representative, Josep Borrell (on behalf of the Council)
Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine: EU bans certain Russian banks from SWIFT system and introduces further restrictions	2 March 2022	Press release	High Representative, Josep Borrell (on behalf of the Council)
Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine: EU agrees new sectoral measures targeting Belarus and Russia	9 March 2022	Press release	High Representative, Josep Borrell (on behalf of the Council)
EU imposes restrictive measures on 160 individuals as a consequence of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine	9 March 2022	Press release	High Representative, Josep Borrell (on behalf of the Council)
Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine: fourth EU package of sectoral and individual measures	15 March 2022	Press release	High Representative, Josep Borrell (on behalf of the Council)
Declaration on behalf of the EU on Russian atrocities committed in Bucha and other Ukrainian towns	4 April 2022	Declaration	High Representative, Josep Borrell
EU adopts fifth round of sanctions against Russia over its military aggression against Ukraine	8 April 2022	Press release	High Representative, Josep Borrell (on behalf of the Council)
EU support to Ukraine: Council agrees on further increase of support under the European Peace Facility	24 May 2022	Press release	High Representative, Josep Borrell (on behalf of the Council)

Annex 2. Coding scheme for analysing norm violations/emotions/action chain in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022

Table

	Code labels	Definition	Typical quotation
Norms violated	Code.1. International law	This code includes explicit mentions of international law violations; rules-based order; international peace, security and stability; the sovereign equality and territorial integrity of states; the inviolability of frontiers; refraining from the threat or use of force; and the freedom of states to choose or change their own security arrangements. It also includes references to the principles enshrined in the UN Charter, the founding documents of the OSCE, including the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris as well as Russia’s international obligations. It also includes words that contravene these international principles such as military aggression, attack, war. This code excludes human rights violations, European stability and security, other EU values, including freedom and democracy.	‘By its unprovoked and unjustified military actions, Russia is grossly violating international law’ ‘This [Russia’s] illegal act further undermines Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence and is a severe breach of international law and international agreements, including the UN Charter, Helsinki Final Act, Paris Charter and Budapest Memorandum.’
	Code.2. Freedom and democracy	This code refers to the freedom and democracy with an emphasis on the EU’s (our) common values.	‘We commend the people of Ukraine for their courage in defending our shared values of freedom and democracy’
	Code.3. Human rights	This code includes references to the universal human rights, including statements that call for the respect for international law with regard to human rights and humanitarian norms. It includes also references to or connotations of the violations of these norms such as war crimes, human suffering, the loss of life, the violation of human dignity and attacks on civilians. References to the rights of people fleeing war (refugees) are also coded under this category.	‘We deplore the loss of life and humanitarian suffering.’ ‘Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is causing massive loss of life and injury to civilians.’ ‘The Russian military aggression against Ukraine has forced millions of people to flee their homes.’ ‘Russian aggression is inflicting unspeakable suffering on the Ukrainian population.’
	Code.4. EU’s security and stability	This category includes statements that emphasize a change in the EU’s security environment, a concern about the negative impact of the situation on the EU’s security interests, EU’s stability, its citizens, values, policies or expressions of concerns related to its future. It excludes treats to the international peace and stability, which are addressed under code.1.	‘Russia’s war of aggression constitutes a tectonic shift in European history. We discussed how the EU can live up to its responsibilities in this new reality, protecting our citizens, values, democracies, and our European model.’ ‘The European Council held a strategic debate on security and defence, taking into account the new security situation in Europe which is a major shift in its strategic environment.’
Emotions experienced	Code.5. Resolve/ togetherness	This code refers to the expressions of firm determination to defend international law, rules-based order, peace, international security and stability. It might also include statements or words of unity and togetherness (with partners, international community and EU member states) that increase the impact of decisiveness to act together. It includes words like univocally condemn, our unity, firmness, readiness to defend …). It excludes statements of solidarity with the victims, which is addressed by code.6	‘The EU has reacted swiftly and decisively to [Russian agression]…’ ‘the international community is firm, upstanding and ready to defend these principles’ ‘[The summit was] an opportunity for us to affirm, once again, our unity: the unity of the European Union, of the member states, and unity with our partners, our allies and our friends around the world to defend international law and this rules-based order that offers the best assurances for peace, security and stability.’
	Code.6. Sympathy/solidarity	This code includes statements of solidarity, which put at the centre victims (civilians, refugees, Uranian people) or those who help the victims (frontline states, NGOs and Europeans active on the field). This code includes words explicitly mentioning solidarity, help, assistance, support or expressions with connotations of pity, sadness in relation to the victims or guilt (because of the EU’s inability to prevent the war). In excludes statements referring to the EU’s sympathy with the international states acting with the EU as this has been covered by code.5.	‘Women and men are being killed, families being torn apart, hit directly by the horrors of war – a war we all thought was impossible in Europe a few days ago, with all the diplomatic efforts to counter the threat.’ ‘we expressed our commitment to continuing to show solidarity with refugees on the ground’ ‘We will not leave them [Ukranian people] alone.’
	Code.7. Anger/revenge	This code includes statements of condemnation; words that are emotionally loaded such as war, aggression, crime, and expressions which connote revenge such as holding (Russia) accountable for its wrongdoings.	‘Russia has decided to launch a brutal, savage war, based on despicable lies.’ ‘Russia, and its accomplice Belarus, bear full responsibility for this war of aggression and those responsible will be held to account for their crimes.’ “We are already hitting hard those who launched this war against you. ‘We will hold to account all those responsible for this war, and all those who violate the law of war and international humanitarian law.’
	Code.8. Fear/Anxiety	This category includes statements or expressions of concerns with regard to the future of the EU or about the negative impact of the situation on the EU, its stability and security as well as on EU citizens. These statements include words that emphasize the severity of the situation for the EU. It excludes fear words that describe the horror of war (such as savage war, the terror) as these have been categorized under the label ‘anger/revenge’ code.7 rather than fear. Fear also refers to the statements expressing the EU’s concerns about further escalation of the conflict and a large-scale war in Europe.	‘Russia’s war of aggression constitutes a tectonic shift in European history. We discussed how the EU can live up to its responsibilities in this new reality, protecting our citizens, values, democracies, and our European model.’ ‘It was not an ordinary meeting, it was a meeting where we were well aware of the gravity of the situation, of living in a time which perhaps represents a turning point and where it will be up to our generation in Europe, together with our partners around the world, to make the right choices, sensible choices, and to show courage…’ ‘we are in a particularly dangerous moment for Europe.’ ‘Sustained high energy prices have an increasingly negative impact on citizens and businesses, which is further compounded by the Russian military aggression against Ukraine’ ‘that there is great fear that there will be further action from Russia. We have an arsenal [of sanctions/measures], a capacity for action, we didn’t want to spend it all at once.’^1
	Code.9. Pride	This code includes statements that applaud either Ukrainians’ courage to defend their country as well EU values or EU/EU member states’ attitudes in helping Ukraine and victims of the war.	‘we would like to acknowledge and commend the dignity and courage of the Ukrainian people currently experiencing this dire situation.’* ‘we will continue to show solidarity … with those countries which, since the beginning of this war, have also been on the front line when it comes to providing a dignified reception for those fleeing the bombs and the war in Ukraine.’*
Action by the EU	Code.10 Verbal instruments	This code includes verbal statements by the EU, including condemnation, statements of unity-togetherness/international engagement, promise to deepen EU’s relations with Ukraine, threat to adopt more sanctions, call on Russia to stop war.	‘The European Council calls on Russia … to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access and assistance to all persons in need.’* ‘We demand that Russia ceases its military action …’ ‘The EU strongly condemns the decision by President Putin to … ’ ‘The EU calls on the international community to demand from Russia the immediate end of this aggression.’ ‘we will help you to build a modern, democratic country. A forward-looking country, ready to embrace with confidence your European future, our common European future, your place in our common European family.’
	Code.11 Aid	EU decisions taken in response to the crisis, which involve aid to Ukraine, Ukrainian people or refugees, which range from humanitarian aid, financial aid to the provision of military equipment to Ukraine. It also includes statements concerning the EU’s support to Ukrainian authorities to facilitate the investigation and prosecution of any international crimes committed by Russia against Ukraine. It excludes statements with regard to the ‘political aid’ as its meaning was not made clear by the EU, hence could possibly include other EU measures, such as verbal instruments or sanctions, which are addressed under code. 10 and code.12 respectively).	‘We also discussed support for the Ukrainian people and for Ukraine, and how we could mobilise both financing capacities and humanitarian support.’ ‘We also had the opportunity to address the question of support for Ukraine, which as you know means military equipment. This is a first for the European Union, as it also includes lethal equipment. As regards financial support, I would like to highlight the decision to work towards the successful establishment of a Ukraine Solidarity Trust Fund.’ “The European Union supports all measures to ensure accountability for human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law in Ukraine by Russian Armed forces.
	Code.12 Sanctions	Explicit references to the restrictive measures and sanctions adopted in response to violation of norms.	‘We have decided, together with all our partners, on unprecedented sanctions against the Russian leadership … ’ ‘With our allies, we are cutting off Russia and its economy from the international financial system. This will severely cripple Russia’s ability to operate globally.’
	Code.13 Further EU integration	Decisions involving further EU integration, in particular related to defence, strategic autonomy and EU’s energy independence.	‘the situation also shows how much the discussion about the goal of building a Europe more focused on sovereignty or strategic autonomy, reveals its full significance when we are faced with the events we are witnessing today.’

*Translated to English from the original text in French by the author.