Why Climate? The Drivers of the European Union’s Climate Governance in its Post-Soviet East European Neighbors

ABSTRACT

The European Union (EU) has positioned itself as a global climate leader. The EU’s engagement with external climate governance is most visible in the six post-Soviet states of Eastern Europe. This article asks what drives the EU’s engagement with climate governance in the region. To answer this question, I distinguish between three logics of external climate action: self-interest, functional, and civilizing. By analyzing climate cooperation between the EU and the six states, I demonstrate that a combination of all three logics explains the EU’s engagement in external climate governance, but that the functional logic is slightly more prominent than the other two.

Introduction

Russia and the European Union (EU) are competing for influence over the shared post-communist neighborhood (Ademmer, Delcour and Wolczuk 2016; Langbein 2013, 2016; Lankina, Libman, and Obydenkova 2016a; Obydenkova 2008, 2012). Using conditionality, capacity building, technical assistance, and expertise sharing, the EU has sought to establish a ring of stable democratic and economically prosperous states around its borders in order to secure its own safety and prosperity (European Commission 2003). In contrast, the current Russian leadership is seeking to create politically loyal and submissive states around its borders to ensure its own regime’s legitimacy and continuity (Rotaru 2018). The instruments used to achieve this objective also differ from those of the EU. These include media and financial support for loyal incumbents, support for secessionist movements, strategic use of energy exports, and economic coercion to keep neighboring states within its orbit of influence (Tolstrup 2014). However, both the Kremlin and the EU primarily use regional integration projects to maintain neighbors’ long-term development on a favorable trajectory with their divergent interests (Izotov and Obydenkova 2021). In line with the focus of this special issue, this article investigates climate governance by democracies-led international organizations—in this case, the EU. The focus is on the East European former Soviet republics (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine). The article builds on the growing Europeanization literature, the literature on historical legacies and “post-communism,” as well as studies of democratic versus authoritarian regionalism (Beissinger 2002; Beissinger and Kotkin 2014; Lankina, Libman, and Obydenkova 2016b; Libman and Obydenkova 2013, 2018a, 2018b; Nazarov and Obydenkova 2020; Pop-Eleches and Tucker 2017).

The EU’s regional integration projects, such as the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) or the Eastern Partnership (EaP), are fundamentally different from Russia’s, for example the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) or the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). As a rule, authoritarian states create regional organizations for different purposes than those of democratic states. Recent scholarship suggests that the latter take a functionalist approach, which sees regional integration projects as limiting transaction costs and facilitating trade and information flows. At the same time as trying to emulate the EU’s attractive model of successful regional integration, organizations led by autocracies are typically seen as protecting interests of powerful non-democratic states and securing those states a dominant position in relation to less powerful states (Ademmer, Delcour and Wolczuk 2016; Andersen 2002; Kolk and van der Weij 1998; Langbein 2013, 2016; Obydenkova and Rodrigues Vieira 2020; Rotaru 2018). There are also fundamental differences in the set of norms that such organizations promote. Organizations led by autocracies focus mainly on high-politics-related issues pertaining to regime stability and economic survival, while democracies-led organizations span a much broader range of issues. This article focuses on the policy area of climate change, an area that has been dominated by the EU and disregarded by Russia-led organizations (Andersen 2002; Andonova and Tuta 2014; Kolk and van der Weij 1998; Obydenkova, Nazarov, and Salahodjaev 2016; Obydenkova and Salahodjaev 2017; Tosun and Shyrokykh 2021).

The EU is seen as a climate leader with a long track record of internal climate-related and environmental policies that dates back as far as the 1950s, and which remained in place even in the aftermath of the 2008 recession (Andonova and Tuta 2014; Arpino and Obydenkova 2020; Obydenkova and Arpino 2018; Selin and VanDeveer 2015).¹ More recently, especially since the Lisbon Treaty made climate change mitigation and adaptation objectives of EU foreign policy, the EU has gained a reputation for being the global climate leader (e.g., Andonova and Tuta 2014; Benson and Jordan 2010).

There is a sizable literature describing the role of the EU in international climate negotiations (e.g., Andonova and Tuta 2014; Obydenkova 2012; Schulze and Tosun 2013), the role of climate norms in bilateral economic agreements (e.g., Holzer and Cottier 2015; Morin and Jinnah 2018), and the effects of the EU’s environmental and climate norms promotion in third countries (e.g., Buzogány 2013; Buzogány and Costa 2009; Langbein 2013). Much less attention has been paid, however, to explaining the EU’s engagement with climate governance in countries that are neither member states nor candidate states, such as the East European post-Soviet states.

An explanation of the drivers of EU climate governance, I argue, must precede the question of its effects. I address this research gap by exploring both bilateral and multilateral climate cooperation between the EU and the East European former Soviet republics. This article asks what drives the EU’s engagement in climate governance in the region. More specifically, it asks whether the EU’s engagement is driven by the pressing climate-related challenges facing its neighboring states, self-interest, or some other rationale—or perhaps a complex combination of all three.

The regional focus on the post-Soviet states of Eastern Europe (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine) is justified by the fact that the EU has the most developed relations with these states compared to other third countries (Lavenex 2015; Lavenex and Kunz 2008). Historically, the EU has paid more attention to states in close geographic proximity than to more distant states. More precisely, close neighbors have been exposed to the foreign policy instruments of the EU more regularly than other countries. In addition, the instruments of foreign policy are carefully chosen in relation to EU neighbors, as is demonstrated in existing works on human rights and democracy (e.g., Kreutz 2015; Portela 2005; Shyrokykh 2019), regulatory governance (e.g., Lavenex 2015; Lavenex and Kunz 2008; Shyrokykh and Rimkutė 2019), and good governance (e.g., Ademmer and Börzel 2013; Börzel and van Hüllen 2011).

Climate action is one of the key foreign policy priorities of the EU in general, but particularly in its neighborhood (European Council 2020). In fact, 25 percent of funding for the EU’s neighborhood region is currently directed at supporting climate-related objectives in the region (Di Ciommo, Thijssen, and Monràs 2018, 14). The EU also acknowledges that Europe is “vulnerable to climate change impacts beyond its borders” (European Commission 2018). The EU has therefore developed bilateral climate-focused cooperation and multilateral climate projects that aim both to build political will and to increase trust to advance climate action, as well as to ensure the effectiveness of development cooperation and build capacity to support partner countries in their climate efforts (European Commission 2020a). The EU also uses conditionality, attaching climate-related clauses to bilateral economic agreements to promote climate policies externally.²

To identify the drivers of the EU’s engagement in climate governance in the region, I differentiate between three analytically distinct logics of external climate action—self-interest, functional, and civilizing—and examine which of these explain the EU’s engagement in climate governance in the East European post-Soviet states. The analysis reveals a complex combination of drivers of the EU’s engagement. Although EU member states’ pragmatic interests and the civilizing approach partly explain cooperation on climate, it is clear that the EU has developed an approach that can best be described as following the functional logic of external climate action in which country- and sector-specific needs drive cooperation, especially in multilateral settings.

The results have implications for both scholars and policymakers. The article contributes to the Europeanization and regionalism literatures by demonstrating the complexity of the drivers that influence EU climate governance in its neighborhood. This work also contributes to the Europeanization literature by introducing a focus on the EU’s engagement in climate governance among its Eastern partners. The article contributes to policymaking by highlighting the conflicting objectives of climate cooperation, and demonstrating that climate cooperation is sometimes used to promote EU energy security.

The remainder of the article surveys the existing research and develops three logics of external climate action and the corresponding theoretical expectations. Then, the methodological approach is specified, followed by an empirical test of the hypotheses. The concluding section summarizes the findings and proposes future avenues of research.

Logics of External Climate Action

In contrast to democratization, EU regulatory transfer, and good governance, the topic of climate governance in the EU neighborhood is largely understudied. This is surprising since, just as with human rights and democratization, the EU has long been engaged in promoting environmental and climate norms in its neighborhood (e.g., Buzogány 2013; Shyrokykh and Rimkutė 2019). For example, environmental protection and climate policies (mostly mitigation-related) were among the cooperation objectives included in the Partnership and Cooperation Agreements (PCAs) signed between the EU and former Soviet republics in the 1990s. In particular, water management in countries with access to the Danube and the Black Sea was a major field of cooperation under this scheme (e.g., Buzogány 2013). Gradually, as the level of regional cooperation grew, the role of climate policies in bilateral and multilateral relations in the region also increased.

In the few existing works that deal with either environmental or climate governance in the region, scholars mostly focus on detecting the effects of the EU’s interventions. The Europeanization literature attempts to explain selective policy convergence and the factors obstructing policy change to align with EU norms. In explaining the impact of the EU’s climate governance, much of this literature seeks to demonstrate that often domestic conditions are not conducive to reforms. For example, Aron Buzogány (2013) suggests that the effects of the EU on domestic environmental policy are dependent on domestic veto players and state capacity. While exploring the effects of the EU’s engagement is important, the question of its drivers must come first. Is EU external climate governance guided by climate-related risks and the needs of third countries, by its self-interest, or perhaps by other concerns?

There is a long-standing debate in the Europeanization literature on whether the EU is a normative, market, or some other type of power (e.g., Manners 2002, 2006; Hyde-Price 2006; Bicchi 2006). The power Europe debate ultimately aims to describe the EU’s international role largely by analyzing the instruments at its disposal (Sjursen 2006). For example, the development of the EU’s military operations is often seen as a sign of the emergence of a military power Europe (Wagner 2006).

Inspired by the power Europe debate, this article develops a framework for describing the drivers of the EU’s engagement in external climate policies promotion, or what I call the logics of external climate action. While the power Europe debate provides useful insights on the instruments used by the EU to promote certain policies externally, the discussion on the logics of external climate action that I develop in this article aims to describe what drives the EU to apply those instruments.

The question of whether it is the EU’s interests or the needs of partner countries that determine EU foreign policy choices has been addressed in multiple studies (e.g., Bosse 2012; Kreutz 2015; Lavenex 2004, 2015; Portela 2005; Young 2014). In this debate, proponents of the intergovernmentalist approach focus on the role of the interests of powerful member states in shaping the EU’s agenda. The argument is that EU foreign policy is driven by interests, such as in geopolitics, energy security, border security, regional stability, or addressing dependencies (e.g., Bosse 2012; Lavenex 2015; Young 2014). Meanwhile, opponents of this point of view suggest that it is third countries’ vulnerabilities and needs that define the EU’s response (e.g., Dellmuth et al. 2021; Shyrokykh 2018b). Other works describe EU foreign policy as the promotion of an ideal vision of itself, arguing that EU foreign policy is, in essence, an unreflexive promotion of internal rules to the outside world (e.g., Bicchi 2006; Zielonka 2013).

Hypotheses

Is the EU a self-interested, needs-driven, or civilizing climate actor in its neighborhood? I approach this question by examining three analytically distinct logics of external climate action. The discussion pertains to the drivers of the EU’s engagement in external climate governance, but also has implications for other policy areas.

I differentiate between three competing logics of external climate action: self-interest, functional and civilizing. These logics were developed by marrying the power Europe debate (e.g., Manners 2002; Sjursen 2006; Zielonka 2013) with the Europeanization and international relations literatures. In line with this theoretical typology of logics of external climate action, I construct three hypotheses that individually correspond to these three logics.

The self-interest logic of external climate action stresses the role of the EU’s interests and those of its member states in external climate engagement. According to this logic of external climate action, the EU’s dependencies on third countries define its interests in the region and, as a result, EU foreign policy decisions. For example, interdependencies have been identified as the main driver of EU regulatory governance in its neighborhood (e.g., Lavenex 2015; Shyrokykh and Rimkutė 2019). Similarly, the literature suggests that self-interest might also define the EU’s human rights governance (Kreutz 2015; Portela 2005) and democratization agendas (Bosse 2012).

In climate and environmental policy promotion, the EU faces an uneasy dilemma: the EU wants to protect its energy imports to ensure economic growth, on the one hand, while declaring its long-term ambition to achieve climate neutrality, on the other (Godzimirski 2016, 4–5; Young 2014). Energy interests are often cited as overriding the EU’s normative concerns in its relations with Russia, Azerbaijan, and the Central Asian states (for an overview see Shyrokykh 2018b), as well as its environmental and climate norms in its relations with other energy exporters (Dupont 2015; Young 2014).

In line with the logic of self-interest, climate cooperation between the EU and its neighbors might be driven by the EU’s aim to manage existing dependencies, such as in the energy sector. The EU depends primarily on energy imports from this region, rather than other imported goods (Young 2014). If the logic of self-interest explains the EU’s engagement with the climate policies promoted in the neighborhood, we would expect to find an energy-related cooperation focus as part of climate cooperation with countries crucial to EU energy security. More precisely, the EU is greatly reliant for its energy security on energy transit through Ukraine: about 50 percent of the natural gas imported from Russia by EU member states is transited through Ukraine.³ Azerbaijan is another important energy partner for the EU in its quest for energy imports diversification.⁴ Belarus is another energy transit country for the EU, albeit less crucial. It transfers about 20 percent of EU member states’ Russian gas imports.⁵ The structure of the EU’s dependencies could therefore define the EU’s preferences on climate governance in those states.

In line with the logic of self-interest, the EU would be expected to promote its own interests that stem from its energy dependency. Therefore, variances in the set of policies that the EU promotes in the region might be expected, depending on whether a country is important for EU energy security. Thus:

H1: Guided by the logic of self-interest, energy import–related issues are included in climate cooperation with those neighbors that are important for EU energy security.

According to this hypothesis, because the EU is heavily dependent on energy imports from Russia, which are transited through Ukraine and to a lesser extent through Belarus, the EU should be expected to include energy transit in its climate cooperation with Ukraine and possibly with Belarus as well. Similarly, the EU is interested in Azerbaijani energy as part of a broader aim to diversify its energy imports, and Georgia serves as a transit country for Azerbaijani gas. Therefore, if EU external climate action is guided by the logic of self-interest, we would expect to find references to EU energy security in climate cooperation with Azerbaijan too (and possibly also with Georgia).

In contrast to the arguments put forward from the point of view of the logic of self-interest, the functional logic of external climate action emphasizes a needs-driven approach to foreign policy. According to this logic, the EU would engage in external climate governance where it is needed the most. This assumption is in line with the EU’s self-portrayal as a needs-driven actor.⁶ In line with this logic, one would expect the EU’s engagement in those countries that face the greatest climate risks and sectors that contribute the most to climate change in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

According to this expectation, EU climate cooperation objectives should be country- and sector-specific, and targeted at the most pressing climate risks and the most climate-unfriendly sectors. This hypothesis would expect to detect significant cross-country and cross-sector variance with no reference to the EU’s energy security interests. Therefore:

H2: Guided by the functional logic of external climate action, the EU promotes policies that address country- and sector-specific climate challenges.

Finally, the third logic, the civilizing logic of external climate action, highlights a Euro-centric approach to EU foreign policy. The EU is often seen as promoting standards in third countries that are simply replicas of its own rules using instruments that were originally designed for Europeanization of candidate countries (e.g., Bicchi 2006; Kelley 2006). Some even suggest that such a “missionary” approach to promoting an ideal picture of the self reflects an imperial paradigm of EU foreign policy (Zielonka 2013). The Europeanization literature attributes this lack of attention to contextual nuances in the target countries to a general institutional tendency toward isomorphism (Bicchi 2006), in conjunction with a lack of political will to address the membership aspirations of some of the EU’s neighbors (Kelley 2006).

In line with this argument, the EU would be expected to project its own policies on third countries while paying little attention to partners’ needs and with no reference to its energy-related interests. Therefore, a third hypothesis would be that:

H3: Guided by the civilizing logic of external climate action, the EU promotes its own policies that differ little across countries or sectors.

Testing these hypotheses will help to explain what drives the EU’s climate governance in the post-Soviet states of Eastern Europe. Identifying the EU’s drivers for promoting climate norms, in turn, is ultimately an ontological inquiry about the nature of the EU as an international actor. It brings us closer to understanding what type of global climate actor the EU is: self-interested, guided by its own interests; humanitarian, guided by the needs of third countries; or a missionary actor, driven by a “civilizing” mission to project its own model of governance.

Methodological Approach

To test the above hypotheses, I carried out a cross-case comparison in which I expected cross-country differences to bring about differences in climate cooperation between the EU and the post-Soviet states of Eastern Europe. Cross-case comparisons help to establish which differences between countries bring about differences in outcomes (Mahoney 2007). I analyzed how country-level differences shape the EU’s approach to climate cooperation with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.

To this end, I analyzed the multilateral and bilateral climate cooperation between the EU and these states. The analysis of multilateral cooperation was based on two climate-focused programs: Clima East and EU4Climate. These two programs were selected for analysis because, as of 2021, they were the only programs explicitly focused on climate cooperation between the EU and the six East European former Soviet republics. Some energy-oriented programs—such as E5P and EU4Energy, as well as cooperation within the Energy Community—include climate-related objectives (e.g., on energy efficiency). However, their primary objective is not the promotion of climate policies. Instead, they cover energy markets, energy trade, energy supply, and infrastructure. Since these are not designed to address climate change directly, they are not included in the analysis for this article. The role of climate objectives in energy cooperation between the EU and the post-Soviet East European states deserves attention in a separate work.

This analysis covers the period from 2013 to 2020, which is the period covered by Clima East and EU4Climate. Clima East was active between 2013 and 2017 and the ongoing EU4Climate program began in 2019 (see Appendix Table 1 in the supplemental files). To understand the drivers of EU climate governance in multilateral settings, I build on the analysis of the focus of country-level cooperation by these two programs, the explicit and only objective of which was to improve climate governance. Information on the foci of cooperation and the activities carried out was obtained from annual reports and the information available on the corresponding web pages.

To analyze the bilateral cooperation on climate, I focused on the bilateral agreements between the EU and the post-Soviet states of Eastern Europe that regulate relations between the EU and each of the individual neighbors. The EU’s relations with Azerbaijan are based on a PCA that has been in force since 1999,⁷ while bilateral relations with Belarus are currently in limbo. No further agreement has been signed since the Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States (TACIS) format ended in 2007. Like the other former Soviet republics, Belarus negotiated a PCA with the EU in the mid-1990s, but ratification has been stalled since 1995 due to its poor record on democracy and human rights. Therefore, currently, climate cooperation is not promoted in bilateral agreements with Belarus. Instead, ad hoc dialogue with the Belarusian authorities as well as the climate programs of Clima East and EU4Climate have been used. Relations with Armenia are regulated by the EU–Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA), which provisionally entered into force in 2018. The CEPA was developed as a result of Armenia’s rejection, under pressure from Russia, of a long-awaited Association Agreement with the EU in favor of joining a Russia-led Customs Union. This decision is widely believed to have derailed Armenia’s Western integration, weakened the course of reforms, and significantly deepened the country’s dependency on Russia (Giragosian 2014).⁸ Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine are the most integrated with the EU neighbors, with strong aspirations for EU membership (Shyrokykh 2018a).⁹ Their relations with the EU are regulated by Association Agreements. The three Association Agreements and Armenia’s CEPA each have separate chapters on environmental and climate cooperation, which specify how such cooperation should take place (European Commission 2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2017).

Empirical Analysis

This section empirically tests the three alternative hypotheses in an attempt to establish the drivers of EU climate policies promotion in its Eastern neighborhood. To this end, it discusses cross-country differences, systematically analyzes the objectives of climate cooperation in both multilateral frameworks and bilateral agreements, and explains the variances in climate cooperation foci.

The climate challenges facing the post-Soviet states of Eastern Europe, the extent to which each country contributes to climate change, and their commitments to reducing GHG emissions vary considerably (see Table 1). In Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus, the World Bank (2020) attributes major climate-related risks to increasing climate variability and extreme weather events, such as life-threatening river floods, landslides, and storms that will directly threaten human safety. At the same time, climate-related food and water insecurities linked to droughts, forest fires, floods, and storms pose a major challenge for the Caucasian republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia (World Bank 2020).

Table 1. Climate-Related Vulnerabilities and Emissions by Country

Country	Country ranking (1)	Emissions per capita (in tonnes) (2)	Total emissions (million tonnes) (2)	Pledged reduction (3)	Energy Community status (4)	Energy security role (5)	Key natural hazards (6)
Armenia	53.75	1,89	5.57	N/A^a	O	N/A	Droughts, heavy rainfalls, landslides and mudflows
Azerbaijan	50.97	3,7	36.79	35%	N	E/T	Flooding, earthquakes
Belarus	57.36	6,92	65.46	28%	N^b	T	Earthquakes, river floods, water scarcity, forest fires
Georgia	57.38	2,64	10.56	40%	P	T	Landslides, earthquakes, floods, flash-flooding, mudflows, droughts, avalanches, high winds and storms
Moldova	50.46	1,27	5.13	64–67%	P	N/A	Droughts, floods, severe weather events, earthquakes, severe storms, late spring frosts, hail and landslides
Ukraine	52.06	5.09	225.02	60%	P	T	High temperatures, longer summers, shifting spring frosts, life-threatening river floods, reduction in precipitation

Own calculations.

Source: (1) For country ranking, Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (2017) data have been used. Higher scores correspond to lower vulnerability; the data are for 2017. The scores vary between 76.7 for Norway and 27.1 for Chad. (2) To capture carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, data from Ritchie and Roser (2020) for the year 2018 were used. They reflect CO₂ emissions from the burning of fossil fuels for energy and cement production. Land-use change is not included.

(3) Pledged reduction by 2030 compared to 1990; the data are taken from the first round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) (UNFCCC 2020). (4) Energy Community status: O = observer; P = participant; N = non-participant (Energy Community n.d.) (5) Energy security role: N/A = no energy export/transit to the EU; T = energy transit through the country; E = energy export from the country; see the country overviews by International Energy Agency (n.d.). (6) World Bank (2020).

^aNeither Armenia’s NDC nor its biannual national communications on climate change provide a numerical pledged reduction by 2030 (compared to 1990).

^bBelarus applied for observer status in October 2016 (Energy Community n.d.).

In addition, there is a great degree of variation in the extent to which each state contributes to climate change, with Ukraine as an extreme outlier (see total emissions in Table 1), although its per capita GHG emissions are comparable to those of Belarus. Moldova makes the smallest contribution both per capita and in total. Furthermore, the level of ambition of the EU’s neighbors, in terms of their pledged reductions in GHG emissions, also varies substantially. The three associated partner countries (Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine) are the most ambitious in their commitments (see pledged reduction in Table 1).

There are also substantial cross-country differences in the climate strategies indicated in their respective Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which embody the efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. The states identify different sets of climate-related threats and priorities in their NDCs, which has implications for their mitigation (see Appendix Table 2, in the supplemental files) and adaptation (see Appendix Table 3, in the supplemental files) policies. On mitigation, only Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova consider policies related to urban development to be part of their mitigation plans. Forest management and industrial processes are not among the mitigation objectives of Azerbaijan, while renewable energy objectives are not specified by Belarus. Similarly, the pollutants included in the NDCs vary widely. In sum, there is substantial cross-country and cross-sector variance in the mitigation strategies of these states (see Appendix Table 2, in the supplemental files).

Adaptation plans also differ significantly across countries. For example, renewable energy is not developed by Georgia and Azerbaijan as a part of their adaptation strategies. Only Belarus and Moldova discuss transport infrastructure in the context of adaptation (see Appendix Table 3, in the supplemental files). The NDCs of Azerbaijan and Ukraine do not contain any explicit adaptation plans at all, but only mention mitigation plans. The biannual communications of Azerbaijan and Ukraine to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) were therefore used instead (Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Republic of Azerbaijan 2015; Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of Ukraine 2013). Food security and agriculture planning in the context of adaptation, however, are discussed by all. In addition, human health and natural ecosystems (including biodiversity and land use) are discussed by all in relation to adaptation. The analysis of NDCs shows that different countries prioritize different issues related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, which has implications for their respective climate policies.

The six states also vary in terms of their energy relations with the EU. Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine are members of the Energy Community, while Armenia has observer status (Table 1). Ukraine and Azerbaijan play an important role in the EU’s energy security: about half of the Russian natural gas imported by the EU transits through Ukraine. Azerbaijan is an important partner in the EU’s energy diversification policy, meeting about 5 percent of the EU’s demand for gas.¹⁰ Georgia plays an important role in the transit of Azeri gas through the Southern Gas Corridor. Belarus is also part of Russia’s gas transit corridor to Western Europe—about one-fifth of the gas imported from Russia by the EU transits through Belarus.¹¹ The rest comes directly from Russia to EU member states (Le Coq and Paltseva 2012). Ukraine’s major role in the transit of Russian energy to Europe and Azerbaijan’s role in EU energy diversification make them the two most important countries for EU energy security among the Eastern Partnership states. Having established significant cross-country variance in terms of emissions, vulnerabilities, and approaches to mitigation and adaptation, as well as in importance for EU energy security, we now need to establish whether the climate norms promoted by the EU in these countries vary and, if so, why.

Multilateral Cooperation

The EU has promoted climate norms in the region through two multilateral formats for climate cooperation: Clima East and EU4Climate. Clima East was a multi-year climate project set up to help partner countries develop policies on reducing GHG emissions and prepare for the impacts of climate change (adaptation). The program sought to encourage improved climate policies by supporting regional cooperation and improving access to information on the best practices of the EU member states. A large part of the cooperation involved enabling information-sharing in policy networks of stakeholders from related policy disciplines. An important component of Clima East was the support provided to develop Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions, National Adaptation Programs of Action, and Low Carbon Development Strategies. It also provided expertise and training on issues around land use, land use change, and forestry, as well as resilient agriculture, forestry vulnerabilities, and emissions trading.

EU4Climate has largely retained the objectives set by Clima East.¹² EU4Climate aims to help the Eastern partners to act on climate change by supporting them to implement the Paris Climate Agreement and improve their climate policies and legislations. EU4Climate helps to integrate low-emissions and climate-resilience objectives into the states’ development policies, as well as to improve and consolidate their climate policies. The ambition is to limit the impact of climate change on citizens’ lives and to make countries more resilient.

Climate cooperation in both programs also aims to improve the capacity of public servants in relation to national policymaking. Capacity building takes place through information sharing, the transfer of expertise and best practices, training in emissions assessment methods, and the transfer of technology. Legislative approximation with the EU through acquis transfer and assistance with implementation of international climate agreements can, in part, also be categorized as capacity building, at least where it is in connection with reporting to the UNFCCC.¹³

Clima East allowed two formats of cooperation: through general on-site capacity building events designed for more than one country at a time, and in the Clima East Expert Facility format, which consisted of EU expert visits to a beneficiary country with the purpose of providing country-specific advice targeted at an individual country’s priorities and needs.¹⁴ An analysis of Expert Facility assignments reveals several interesting patterns. Most of the expert missions were issue-specific and country-targeted: 20 expert assignments concerned climate change mitigation and 12 concerned adaptation. All but two expert assignments targeted individual countries: an assignment on climate-smart agriculture targeted Armenia and Georgia at the same time, and an assignment on vulnerability modeling jointly targeted Azerbaijan and Georgia. Of the 34 expert missions to the region, there were six in Armenia, three in Azerbaijan, eight in Belarus, six in Georgia, two in Moldova, and nine in Ukraine. In Armenia and Belarus, most of the expert assignments were related to adaptation. In the remaining states, most of the events were on climate change mitigation (for more see Appendix Figure 1, in the supplemental files). Among the major topics of the Expert Facility assignments were resilient agriculture, including food and water security; national adaptation planning; NDC development; assistance with emissions assessment and reporting to the UNFCCC; and support with acquis implementation, which primarily concerned the countries that had Association Agreements with the EU. Most of the expert assignments in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine concerned mitigation-related legislative alignment and were designed to assist with the implementation of Association Agreements.

Interestingly, it was not only the states with membership aspirations, but also those most resistant to democratic transformation—Azerbaijan and Belarus—that hosted expert missions that aimed to transfer knowledge and share best practices of the EU member states, draft legislation, and climate-related recommendations and policy advice on National Adaptation Plans, NDCs, and reporting to the UNFCCC. Thus, while resisting pressure for democratization, both Azerbaijan and Belarus welcomed cooperation on best climate practices, knowledge transfer, and climate-related policymaking.

By contrast, most of the Clima East general events were designed for the entire region and had little country-specific focus. In addition, most of the events were designed for information sharing rather than policy development or implementation. Significant attention was paid to the transfer of knowledge and skills from the EU member states to the Eastern partners. This emphasis on the EU member states’ own practices suggests that this climate cooperation was driven by an intention to transfer EU standards rather than develop policies to address country-specific climate-related risks and national governance challenges. Topic-wise, more events addressed both adaptation and mitigation issues as opposed to having a single emphasis (see Appendix Figure 2, in the supplemental files). In sum, cooperation in the Clima East general events displays traces of the civilizing logic of external climate action. This cooperation was mostly about sharing the best practices of the member states and transferring the EU’s acquis. At the same time, however, cooperation within the Clima East Expert Facility accommodated and addressed country- and sector-specific needs. Thus, cooperation within the Expert Facility can be best described as following the functional logic of external climate action.

A complex mix of drivers of EU climate governance in the region is also apparent from the cooperation under the EU4Climate program. This cooperation targets country-specific climate threats, displaying an approach that can be most closely linked to the functional logic of external climate action. For instance, substantial attention in project reports is paid to detecting the largest emitter sectors, identifying individual climate threats and vulnerable sectors, and addressing the corresponding challenges (see Appendix Tables 4 and 5, in the supplemental files). For example, renewables have been identified as an underdeveloped sector in Armenia and action is planned to address this particular policy area. Likewise, mitigation-related cooperation designed to address those sectors that emit the most GHGs is planned in the region (see Appendix Table 4, in the supplemental files).

Following the functional logic, country-specific progress in different policy areas is monitored in each of the Eastern partners (see Appendix Tables 6 and 7, in the supplemental files) and cooperation plans are developed according to the speed of progress (see Appendix Table 5, in the supplemental files). For example, recognizing Ukraine’s slow progress in developing its National Adaptation Plan, one of the main objectives of cooperation within EU4Climate is to help Ukraine develop its adaptation strategy (see Appendix Table 5, in the supplemental files). Similarly, given insufficient national regulation of fluorinated gases (F-gases) in Moldova, EU4Climate has tracked progress and is planning future cooperation in this area (see Appendix Tables 5 and 7, in the supplemental files).

On the other hand, there is much less cross-country variance in EU4Climate cooperation on climate adaptation and mainstreaming compared to other cooperation foci (cf. Appendix Figure 3, in the supplemental files), despite the different records of the progress of individual countries systematically noted in EU4Climate reports (cf. Appendix Tables 6 and 7, in the supplemental files). Cooperation on adaptation and mainstreaming is planned for the entire duration of EU4Climate in all six states. There is much greater variance in cooperation on NDCs, low emission development strategies, and measurement, reporting, and verification systems, as well as climate investments where cooperation is related to the actual progress of individual countries in the corresponding policy areas.

The lack of variance in policy cooperation on adaptation and mainstreaming can be explained by the fact that both are multifaceted issues that relate to multiple policy areas. Both adaptation and mainstreaming are also long-term goals. Neither can be achieved in a short period and both will require systematic legislative changes and concrete adaptation measures pertaining, for example, to costal area protection, the adaptation of water systems and agriculture to increasing temperatures and greater climate variability, and the development of infrastructure that is resilient to extreme weather events.

Meanwhile, other elements of cooperation within EU4Climate suggest that such cooperation is motivated, in part, by the EU’s self-interest. When describing priorities for climate cooperation with Azerbaijan and Ukraine, for instance, both energy imports and transit are mentioned.¹⁵ However, it is important to stress that these objectives do not dominate cooperation activities in either state. Although listed among the areas of climate cooperation, it is not the EU’s energy security, but country-specific gaps in mitigation and adaptation that drive multilateral climate cooperation. Taken together, the analysis suggests that in multilateral cooperation programs, the EU displays the functional logic of external climate action with some elements of the logics of self-interest and civilizing.¹⁶

Bilateral Cooperation

Climate change mitigation and adaptation are also addressed in the bilateral cooperation between the EU and the post-Soviet countries of Eastern Europe. The intensity of bilateral cooperation between the EU and these neighbors is best described by the degree of their political integration with the EU. As relations between the EU and most of its neighbors deepen, bilateral cooperation agreements address a greater number of policy areas. Over the past 30 years, relations between the EU and its neighborhood have developed from TACIS to PCAs to Association Agreements.

Thus, the PCA with Azerbaijan pays relatively little attention to climate change and environmental protection. Cooperation on climate change and the environment is only briefly mentioned in Article 56 of the EU–Azerbaijan PCA, which states that “parties shall strengthen their cooperation on combating the deterioration of the environment” (European Commission 1999). In particular, the agreement stipulates that this cooperation shall relate to the monitoring of pollution and combating air and water pollution, as well ensuring sustainable and efficient energy production and use, the safe handling of chemicals, efficient waste management, and the protection of forests and biodiversity, effective land-use planning, climate-related awareness raising, technology transfer, and implementation of the Espoo Convention on environmental impact assessment (Article 56, par. 2). Such cooperation is supposed to take place through disaster planning, exchanges of information, research, the enactment of laws in line with EU standards, capacity building, policy planning, and monitoring (Article 56, par. 3). However, the PCA contains no concrete regulations or other means for achieving the objectives outlined.

The EU’s bilateral relations with Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine are regulated by their respective Association Agreements. Each must adopt an extensive list of concrete EU-level secondary laws into their national legislations. All three Association Agreements prescribe nearly the same set of regulations pertaining to air and water quality, nature protection, waste management, and chemical and industrial processes, as well as regulations limiting emissions and the use of harmful substances that contribute to ozone layer depletion (cf. Appendix Table 8, in the supplemental files). For example, the Association Agreements prescribe that the three neighbors must implement the mitigation measures stipulated in EU Directives on GHG emission-trading schemes, fluorinated GHGs, and protecting the ozone layer.¹⁷

Although supposedly a lighter version of a cooperation agreement in comparison to an Association Agreement, the EU–Armenia CEPA includes the same environmental and climate provisions as the Association Agreements with Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The analysis of the bilateral agreements suggests that they do not account for the country- or sector-level characteristics or needs. Instead, despite the existence of significant cross-country differences (cf. Table 1), the lists of climate norms included in the agreements are almost identical and comprise EU-level regulations and directives (cf. Appendix Table 8, in the supplemental files). All four countries have nearly identical lists of acquis to implement, which can be best explained by the civilizing logic of the EU’s external climate action.

The only policy areas where some degree of variance across countries can be found are the regulation of chemicals and genetically modified organisms. The Association Agreement with Georgia and the CEPA with Armenia do not discuss the regulation of genetically modified organisms. Similarly, the regulation on management of chemical processes is not discussed in the Agreement with Ukraine and little discussed in the Agreement with Georgia. Future research could investigate the cross-country differences in these two policy areas.

Finally, the logic of self-interest arises in the reports that summarize countries’ progress with the implementation of Association Agreements. For example, a report summarizing Ukraine’s progress with implementing its Association Agreement merges energy transit cooperation and climate policy in the same discussion, giving the former significantly more attention (European Commission 2020b). Similarly, more attention is paid to the EU’s Strategic Energy Partnership than to a discussion of climate cooperation in the EU’s reports on bilateral cooperation with Azerbaijan (see e.g., European Commission 2019b).

In sum, the analysis of multilateral and bilateral cooperation demonstrates that the EU is a complex climate actor with multiple drivers of its engagement with climate governance in the post-Soviet countries of Eastern Europe. Cooperation can be said primarily to follow the functional logic of external climate action, and cooperation goals are set to address country- and sector-specific needs. At the same time, the civilizing logic of external action is also prominently reflected in bilateral cooperation agreements. Albeit to a lesser extent, the logic of self-interest is apparent in the EU’s relations with Azerbaijan and Ukraine, which are both important partners in ensuring the EU’s energy security.

Discussion and Conclusions

In the context of the main focus of this special issue on the role of international organizations in the environmental agenda of post-Soviet countries, this paper aspired to shed more light on the role of the EU as a leading climate actor in the East European former Soviet republics. While Russia-led international organizations such as the EAEU, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and the CIS are important players in the region, the promotion of climate norms is dominated by the EU .

The EU uses multiple instruments pertaining to dialogue, capacity building, and expertise sharing, as well as assistance with the implementation of multilateral agreements and the transposition of the EU acquis. Much of the Europeanization literature addresses the question of the effects of these instruments. This article seeks to turn the attention away from the effects to the drivers of the EU’s external engagement, in order to explain why the EU promotes climate norms in the post-Soviet countries of Eastern Europe. I approached this question by examining three analytically distinct logics of external climate action.

The article demonstrates that the EU is a complex climate actor. Climate governance in the EU’s neighborhood has elements of all three logics of external action. The EU’s self-interest is apparent in its cooperation with countries that are key to EU energy security. Bilateral climate cooperation with Azerbaijan and Ukraine is tightly connected to cooperation on energy imports and transit. In states that are less crucial to EU energy security, climate cooperation makes no mention of energy transit or imports as a field of climate cooperation.

By contrast, cooperation on climate acquis alignment can be best described as following the civilizing logic of external climate action. Thus, the systematic analysis of the EU climate and environmental acquis promoted in bilateral agreements in the region found little variance despite significant country- and sector-level differences. These findings corroborate existing arguments in the Europeanization literature about the EU’s “one-size-fits-all” approach to policy toward its neighborhood. The EU’s economic agreements with its Eastern neighbors have been criticized for being nearly identical to one another (Balfour 2013, 52), and the one-size-fits-all approach has also been highlighted in other policy areas (Bicchi 2006; Kelley 2006; Zielonka 2013).

Finally, cooperation in the multilateral climate programs Clima East and EU4Climate has largely followed the functional logic of external climate action. These programs are mostly organized around the country- and sector-specific cooperation objectives that address the most pressing climate-related issues.

In sum, as this article demonstrates, the EU’s drivers for engaging in climate governance in third countries are multiple and often coexist in the same cooperation formats. All three logics, rather than any single one, explain the EU’s engagement in external climate governance, but the functional logic is slightly more prominent than the other two. The coexistence of different drivers of climate cooperation can, at least in part, be explained by the decision-making procedures of the EU. Bilateral cooperation agreements are negotiated with the heavy involvement of the European Council, where the interests of individual member states can prevail. Meanwhile, capacity-building cooperation is decided on by the European Commission, which may make it less interests-oriented. In this way, the particular EU institutions participating in the decision-making can directly affect which instruments are selected and how they are applied in external climate governance. To move forward, future research should establish further how the engagement of different EU institutions and bodies (e.g., the European Parliament, specialized agencies, etc.) shapes the objectives of climate cooperation with third countries.

Acknowledgments

I thank members of Glocalizing Climate Governance (GlocalClim) project, as well as participants of a Global and Regional Governance workshop at Stockholm University for useful discussions. I also thank Anastassia Obydenkova and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on this article. Andrew Mash deserves credit for language editing.

Disclosure Statement

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

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website at https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2021.1974888

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development [Formas, 2015-00948].

Notes

1. Historically, the European Commission’s Directorate-General (DG) for Environment was responsible for climate policy before DG Climate Action was created in 2009 (Dupont 2015, 9). Therefore, climate-related policies were often labeled environmental policies and there was little distinction made between the two terms. For example, policies related to ozone layer depletion were regarded as environmental. Since the establishment of a separate DG explicitly in charge of climate issues, environmental- and climate-related policies have been addressed separately, which is also reflected in the language used by the European Commission. Environmental concerns are typically understood as localized challenges, such as air quality, noise abatement, chemical spills, safe waste management, and recycling. Climate-related risks relate to more global challenges, such as greenhouse gas emissions, food insecurity as a result of more frequent droughts, infrastructure resilience to increasing temperatures, and sea level rise. Nonetheless, there are overlaps between the two DGs. For example, both DGs target emissions, although at different scales. The DG for Environment focuses on making industrial processes more sustainable while DG Climate Action prioritizes international efforts to reduce emissions.

2. For example, EU trade agreements with the following countries include clauses on sustainability: Canada, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Georgia, Japan, Mexico, Moldova, Singapore, South Korea, Ukraine, Vietnam, Central America (Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Guatemala), and Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay).

3. For more on the EU’s dependence on Ukraine as a transit country for gas, see https://www.clingendaelenergy.com/files.cfm?event=files.download&ui=9C1DEEC1-5254-00CF-FD03186604989704.

4. On the EU’s cooperation priorities in its relations with Azerbaijan, see https://ec.europa.eu/neighborhood-enlargement/news_corner/news/partnership-priorities-between-eu-and-azerbaijan-reinforce-bilateral-agenda_en.

5. For more on the EU’s dependence on Belarus, see https://jamestown.org/program/belaruss-role-in-east-european-energy-geopolitics/.

6. For example, the EU’s engagement with climate governance in the neighborhood, as described in the Green Deal, is justified by needs-driven arguments (European Commission 2019a).

7. Deeper economic integration is prevented by the state’s poor record on human rights and democracy.

8. In 2013, Russia used a variety of political and economic instruments to suppress the Eastern Partners’ ambitions for economic integration with the EU. As in Armenia, this pressure led to a foreign policy U-turn in Ukraine, which rejected the long-planned Association Agreement. This change in foreign policy in favor of Russia triggered mass protest and a subsequent change of government, as well as a return to a pro-EU foreign policy.

9. Georgia’s EU membership aspirations date back to the 2004 Rose Revolution, Moldova’s to the 2005 declaration that European integration was a foreign policy priority, and Ukraine’s to the 2004 Orange Revolution (Freyburg et al. 2011). Others trace Ukraine’s aspirations for Euro-Atlantic integration to the 1990s (Shyrokykh 2018a).

10. For more on EU–Azerbaijan relations, see https://ec.europa.eu/neighborhood-enlargement/sites/near/files/eap_summit_factsheet_azerbaijan_eng.pdf.

11. On energy transit through Belarus, see https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/125717/RU_21.pdf.

12. For a comparative review of the two programs, see Appendix Table 1, in the supplemental files.

13. Such cooperation takes place in short events, such as training workshops and seminars.

14. For more information, see https://europa.eu/capacity4dev/env-east/discussions/clima-east-project-announces-new-round-applications-its-expert-facility.

15. See the corresponding country profiles available on the EU4Climate webpage.

16. For more information, see the country profiles on the EU4Climate webpage.

17. Directive 2003/87/EC on establishing a scheme for greenhouse gas emission trading and Regulation (EC) 842/2006 on certain fluorinated greenhouse gases; Regulation (EC) No 1005/2009 of the European Parliament and the Council of September 16, 2009, on substances that deplete the ozone layer.