The Ukraine Crisis as a Conflict over Europe’s Political, Economic and Security Order

ABSTRACT

The article analyses the conflict between the EU and Russia over Ukraine and other countries in the common neighbourhood as a collision between two visions of European order: the liberal norms-based order, as perceived and represented by the EU, and Russia’s pursuit of a multipolar international order where major powers are entitled to a privileged role in their adjacent regions. It makes an analytical distinction between three dimensions of the conflict: first, the norms and values of political order; second, economic order, in other words the norms regulating economic activity; and third, European security order and, more broadly, the norms of international security. There are profound disagreements between the EU and Russia along each dimension. It is misleading to call the conflict ‘geopolitical’, if geopolitics is understood in the realist spirit as a zero-sum battle over who controls the region. What is at the core of the conflict is the norms and values of European order which define inter alia Ukraine’s place in Europe.

Notes

^1. The interviews were conducted by the author in the framework of her research at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, examining different aspects of EU foreign policy and diplomacy. The interviewees included representatives of the European External Action Service, European Commission and General Secretariat of the Council of the EU, as well as Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Spain and Sweden. The interviews were semi-structured and anonymous in order to allow for a more open discussion. Although the article only makes a couple of references to the interviews, the analysis has benefitted from dozens of such discussions. The aim of this article is to synthesize a big-picture analysis.

^2. For a critical geopolitical analysis, see (Svarin 2016).

^3. As expressed in the speech by President Vladimir Putin, 18th March 2014, available at http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20603, accessed 21st February 2017.

^4. Introduction to this special section.

^5. The weaknesses and failures of the EU’s democracy promotion policies have been extensively analysed, inter alia, in Youngs (2010).

^6. Freedom House reports indicate a constant decline in Russia’s democracy score since 2001. See Freedom House, Nations in Transit, available at https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/nations-transit-2015#.VrofME3Vxjo, accessed 21st February 2017.

^7. Author interviews with Lithuanian diplomats, Vilnius, May 2013; and EU diplomats, Brussels and Moscow, December 2013.

^8. Author interviews with EU diplomats, Brussels and Moscow, December 2013.

^9. European Council, ‘Joint Declaration of the Eastern Partnership Summit’, Riga, 21–22nd May 2015.

^10. European Commission, ‘The trilateral talks on DCFTA implementation’, 21st December 2015, available at: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2015/december/tradoc_154126.pdf, accessed 21st February 2017.

^11. ‘EU’s Juncker dangles trade ties with Russia-led bloc to Putin’, Reuters 19th November 2015, available at: http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-russia-trade-kremlin-exclusive-idUKKCN0T82O920151119; ‘Germany pushes EU-Russia deal to avert Ukraine trade pact tension’, Financial Times 1st December 2015.

^12. The idea to establish a special policy for the ‘new Eastern neighbours’ had been promoted especially by Poland since the late 1990s.

^13. European Commission and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, ‘Review of the European Neighbourhood Policy’, 18th November 2015, available at: http://eeas.europa.eu/enp/documents/2015/151118_joint-communication_review-of-the-enp_en.pdf, accessed 21st February 2017.

^14. The concept of ‘Novorossiya’, propagated in 2014, suggested further territorial ambitions. On various obstacles to the Novorossiya project, see (Rácz and Moshes 2014).

^15. European Commission and High Representative 2015 (note 14); European Commission and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, ‘A Strategic Approach to Resilience in the EU’s External Action’, Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council, Brussels, 7th June 2017, available at: https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/join_2017_21_f1_communication_from_commission_to_inst_en_v7_p1_916039.pdf, accessed 3rd August 2017.

^16. For a Russian perspective, see (Glazyev 2015).