Great game or great confusion? The geopolitical understanding of EU-Russia energy relations

This article explains why a considerable part of the International Relations literature frames highly complex energy relations between the EU and Russia in terms of simple, exclusive geopolitical intentions. Drawing on Construal Level Theory, it addresses the gap between immediate interaction between various private and public actors with their own agendas and individual intentionalities and assumed collective geopolitical intentionalities. Because of the degree of abstraction, collective motivations are attributed to actors like Russia and the EU. This attribution risks to be subject to bias. It is argued that higher psychological distance increases the likelihood of more radical and ideologised framing. These abstract schemes do not follow from the endogenous energy dynamics but are function of a broader logic of competition which has characterised EU-Russia relations

Building a Stronger Eastern Partnership: Towards an EaP 2.0

The European Union has been working to deepen the economic and political relationship with its Eastern neighbouring countries over the recent years. A set of formal agreements are intended for signature between the EU and Ukraine, Moldova and the South Caucasus states at the Eastern Partnership (EaP) summit scheduled for 28-29 November 2013. These agreements have provoked a response from the Russian Federation which is seeking to offer an alternative set of economic relationship to the exclusion of the EU. In the first Policy Paper to be published, the recently created Global Europe Centre (GEC) sets out a reform agenda that the EU needs to adopt towards the EaP states to enable a more binding relationship. The paper argues that the EU needs to define a ‘next generation’ objective for the EaPas it enters the implementation phase of the current set of Association Agreements (AAs). The proposal is that the EU should set a European Partnership Community (EPC) statusas a bilateral and multilateral goal for the EaP. The paper contends that there is urgency for the EU to think more strategically vis-à-vis its neighbourhood, and create a more clear-cut place for Russia to avoid the current situation of divisive competition. Further, the EU needs to reform aspects of its current EaP policy. The EU needs to define a clearer, and measureable set of objectives for its role in the resolution of the ‘frozen’ conflicts of its Eastern neighbourhood; refresh its policy towards Belarus; speed up visa liberalisation to ease travel for citizens of the EU’s neighbouring states; and deepen and broaden civil society engagement by investing more in deep democracy, linkage and people-to-people contacts

Not on speaking terms, but business as usual: the ambiguous coexistence of conflict and cooperation in EU–Russia relations

Since the crisis over Ukraine erupted, relations between Russia and the EU have been characterised by the coexistence of competition and cooperation. How can we explain this ambiguity? First, a distinction is made between the multi-actor structure of low politics versus polarised discursive positions in high politics. Construal-Level Theory is invoked to explain how low politics is characterised by concrete images, while high politics is characterised by abstract, ideologised images. Second, the article considers the interaction between both levels and argues that the contagion from more cooperative low level practices to the defrosting of EU-Russia relations is unlikely

Gorbachev’s ‘Common European Home’ and its relevance for Russian foreign policy today

At the end of the 1980s the Soviet Union’s last leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, launched the idea of a ‘Common European Home’. It was part of his campaign for New Political Thinking in foreign policy, which aimed to deideologise the Soviet approach to international affairs, and positioned the country firmly within a European political community and civilisation. While the concept Common European Home has faded away with the Soviet Union, many of its supporting ideas resonate in Russia’s foreign policy discourse under Putin. Four similarities stand out: the preference for a multipolar Europe without dividing lines, indivisible and collective pan-European security, free trade from Lisbon to Vladivostok and intra-European relations founded on international law. But some fundamental characteristics have changed. First, the context of Russian-European relations has altered substantially and many ideas are now used in an antagonistic context, to reject Euro-Atlantic hegemony. Even if the wording often remains similar, the emphasis is now on Russia’s sovereign and independent path. Secondly, the core idea of a unified European civilisation has been replaced by the notion of competition between civilisations. Hereby Russia claims to represent genuine European values, giving the latter a strongly conservative interpretation. Finally, the Eurasian turn in Russian foreign policy has undermined the centrality of Europe in its discourse. Rather than envisaging a collaborative Europe, Russian and EU integration initiatives are seen as rivalling. This evolution of Russia’s vision on Europe did not change abruptly with Putin’s ascent to power but built up gradually in the decade before the Ukraine crisis, against a background of escalating tensions and growing distrust

Russia's War in Ukraine: a Watershed for Europe

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 marks a watershed. First, it signifies the return in Europe of large-scale interstate war, aimed at territorial expansion. Second, it indicates a radical shift in Russia’s strategy, from destabilising Ukraine through relatively limited means to massive military coercion. Third, it seals the end of the post Cold War security order, whose deep crisis made it ineffective to prevent the conflict. Fourth, the war reinforced the transatlantic front, thus aggravating Russia’s security concerns. The war cannot be explained as the result of an escalation of tensions with the West, as there is too much of a disconnect and disproportionality between Moscow’s voiced security concerns and its war objectives. It is vital to understand domestic factors: the Kremlin’s perception of the ‘loss’ of Ukraine, in a blend of geopolitical and identity-based thinking, and the gradual escalation of its Ukraine strategy, because of consecutively failing scenarios

The Unintended Consequences of a European Neighbourhood Policy without Russia

After Russia’s retreat from the European Neighbourhood Policy, the EU’s policy towards its eastern neighbours was split up. The internal unintended consequence of the EU’s choice to leave its policy unaltered was a tension between the objective of privileged relations with ENP countries and a promise to recognise the interests of Russia as an equal partner. Externally, the unintended outcome was that this fostered two opposing strategic environments: a cooperative one for the EaP and a competitive one with Russia. In terms of the management of unintended consequences, the EU has actively sought to reinforce its normative hegemony towards EaP countries, while at the same time mitigating certain negative unintended effects

From logic of competition to conflict: understanding the dynamics of EU-Russia relations

To understand the gradual worsening of EU–Russia relations in the decade preceding the Ukraine crisis, it is essential to understand the dynamics of their interaction. This article divides EU–Russia relations into three stages on the basis of changing intergroup dynamics: asymmetrical cooperation (1992–2003), pragmatic but increasing competition (2004–2013) and conflict (2013–present). It draws on the concept of ‘attributional bias’ to explain the escalating logic of competition during the second stage. The EU and Russia started to attribute each other negative geopolitical intentions up to the point where these images became so dominant that they interpreted each other’s behaviour almost exclusively in terms of these images, rather than on the basis of their actual behaviour. With the Ukraine crisis, EU–Russia relations changed from competition over institutional arrangements in the neighbourhood and over normative hegemony to conflict over direct control

The different faces of power in EU-Russia relations

This article applies Barnett and Duvall’s taxonomy of power to EU-Russia relations aiming to understand power in its complexity and without a priori theoretical assumptions. Four different types of power – compulsory, institutional, structural and productive - feature simultaneously. It is argued that non-compulsory forms of power are key to understand the logic of competition in EU-Russia relations in the decade preceding the 2014 Ukraine crisis, despite receiving limited scholarly attention. First, a struggle over institutional power, the capacity to control the conditions of the other actor indirectly, appeared from rivalling integration projects and competing norm diffusion. Secondly, power relations were strongly characterised by constitutive forms of power - structural and productive -, in particular the capacity to produce and recognise identities, such as Europeanness. In both fields the EU held a hegemonic position, which Russia increasingly challenged. The geopolitical reading of the regime change in Ukraine in 2014 prompted Moscow to a radical change of strategy, shifting the emphasis in the confrontation to compulsory power. Attempts at direct control, from annexation to sanctions, now dominate relations. Whereas Russia seeks to prevent the Euro-Atlantic community from gaining effective control over Ukraine through destabilisation, this can be labelled ‘negative’ compulsory power