Russia and its shared neighbourhoods: a comparative analysis of Russia-EU and Russia-China relations in the EU's Eastern neighbourhood and Central Asia

This article examines the conditions under which great powers succeed or fail to shape a cooperative security agenda in their shared neighbourhoods. It compares Russia's interactions with the EU and with China in their respective shared neighbourhoods: the EU's Eastern Neighbourhood region and Central Asia. The article applies a synthetic framework. It analyses how the interplay between three factors–ideas, capabilities and circumstantial factors such, as the personalities of leading politicians,–shape the process of interaction between great powers. It starts from a comparison of the images of the two regions in Russia's mind-set because such images provide cognitive lenses through which powers make sense of political developments in shared neighbourhoods. The article then moves to show how change in the balance of power (soft and hard) created enabling conditions for competition/collaboration. Finally, the article shows how specific circumstantial factors led to or shaped the Russian-European conflict. At the same time, similar factors prevented Russian-Chinese conflict in Central Asia. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

EU-Russia energy relations

Energy trade is a long-standing pillar of European Union (EU)-Russia relations. Russia is the main provider of oil, gas, and solid fuels to the EU. The EU’s demand for reliable energy supplies from abroad and Russia’s desire to capitalize on its vast fossil fuels resources have led to strong interdependence in the energy sector. However, within the EU, assessments of the energy relationship with Russia have become more controversial since the late 2000s, and particularly after the Ukraine crisis. The chapter explores the main scholarly debates concerning the EU-Russia energy relationship. It puts the relationship in a historical context and discusses the consequences of the Ukraine crisis, including the measures taken by each side to diversify their partners. The chapter argues that the existing path dependencies in the EU-Russia energy relationship, together with market forces, continue to drive bilateral trade. While the focus is mostly on gas trade and geopolitics, the growing relevance of nuclear power and of renewable energy sources is also analyzed

Still Rooted in Maastricht: EU External Relations as a ‘Third-generation Hybrid’

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Journal of European Integration on 29 Oct 2012, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/07036337.2012.726010This article argues that EU external relations since the Maastricht Treaty have constituted the Union as a hybrid international actor, reflecting a number of tensions built into the roots of the treaty. These tensions - reflected in the international roles and status of the EU - arise from the logics expressed in institutions and policies, and the ways in which those logics interact with each other when confronted with situations in which diplomatic, economic and security concerns are entangled. The result is that the EU has an ambiguous relationship to issues of European and world order. Since Maastricht, successive grafts in treaties and other forms have added elements to the EU's external relations, but have not resolved the basic issues and ambiguities attending hybridity. The article explores these issues and ambiguities and relates them to four key roles claimed by the EU in the world arena: those of market actor, security actor, diplomatic actor and normative actor. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC