the soviet and post-soviet review 42 (2015) 150-173 Ukraine's Fault Lines: The Quest for Regional Hegemony in the Post-Soviet Space (original) (raw)
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Ukraine’s Fault Lines: The Quest for Regional Hegemony in the Post-Soviet Space
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Journal of European Studies, 2018
While negotiations for the accession of some countries to the European Union (EU) are still underway, the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), initiated in 2004, is working to bring the states neighbouring the EU territory in the east and the south, to a closer economic and security coordination. Further, in 2009 the Eastern Partnership (EaP) program was inaugurated with a particular objective of coordinating with the post-Soviet states. In this context, the Soviet successor states – Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been approached, and some instruments of partnership have been signed. On the other hand, these countries also form a part of what Russia perceives as her " near abroad " , whose interests Moscow has tactically aligned with its own through many bilateral accords as well as ventures like the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In 2015, along with Belarus and Kazakhstan, Russia announced the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). In order to compete with the European Union, the organisation aims to incorporate other Eurasian states. Against the backdrop of the stated developments, with the help of the 'dualistic operational model', this paper attempts to compare the functionalist and imperialist aspects of the two endeavours (Eastern Partnership and EEU). It questions the viability of the idea of Eastern Partnership. Also, it weighs the possibilities of a confrontation between the EU and Russia, and its repercussions on the concerned states.
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EU-Russia relations in the context of the eastern neighbourhood
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This paper briefly examines EU-Russia relations in the context of the eastern neighbourhood. Both the EU and Russia’s ambitions for the eastern region have evolved into two competing region-building projects underpinned by differing strategies, norms, instruments, and actors. Although projecting competing rationalities, the two projects, until recently, had peacefully co-existed, working around conflicting issues of political norms and economic convergence, which were not necessarily seen as insurmountable for furthering regional cooperation. Their subsequent politicisation and securitisation, as a consequence of events in Ukraine, have rendered regional partnership currently incompatible, revealing a profound lack of understanding the region by both the EU and Russia; and the EU under-exploited capacity to work co-jointly with the Eurasian Union (and Russia) vis-a-vis the region. The author of this paper, Elena Korosteleva, contends that the EU must make an effort to acknowledge and engage with the above actors over the region, in order to develop cooperative strategies, based on shared interests, international norms and compatible instruments for the advancement of economic and political convergence across the region.