In the context of increasing instability in the security environment of the European Union’s (EU) eastern neighbourhood, tensions have emerged between its normative identity and its capacity for effective action. Developments following the 2020 presidential elections in Belarus – including the forced landing of a civilian aircraft in Minsk and the migration crisis at the EU’s borders in 2021, as well as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 – have contributed to a significant revision of the EU’s foreign policy.
The aim of this article is to provide a comparative analysis of the EU’s foreign policy towards Russia and Belarus following the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon (2009–2025), as well as to assess the implications of this evolution for the EU’s identity as an international actor. The analysis is based on content and political discourse analysis, process tracing, and a comparative method, and covers two research periods: 2009–2020 and 2020–2025, demarcated by the 2020 presidential elections in Belarus. The findings indicate that the transformation of the EU’s foreign policy towards Russia and Belarus after 2020 – from a transactional approach aimed at maintaining the status quo in terms of short-term economic and political gains to a more coherent and strategically oriented model – was driven by the escalation of security threats to the EU. This transformation contributes to the reconfiguration of the EU’s identity as an actor with growing geopolitical potential.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 > >>
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.
