EU Actorness in the Conflict in Ukraine: Between ‘Comprehensive’ Ambitions and the Contradictory Realities of an Enlarged ‘Technical’ Role

Abstract

The EU as an actor in international affairs does so far have only limited experience in conflict management. Nevertheless, it has formulated the goal of playing the role of a ‘comprehensive’ conflict manager already in 2013. In the post-Soviet region, the Union until recently hardly lived up to that ambition and has mostly restricted itself to a technical profile. This article asks for the EU’s contribution to conflict management in Ukraine since 2014 and for its respective development as a foreign policy actor. It finds that the Union in Ukraine largely remains wedded to the ‘partial-indirect’ type of conflict manager but that it has also demonstrated some progress towards a more political and less technocratic profile. In the Ukraine conflict, the EU has shown remarkable pragmatism, a willingness to invest resources on an unprecedented level, and the ability to securitize its policies in substance. It can be argued that the EU, based on its comprehensive support to state building projects in Ukraine, is on the way towards the establishment of a ‘state building–security nexus’ in the ENP framework. Yet, there exists a dangerous gap between the level of investment on the one hand and the low political profile of the institutions and the lack of strategy on the other hand.