Finally coming of age? EU foreign and security policy after Ukraine

Abstract

ABSTRACT The war on Ukraine is the most severe security crisis that Europe, and the European Union (EU), has faced since World War II. Contrary to what many expected, the EU responded quickly and comprehensively to the Russian invasion. How, if in any way, does the EU’s response to the war on Ukraine suggest that the EU is coming of age in the foreign and security domain? By exploring EU policies and actions across three key maturation processes, our analysis finds that the EU has become a more mature foreign policy actor, in a process that started well before the Russian full scale invasion but has escalated since then. With its broad response to the war on Ukraine, the EU has shown an increased ability to take quick decisions, provide resources and combine various instruments in response to a crisis (increased decision-making ability); it is taking on a clearer foreign policy role/identity as a principled pragmatist and crisis manager (more stable identity status); and this plays out in its relations with the US, in NATO and bilaterally (more salient and defined relations).