Looking towards the East: the High Representative’s role in EU foreign policy on Kosovo and Ukraine

Abstract

ASBTRACT My article addresses the role of the two post-Lisbon High Representatives (HRs), Catherine Ashton and Federica Mogherini, in EU approach to the Eastern neighbourhood. Adopting a broad conceptualisation of EU foreign policy and drawing on the scholarly literature on new intergovernmentalism, it focuses on events that marked the HRs' mandates in the cases of Kosovo and Ukraine. In the case of Kosovo, it examines the HRs' role in the conclusion of the so-called Brussels Agreement (April 2013); and of the August 2015 agreements. In the case of Ukraine, it reconstructs how the HRs dealt with the events leading up to the November 2013 Vilnius Summit; and with those leading up to the conclusion in February 2015 of the Minsk II Agreement. The article argues that the European Council exerts tight control over the post-Lisbon HR, and EU foreign policy-making processes more generally. Nonetheless, the empirical analysis demonstrates that, under certain circumstance, the HR can significantly influence EU foreign policy in the post-Lisbon era.