‘Move the gateposts during the Game’: When Russia and the EU de-order both their relationship and the liberal world order

Abstract

The article looks at EU-Russian relations and their current crisis through the prism of the liberal world order (LWO) and its contestation. Since the late 1990s Russia has gradually moved from neorevisionist to revisionist challenge of the LWO, undermining in its relations with the EU such components of this order as political values and security. The EU previously positioned itself as a staunch defender of the LWO; Brussels tried both to enforce elements of the LWO and to accommodate Russia’s concerns so that EU-Russian relations were embedded in the LWO. However, 24 February 2022 became a watershed moment. Moscow’s challenge to the security and values’ components of the LWO became too big for the EU to manage. The EU’s 2022 sanctions heralded a move from the efforts to integrate Russia by all means to the LWO to the efforts to isolate Russia by all means and to deny Russia access to any components of the LWO. In particular, the EU challenges cooperation through international institutions, political values, economic interdependence and transnational links. This EU change undermines the very LWO that the EU tries to defend and that guarantees the EU a privileged position. Moreover, prospects of long-term settlement in the European continent and of engagement with Russia are severely compromised.