Who owns resilience? EU blueprints and local realities in the South Caucasus

Territorial Conflict, Domestic Crisis, and the Covid-19 Pandemic in the South Caucasus. Explaining Variegated EU Responses.

Oddly enough, much of what is happening in the South Caucasus today resembles the turmoil of the pre-Soviet era and the inter-war period of the early twentieth century. As was the case then, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are again facing the daunting task of safeguarding their state sovereignty and protecting national security. The region's unique geostrategic position is now of crucial significance for the evolution of the twenty-first century world order. While competition for energy resources is a highly geopolitical issue, the rivalry over control and influence in the South Caucasus has become an ideological factor and acquired greater strategic importance for Russia and the EU.The South Caucasus nations face the momentous choice between repeating the events of the early 1920s, when the Soviet Union was created, or those of the late 1940s, when the Marshall Plan was proposed. The return to past geopolitical models* 1 has raised interesting, yet sensitive questions. Will the current and future circumstances of competition be like those of 1917-1920 or 1947-1949, merely with new content? Are Russia, the EU and the South Caucasus going to cooperate internationally in ventures that unite them in the reconstruction of a larger Europe, or will they fail that test?What follows below is a detailed discussion analyzing the complex nature of EURussian policies towards their shared neighborhood as well as an examination of their impact on the current geopolitical landscape of the South Caucasus. It will also look mto possible ways in which the EU, Russia and partner countries could devise new approaches to mutually beneficial cooperation by recognizing the mterests of all parties involved.Changed Geopolitics of the EU-Russia Shared NeighborhoodClearly, the waves of eastern EU enlargements in 2004 and 2007, in addition to the expansion of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) and the 2009 Eastern Partnership program, have induced the EU to formulate explicit interests in the the Former Soviet Union (FSU) area. In particular, with the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the EU in 2007, the same time in which the European Commission proposed the Black Sea Synergy initiative, the South Caucasus actually became a region of direct concern to the EU's security strategy.In essence, the EU realized the importance of new incentives for closer economic and political relations with partner countries and their gradual integration into the EU economy. By offering a privileged relationship based on mutual commitment to common values, the EU opened a new chapter with an ambitious plan to broaden cooperation with its eastern neighbors. While trying to assume a greater regional role, increasing its strategic importance for the neighborhood,2 the EU's integration policies are aimed at promoting regional interests driven by various aspects. Among the most important ones are good governance, rule of law, protracted social conflicts, energy security and the fight against orgamzed crime.In practice, through action plans and association agreements, the EU has expanded its power eastwards and sought to persuade the FSU neighbors to adopt reform measures that contribute towards fostering the stability and security of their countries, and hence the well-being of the EU itself.3 As a result, the expansive logic of EU integration with the purpose of acquiring reliable partners has produced the need to spread and promote European norms and values beyond the political borders of the Union.4 In doing so, Brussels does not promise its South Caucasian neighbors eventual membership but rather tries to make the region more predictable and controllable by creating a secure geopolitical buffer for itself.There is, however, potential for tension with Russia in the eastern neighborhood. Right from the outset, Russia agreed to have a special status with the EU-Russia Common Spaces instead of participating in the ENP. However, Moscow accused Brussels of trying to carve out a new sphere of influence and on several occasions Russia has voiced concerns over the Eastern Partnership, seeing it as another attempt to extend the EU's power in the quest for energy resources. …

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, assistance to civil society has been at the forefront of the European Union’s (EU) strategy in its post-Soviet Eastern neighbourhood. The literature on the EU support to civil society in post-Soviet countries has so far primarily focused on democratisation and the research assessing the effects of EU assistance to civil society has been limited. This study builds on existing literature about the EU cooperation with civil society in the South Caucasus by focusing on the following question. How successful were the EU’s efforts in supporting civil society in the South Caucasus so far? By relying on a combination of qualitative elite interviews and secondary sources, this article assesses the impact of the key EU initiatives and programmes implemented in the South Caucasus during the past two decades. It is concluded here that despite steady improvements of EU policies and approaches of empowering civil actors in the region, the European Union’s assistance to civil society in the South Caucasus region remains inconsistent and limited.

This chapter focuses on the European Union's (EU) security relations with the countries in its Eastern neighbourhood, namely Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. It assesses the extent to which Russia's political (in-) action contributes to EU security policies vis-à-vis the region. It thus underlines the distinctive character of EU relations with Russia — one of its most significant neighbours — when compared to other smaller states in the EU's neighbourhood. This difference is based on this neighbour's demands for and the recognition by EU leaders of the strategic relevance of 'closer relations with Russia' for joint 'security and prosperity' (European Council, 2003: 14; see also: European Parliament, 2011: 1; European Commission, 2011: 4). There are several security issues on the common agenda, including political stability, energy security and conflict resolution, particularly in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus — and towards which Russia has developed its own neighbourhood policies.KeywordsEuropean UnionEuropean Union Member StateEnergy SecurityCritical Discourse AnalysisEuropean SecurityThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

The promotion of regional cooperation has been a central feature of the European Union (EU)'s external relations. Forms of sub-regional cooperation are deemed to be essential confidence-building measures, as a means of consolidating a shared community of values, practices and interests. This article looks at region-building processes in the EU's relations with the South Caucasus, as the interface between the existing approaches and the ensuing practices. It argues that the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership (EaP) in particular have some critical limitations for effective region-building in the South Caucasus, mainly pertaining to the endorsement of artificial regional labels, limited ability to balance multilateral and bilateral approaches, and poor local ownership of identity-building processes. At the same time, the EaP offers some interesting possibilities for the development of a variable-geometry regional approach, in which these states could be included.

This article draws upon poststructuralist and postcolonial theories to examine the European Union’s (EU’s) policies of human rights promotion in the South Caucasus – notably, the EU’s engagement with local human rights activists and organisations in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Contrary to most literature, which has been concerned with policy (in)effectiveness, this article is interested in problematising the discursive foundations of this EU-civil society ‘partnership’ in the realm of human rights promotion, as well as in retrieving the agency of actors who are ‘at the receiving end’ of EU policies. It is argued that the discursive construction of ‘civil’ society as a ‘good-Other’ of the EU-Self serves as a means to depoliticise the EU’s interventions, aiming at the approximation of ‘transitioning’ countries to the EU’s human rights standards. Although the hegemonic relation requires subaltern actors to perform the ‘civil’ society identity, processes of hybridisation and subversion arise as external interventions interact with local realities and meanings. Building on in-depth interviews and ethnographic observations, the article shows how the hegemonic identity of ‘civil’ society is negotiated by South Caucasus ‘not-quite-civil’ actors striving for local legitimacy, financial survival or ownership of their human rights work.

Since the start of war in Ukraine, the geopolitical landscape of EU’s Eastern Neighborhood has experienced structural transformations. Under conditions of tectonic shifts within given geopolitical conjuncture, powerful actors like EU and Russia sought to preserve their influence in Eastern Europe, while smaller states of the South Caucasus tried to fulfill own aims. Using qualitative research methodology, the study examines wide range of secondary sources and concluded that the war in Ukraine caused in weakening Russian influence in the South Caucasus, whereas EU raised its capabilities as an international actor in the region, in parallel with the increased expectations of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia.

ABSTRACTThe article seeks to advance the understanding of the shifting European Union (EU)-Russia interaction in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus by exploring both the EU’s policies and responses to Russia’s initiatives in the region. Drawing on different strands of literature (regionalism, international relations and EU foreign policy analysis), it identifies three scope conditions under which to expect EU policies to influence the interaction with Russia in the shared neighbourhood: the degree of integration offered to post-Soviet countries as part of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)/Eastern Partnership (EaP); the extent to which the EU seeks to link Russia with the ENP/EaP; and the degree of internal coherence on the EU’s interaction with Russia. The article argues that all three conditions have contributed to shaping interaction with Russia, albeit to different degrees. It is primarily the EU’s new role of a region-builder as part of the EaP that triggered Russia’s counter-actions, thereby resulting in a growing competition for influence in what has become a contested neighbourhood.

The paper aims at outlining the EU policy – including Poland’s role in its development – towards the Union’s eastern neighbours encompassed by the European Neighbourhood Policy and Eastern Partnership. The situation of the EU’s eastern neighbours has become considerably complicated in the last two years (2014-2015). The Euromaidan revolution and war in the Donbas have led the EU Member States to direct their efforts towards stabilising the situation in Ukraine. As a consequence, discussions of future prospects and the EU policy towards Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus have been set aside. In addition, wars and conflicts occurring in the south of Europe along with the immigrants flooding southern EU Member States have led to the eastern neighbours and their problems being neglected (despite the fact that Ukraine is engulfed in war).

The coronavirus pandemic has become a test of States ‘ ability to respond to external challenges. The article assesses how quarantine measures are introduced and observed in different countries of the South Caucasus-from recommendations to the introduction of a state of emergency. It also examines the consequences these measures entail for the legitimacy of power, the structure of elites, and the quality of public administration in the region. From the analytical viewpoint, the South Caucasus represents an ideal model: different measures to combat the pandemic in these countries lead to different results. In general, the ideology of fighting coronavirus is based on isolationism and alarmism. Isolationism in the South Caucasus is part of a global trend, and in some cases, manifests itself as the result of Western normative influence. Alarmism is also a necessary factor in the fight against the virus: it was panic that became the basis for the rare consolidation of society around authorities in transit countries and mass approval of strict restrictions imposed by the national governments. Unlike previous crises of the twenty-first century, the pandemic creates a demand for the competence of the authorities and the willingness to implement political decisions at the expense of the comfort and economic interests of citizens. The peculiarity of the South Caucasus is that the demands for competence caused by the pandemic followed the desire of citizens to pressure governments to fight corruption, which was the main driver of the revolutions in Armenia and Georgia. Amidst the spread of the disease, the demand for sufficient work of state institutions has come to the fore. If Georgia’s relative success in fighting the pandemic goes on, this will be another indication for the rest of the region of how important it is for the state to be “institutionally sound”.

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is inherently political in nature. The rationalistic considerations underpinning its launch and subsequent elaboration have necessarily influenced the choice of the legal framework. At the same time, the rules regulating the conduct of EU foreign policy had a reciprocal impact on policy choices made. The legislative and political developments following the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and the regional split in the policy arguably injected new dynamics into the interaction between the political and legal aspects of the ENP.The chapter traces the relationship between the political objectives and the legal framework of the ENP through three phases of its existence, with a focus on the eastern neighbourhood, comprising Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and the South Caucasus, as the addressee of the exclusionary rationale of the policy. First, the formulation and the elaboration of the initiative is revisited as the first phase of the existence of the policy. The second phase concerns the ‘Eastern Partnership’ initiative established as a result of the regional split within the policy. The third phase refers to the law and political objectives of the ENP as translated into Article 8 TEU.

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is inherently political in nature. The rationalistic considerations underpinning its launch and subsequent elaboration have necessarily influenced the choice of the legal framework. At the same time, the rules regulating the conduct of EU foreign policy had a reciprocal impact on policy choices made. The legislative and political developments following the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and the regional split in the policy arguably injected new dynamics into the interaction between the political and legal aspects of the ENP. The chapter traces the relationship between the political objectives and the legal framework of the ENP through three phases of its existence, with a focus on the eastern neighbourhood, comprising Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and the South Caucasus, as the addressee of the exclusionary rationale of the policy. First, the formulation and the elaboration of the initiative is revisited as the first phase of the existence of the policy. The second phase concerns the ‘Eastern Partnership’ initiative established as a result of the regional split within the policy. The third phase refers to the law and political objectives of the ENP as translated into Article 8 TEU.

Region-building in the eastern neighbourhood: assessing EU regional policies in the South Caucasus

Das Werk betrachtet die Europäische Nachbarschaftspolitik als ein Testfall für die EU, um als ein einheitlich auftretender, internationaler Akteur zu agieren. Der Band analysiert die Ambivalenzen der EU: attraktiv aber voller innerer Widersprüche, mit Zivilgesellschaften experimentierend statt eine klar definierte Finalität anzustreben.

Focusing on Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus, this chapter analyzes how the model of integration proposed by the European Union (EU) to neighbouring countries has played out since the early 2000s, when the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) was launched. It starts by reviewing the ENP against other models of integration offered to third countries. The chapter then scrutinizes the leverage used by the EU to induce domestic change in its neighbourhood in the absence of a membership perspective. Finally, it analyzes how far ENP countries have come in adopting and applying EU norms and templates. The chapter argues that the Eastern Partnership (EaP, designed as the umbrella framework for EU–eastern neighbours relations) can no longer be regarded as a single model of relations with the EU. Its relevance and sustainability are undermined by the extreme differentiation in neighbours’ modes and levels of integration with the EU, which results from partner countries’ miscellaneous aspirations and preferences in their relations with the EU.