REMIT Research partner UBB (Babeș-Bolyai University Cluj Napoca) has had a very prolific turn of the year! Researchers Valentin Naumescu, Raluca Moldovan and Oana Poiană have now contributed to a fresh book on EU Geopolitics with not one, but two chapters: one on the approach in the Eastern neighbourhood, the other on EU’s role in the Middle East.

Prof. Valentin Naumescu and Oana Poiană explain about their chapter on the EU’s geopolitical approach on the Eastern neighbourhood and the strategic influence of the Euro-Atlantic alliance framework:

“Geopolitics is back. After the Russian expansionist ambitions to restore the former Soviet Union’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe led to a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Europe “rediscovered” the face of war and geopolitical tensions. The West learned that the repeated alerts and warning messages from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) regarding Russia’s preparations for aggression were correct. The Russian invasion of Georgia in August 2008 and the annexation of Crimea in March 2014 were just the first two steps of the Vladimir Putin’s War. Although there are many studies that analyse separately EU’s policies targeting the Eastern neighbourhood or the strategic influence of the Euro-Atlantic framework on the securitization and democratization of this vulnerable area, very little attention has been devoted to the way this influence has shaped EU’s politics towards Eastern neighbourhood. Our chapter can be considered a pioneer study since it is one of the very few research endeavours to utilize the ACF for explaining the dynamics of EU policy-making in this area. Thus, the study uses an inductive and interpretative approach, which enables an interpretation of the data collected through qualitative methods such as content and discourse analysis (policy documents and official statements). We attempt to answer the following research questions: How does the Euro-Atlantic alliance framework impacts EU’s policies towards the Eastern neighbourhood? What were the main strategy changes brought by the war in Ukraine?”

Assoc. Prof. Raluca Moldovan, the author of the chapter about EU’s actorness in the Middle East, comments the following on her work:

“In recent years (especially since Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and, most recently, the 2023 Gaza war between Hamas and Israel), the capacity of the European Union (EU) to act a as a genuine global power on the international stage, has come under ever closer scrutiny. While it is true that Brussels has always aspired to a heightened status in international affairs (something attested by the numerous attempts to revamp the EU’s foreign policy in subsequent treaties), in practice this has rather rarely been the case, hence the general perception of the Union as an economic giant, but a military and political dwarf. But what does EU actorness really mean, and why has it consistently failed (with the exception of some successful trade agreements) to turn meaningful results into account in a more geopolitical sense, specifically with regard to the Middle East? Could this failure be a sign that the EU’s foreign policy approach towards the region, long based on the principles of normativity and liberal institutionalism, should be reconsidered and replaced by a more pragmatic, “less-carrots-more-sticks,” outlook? The present chapter attempts to answer this two-fold question in relation to a turbulent region whose importance and influence on the world stage has been amplified by recent and troubling international developments, notably the ongoing war in Ukraine.”

Abstracts
  1. Vladimir Putin’s War and the illiberal revisionism of the past years triggered a series of global, European, and regional changes on multiple dimensions: strategic, geopolitical, security, economic, energy, environment, communication, infrastructure, or even technological challenges. The European Union (EU) along with its strategic partners, mainly with the United States (US) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), face the threats, risks, and consequences of the Russian aggression against the post-Cold War European and global order. This chapter explores the geopolitical approach of the EU in the context of the biggest security crisis in Europe after World War II (WWII). The Western liberal democracies are now called to act responsibly in order to support Ukraine and increase the security of the Eastern flank in this critical and crucial moment of European history. The current study applies the model of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) to explore and explain the changing geopolitical processes that influence EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the development of EU-NATO cooperation in the wake of the war in Ukraine. Based on qualitative discourse analysis of EU-NATO policy documents and official statements, the study seeks to identify advocacy coalitions and study their core beliefs.
  2. In recent years, the European Union (EU) has attempted—with some success—to play a more assertive role in global politics, to affirm and project its normative power and to genuinely play the geopolitical role that its size and economy would warrant. However, there has been at least one region of the world where the EU’s efforts at projecting its actorness, influence and normative clout have consistently failed to produce any meaningful results—the Middle East. This chapter aims to investigate why countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia or even Turkey have barely been susceptible to the geopolitical influence of the EU, regardless of whether one looks at the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the failure of the Iran nuclear deal, Saudi Arabia’s human rights record or Turkey’s brushes with authoritarianism. Is the paradigm of liberal democracy, whose tenets the EU’s foreign policy has upheld for a long time, still a viable option? Or would it perhaps be time to revisit the paradigm of neorealism in order to see whether this might lead to a more assertive EU geopolitical footprint in the Middle East? Is this current diminished role a consequence of China’s and Russia’s presence and influence in the region?
Full Citation
  1. Naumescu, V., Poiană, O. (2024). EU’s Geopolitical Approach in the Eastern Neighbourhood and the Strategic Influence of the Euro-Atlantic Alliance Framework. In: Lika, L., Riga, D. (eds) EU Geopolitical Actorness in a Changing World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-81160-9_12
  2. Moldovan, R. (2024). EU Actorness in the Middle East: An Enterprise Doomed to Fail?. In: Lika, L., Riga, D. (eds) EU Geopolitical Actorness in a Changing World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-81160-9_5

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