The Ukraine Crisis as a Conflict over Europe’s Political, Economic and Security Order

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article analyses the conflict between the EU and Russia over Ukraine and other countries in the common neighbourhood as a collision between two visions of European order: the liberal norms-based order, as perceived and represented by the EU, and Russia’s pursuit of a multipolar international order where major powers are entitled to a privileged role in their adjacent regions. It makes an analytical distinction between three dimensions of the conflict: first, the norms and values of political order; second, economic order, in other words the norms regulating economic activity; and third, European security order and, more broadly, the norms of international security. There are profound disagreements between the EU and Russia along each dimension. It is misleading to call the conflict ‘geopolitical’, if geopolitics is understood in the realist spirit as a zero-sum battle over who controls the region. What is at the core of the conflict is the norms and values of European order which define inter alia Ukraine’s place in Europe.