Tom Casier

The Rise of Energy to the Top of the EU-Russia Agenda: From Interdependence to Dependence?

Over the last decade we have witnessed an increasing politicisation of the energy discourse. Today energy relations of the EU are framed in terms of excessive dependence on Russia, qualifying the latter as a security threat. This article puts forward four criteria to define energy relations in security terms: supply vulnerability of the EU, the absence of Russian demand dependence, the dominance of energy over other capabilities, the willingness to link energy to foreign policy objectives. Little support is found to define the dependence on the import of Russian energy resources as a security issue. An alternative explanation is given, attributing growing energy concerns to shifting identities and perceptions in EU-Russia relations, which have contributed to understanding energy relations in competitive and geopolitical terms. Russia has developed a more assertive energy diplomacy, while in the EU sensitivity over energy dependence has grown as a result of changes on the global energy market and of the 2004 enlargement.

The EU–Russia Strategic Partnership: Challenging the Normative Argument

Russia–EU relations have often been presented in terms of a normative gap, with the EU appearing as a normative and Russia as a non-normative actor. This article critically analyses this ‘normative argument’ which sees this gap as the cause of tensions. Pleading for a less dichotomous approach to norms and interests, it challenges the normative argument on the basis of the assumed congruence between the norm-driven input and norm-promoting output of European foreign policy. As an alternative, the article explores how the normative agenda in Eastern Europe serves instrumental purposes. Selective norm promotion has the potential to change the hierarchy of identities among post-Soviet states.

The EU's two-track approach to democracy promotion: the case of Ukraine

This contribution argues that the European Union (EU) promotes two forms of democracy in its policy towards Ukraine: formal democracy (institutions and procedures at polity level guaranteeing a free and fair electoral process) and substantive democracy (principles and mechanisms that allow for an ongoing societal control over policy processes). While the first form of democracy is mainly promoted through intergovernmental channels, the latter is promoted both at a transgovernmental and more weakly at an intergovernmental level. The question raised is why more progress has been made in formal democratic reforms in Ukraine (between 2006 and 2009), than in the field of substantive democracy. Two explanations are put forward: the higher visibility of formal democratic reforms in the framework of Ukraines legitimacy seeking with the EU and the strategic behaviour of domestic actors. It is argued that institutional democratic reforms are regarded as the litmus test for Ukraines feasibility for future EU membership and act to a degree as a sort of ‘self-imposed’ conditionality. This, however, is counterbalanced by strategic behaviour of domestic actors, resisting deeper democratic change to compensate for the power they lose as a result of a more democratic electoral process. The EUs one-sided emphasis on the promotion of formal democracy over substantive democracy facilitates this.

To Adopt or Not to Adopt: Explaining Selective Rule Transfer under the European Neighbourhood Policy

Abstract The dominant explanation for limited rule transfer under the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is its weak incentive structure, in particular the absence of a membership perspective. However, a certain rule transfer has occurred, albeit in a strikingly selective and uneven way. This article formulates an alternative model for explaining the variance in rule transfer under the ENP. Refuting conditionality and asymmetrical interdependence as having insufficient explanatory value, rule transfer is explained on the basis of three interrelated factors. First, the usefulness of ENP provisions for domestic agendas. Secondly, the process of active legitimacy‐seeking with the EU, driven by the subjective perception of accession prospects. Thirdly, the institutional design of the ENP itself, in particular its differentiated approach and lack of finality, which give the policy a strong political character.

Russia's Energy Leverage over the EU: Myth or Reality?

Abstract Today, the EU is less dependent on Russian energy than it was two decades ago. Nevertheless, EU-Russia energy relations are more widely understood in terms of power, security and zero-sum geopolitical competition. This article challenges this Neo-Realist argument. Drawing on Keohanes and Nyes concepts of interdependence sensitivity and vulnerability, it both tests the actual degree of EU energy dependence and the extent to which dependence may create Russian leverage. It is found that the actual EU supply dependence is overrated and is mainly due to the EUs internal divisions. Secondly, Russias potential leverage is undermined by its high dependence on EU energy demand. Thirdly, its potential energy leverage is at least counterbalanced by other dimensions of asymmetrical interdependence outside the energy context. Explaining how geopolitical power-related explanations became dominant in the analysis of EU-Russia relations, this article refers both to structural changes in the energy market and also to new perceptions that resulted from a renewed geopolitical logic in early decisions over pipelines, changing attitudes as Russia grew stronger and the different nature of the energy markets in the EU and Russia. While geopolitical considerations may occasionally sneak in, the core of EU-Russia energy relations is still predominantly economic and commercial.

The Clash of Integration Processes? The Shadow Effect of the Enlarged EU on its Eastern Neighbours

The Eastern enlargement of the European Union has fundamentally redrawn the map of Europe. Together with the extension of its borders, the EU is facing an extension of both its impact and its responsibilities in the wider Europe. The enlarged EU now borders several former Soviet Republics and members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Some of these new neighbours have made membership of the European Union a strategic priority. Even if the EU cannot offer them a prospect of membership, it has an increased responsibility towards them: a responsibility to create stability, a responsibility to mitigate the negative impact of enlargement on these outsiders and a responsibility to take up its role as a regional political force. At the same time, the EU plays a more active political role, mainly pursuing stability around the enlarged EU, in the framework of its new European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).

The New Neighbours of the European Union: The Compelling Logic of Enlargement?

Whereas European integration started off as a limited project confined to six countries in western Europe, the European Union (EU) today covers most of western and central Europe. The EU is no doubt a giant, impacting on the politics and economies of its direct neighbours. At least by its sheer economic weight and the impact of its trade activities the EU casts a shadow on the countries in its geographic proximity. But with the great enlargement of 2004, the accession of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007, the candidate status of Croatia, Turkey and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and a growing negative public attitude toward enlargement, this neighbourhood increasingly appears to pose a fundamental problem for the EU: how should the EU proceed to involve its new neighbours more closely into the European integration process without opening the doors for future membership?

The Shattered Horizon How Ideology Mattered to Soviet Politics

This article argues that ideology was of key-importance to the Soviet system. The rules which governed Soviet ideological discourse did not only hold for the producers of ideology but also aimed at ‘filtering’ public communication. The respect people showed for an ideologically ‘filtered’ discourse counted as a sign of loyalty. In this way ideology constituted a central pillar of power. The article presents the results of an analysis of political texts dating from the Gorbachev era. It concludes that the Gorbachev reforms eroded the ‘communication filter’ because they changed the rules on which ideological discourse and thus power rested.

From logic of competition to conflict: understanding the dynamics of EU–Russia relations

ABSTRACT To understand the gradual worsening of EU–Russia relations in the decade preceding the Ukraine crisis, it is essential to understand the dynamics of their interaction. This article divides EU–Russia relations into three stages on the basis of changing intergroup dynamics: asymmetrical cooperation (1992–2003), pragmatic but increasing competition (2004–2013) and conflict (2013–present). It draws on the concept of ‘attributional bias’ to explain the escalating logic of competition during the second stage. The EU and Russia started to attribute each other negative geopolitical intentions up to the point where these images became so dominant that they interpreted each other’s behaviour almost exclusively in terms of these images, rather than on the basis of their actual behaviour. With the Ukraine crisis, EU–Russia relations changed from competition over institutional arrangements in the neighbourhood and over normative hegemony to conflict over direct control.

Great Game or Great Confusion: The Geopolitical Understanding of EU-Russia Energy Relations

ABSTRACT This article explains why a considerable part of the International Relations literature frames highly complex energy relations between the EU and Russia in terms of simple, exclusive geopolitical intentions. Drawing on Construal Level Theory, it addresses the gap between immediate interaction between various private and public actors with their own agendas and individual intentionalities and assumed collective geopolitical intentionalities. Because of the degree of abstraction, collective motivations are attributed to actors like Russia and the EU. This attribution risks to be subject to bias. It is argued that higher psychological distance increases the likelihood of more radical and ideologised framing. These abstract schemes do not follow from the endogenous energy dynamics but are function of a broader logic of competition which has characterised EU-Russia relations.