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Eastern dimension and the Balkans / Working Paper

Europe's inconsistent support for democratic reform in Ukraine

21/07/2008 By Richard Youngs

Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images

Ukraine provides evidence of very different CFSP negotiating dynamics. Part of a project on EU foreign policy dynamics, this paper by Richard Youngs for the UCD Dublin European Institute (DEI),
seeks to explain why European governments have backed Ukraine's Orange Revolution in an apparently united, but also relatively cautious fashion.

A combination of normative entrapment and co-operative bargaining ensured that ‘maximalist’ and ‘minimalist’ member states united around a common position in support of the Orange revolution.

In subsequent debates over whether the EU should offer Ukraine a membership prospect, however, lowest common denominator dynamics prevailed. This case additionally demonstrates that both before and after Ukraine’s democratic transition very specific external geo-strategic factors played an important role in conditioning EU policy outcomes.

 

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Keywords

CFSP Civil society Democracy promotion Eastern Europe and Russia EU European Union Ukraine

Related publications

• The new enhanced agreement between the European Union and Ukraine: Will it further democratic consolidation?
• Ukraine between elections: out of the blue?
• Ukraine's Elections: post-Orange Blue(s)

Bio author: Richard Youngs

Richard Youngs is Senior Research Fellow and Coordinator of the Democratisation programme at FRIDE. He also lectures at the University of Warwick in the UK. He studied at Cambridge (BA Hons) and Warwick (MA, PhD) universities.