The EU under a realist scope: Employing a neoclassical realist framework for the analysis of the EU’s Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement offer to Ukraine

Abstract

This article breaks from the dominant liberal-idealist literature and examines the European Union’s (EU) foreign policy decisions from a realist perspective. Through employing a novel, EU-focussed neoclassical realist framework, the EU’s offer of a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) to Ukraine is argued as being a result of the mediating influence of its normative power role identity, the (mis)perceptions held by its foreign policy decision-makers and the institutional constraints inherent to its foreign policy decision-making process, which filtered systemic pressures (emanating from the European geopolitical setting) into the final foreign policy decision. Thereafter, this article assesses the EU’s responses to the Ukraine crisis, offering policy reflections and recommendations.