Democratisation in EU Foreign Policy: The Cases of Belarus,Turkey and Ukraine

Abstract

Three countries on the eastern border of the EU have caused significant political and economic challenges to the EU’s accession policy (Turkey) and to the European Neighbourhood Policy (Belarus and Ukraine). All three have revealed some weaknesses of the intra-EU decision-making processes (especially the lack of flexibility and the unwillingness to apply ‘hard’ power politics) and the disunity of the EU member states’ voices, which reflects their very divergent national interests. Still, the policies adopted by the EU with regard to these countries also represent an opportunity for the EU. The paper focuses on the key attributes that the EU needs to consider when drafting its policies, both bilateral and multilateral, towards these countries. We argue that the EU should form rules-based relationships that take a step-by-step approach. Individual member states could assume more active roles in promoting specific policy recommendations. This approach could bring together the differing interests of the EU member states and the EU institutions.

Footnotes

Author biographies

Lucie Tungul is Head of Research at the TOPAZ political institute and Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and Social Sciences of the Faculty of Law, Palacky University, Czechia. She worked at Fatih University, Istanbul, between 2006 and 2016. She is a member of the executive board of the Czech Political Science Association.

Petr Hlaváček is a historian and philosopher, and currently a coordinator and an associate professor at the Collegium Europaeum of Charles University and the Czech Academy of Sciences. He studied at Charles University in Prague, Czechia, and the University of Bern, Switzerland. He has worked as a researcher at the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe in Leipzig.

Tereza Soušková is a political scientist at the Charles University in Prague, Czechia. She specialises in Russian foreign policy and democracy research in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and the Caucasus. She is a research fellow at the Association for International Affairs and editor-in-chief of the journal International Politics, published by the Institute of International Relations Prague.

Marek Ženíšek is a political scientist, member of the Czech parliament, Vice-President of the Pilsen Regional Council and Executive Director of TOPAZ. He has held the roles of Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Minister of Health. A former lecturer at the University of West Bohemia and the Metropolitan University of Prague, he has written several books and scholarly articles on political systems and transitology.