beyondukraine.euandrussiainsearchofanewrelation

1. The EU and Russia after Crimea:
Is Ukraine the Knot?
Carmen Claudín, Nicolás de Pedro
The annexation of Crimea, the Russian military intervention in
Eastern Ukraine and the subsequent Western sanctions and
Russian countersanctions have shaken the ground of the already
crumbling European status quo. And arguably it is for long to
come. The anniversary of Helsinki +40, next July 2015, will
hardly be an occasion for rejoicing. Not only have the dividing
lines between the East and the West not been erased yet, as was
envisioned in 1975, new ones have appeared and put the whole
process under the shadow of the “what’s next?” question.
The centrality of the Ukrainian question for Russia lies in the
fact that it is not simply a foreign affairs issue – like Iran or China
is. Ukraine is at the heart of Russia’s national interests and
essentialist narrative. On the contrary, for the EU, Ukraine was an
issue of mere foreign policy – with no perspective at all of an
institutional integration - but now it has become a matter of selfassertion
and inner coherence of its own values. As for Ukraine,
the vast majority of its citizens – be them Ukrainian or Russian
speakers – will not give up their regained independence. So any
possible arrangement with Russia will be viable only if grounded
on respect for this premise.
The EU and Russia have had a problematic relationship since
the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia has always been at the
core of the EU’s policy towards its European neighbourhood while
Moscow has never found a framework to connect with the EU in
which it would feel truly comfortable. The issue of its relation to
Europe (and, at the other end, to Asia) has always been complex