The EU and the crisis in the Ukraine: Did the EU learn the wrong lessons from enlargement?

Referentin: Prof. Dr. Antoaneta Dimitrova (University of Leiden)

Vortragssprache: Englisch

As former Ukrainian president Yanukovich refused to sign the EU-Ukraine association agreement in November 2013, this event not only ushered a chain of developments that led to the annexation of the Crimea and instability in Ukraine, but signaled a miscalculation on the EU’s part that could be traced back to the successes of the 2004-2007 enlargement. The early 2000s were a period when EU transformative power and conditionality appeared to achieve great improvements in domestic reforms in candidate states. By contrast, in Ukraine, elites do not appear to respond in the same way to the EU’s incentives and conditions. The reasons behind this are complex and can be partially attributed to geopolitics, but it is not only external contexts that have changed. Some years later, the EU has drawn some lessons from the indirect competition with Russia in the region, but still tends to overestimate its attractiveness to neighbours. It is still unclear whether the emphasis on even stronger reform conditionality and adoption of EU rules in the Association agreement can ensure elite support for reforms in a country such as Ukraine. This question cannot be answered without deeper understanding of the oligarchic dominance of Ukrainian economy and political life and a political economy analysis of the response of the oligarchic class to EU conditionality.