Understanding the EU’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022

Abstract

This research examines new factors that can potentially be more important in influencing the EU’s reaction to Russian hostilities than it was thought before. This factor, or one of the most important at least, is the difference in the levels of integration in 2014 and 2022 and the spillovers that drive the integration process. In this period of time, a significant integration process has gone underway which caused different outcomes as the EU institutions, some of the governments and indeed a common European society decided to stand up for the core principles. Furthermore, the spillovers, outlined by the neofunctionalist framework, can potentially influence the policy directly. The impact of the integration process, and the spillovers in particular has not been properly addressed by the current literature on the Ukraine conflict and the EU’s response to it. This research aims to fill this gap in the theory and gain a better understanding of the underlying dynamics.