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‘A door neither closed nor open’: EU policy towards Ukraine during and since the Orange Revolution

  • Part One: Foreign and Security Policy
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Abstract

Ukraine provides evidence of very different Common Foreign and Security Policy negotiating dynamics. In the run up to the country's Orange Revolution, significant differences persisted between member states over how the European Union (EU) should support Ukraine's democratic transition. A combination of normative entrapment and co-operative bargaining ensured that ‘maximalist’ and ‘minimalist’ member states united around a common position in support of the Orange Revolution. In subsequent debates over whether the EU should offer Ukraine a membership prospect, however, lowest common denominator dynamics prevailed. This case additionally demonstrates that both before and after Ukraine's democratic transition very specific external geostrategic factors played an important role in conditioning EU policy outcomes.

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Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Jos Boonstra, Natalya Shapovalova, Balazs Jarabik and colleagues at the preparatory workshops to this volume for their input, along with the diplomats interviewed in Kyiv and Brussels over various trips during 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

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Correspondence to Richard Youngs.

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Youngs, R. ‘A door neither closed nor open’: EU policy towards Ukraine during and since the Orange Revolution. Int Polit 46, 358–375 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2009.10

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