The European Union's Policies Toward Russia

This chapter sets out to give an overview of European Union (EU) policies toward Russia from an institutional perspective. ¹ In our view, the fact that the EU is a very peculiar if not unique international actor largely determines its external policies. We will therefore first describe the nature of the EU as a multifaceted international actor and how it may evolve after enlargement to twenty-five member states. This will be followed by a short history of EU–Russia relations pointing to the preconditions of any meaningful cooperation on both sides. The form and substance of the EU’s policies toward Russia will be analyzed next. We will try to evaluate the extent to which those policies have an impact, either positive or negative, on Russia’s domestic transformation. Special attention will be devoted to the political and economic agendas of the EU and Russia with a view to ascertaining what kind of a relationship between the two is emerging and what form of integration with the EU is likely to develop after enlargement. In the conclusion we will reinforce our initial claim about the dominance of the institutional rather than political or economic logic in the EU’s policies toward Russia.