ABSTRACT
With the eruption of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, relations between Russia and the EU have been widely interpreted in geopolitical terms, as a conflict about influence in a region of economic and strategic importance to both parties. However, an underlying divergence between the norms and values of the two parties set the trajectory for the conflict much earlier. This chapter analyses change in the nature, extent and substance of discord over norms and values between the EU and Russia over time, with attention to the altered nature of normative discourse that has emerged in the context of the Ukraine crisis. Various facets of normative and ideational conflict are explored, including possible differences in the values of the elites and publics, the degree to which normative stances are instrumentally driven and the role of misinformation in shaping public perceptions. The chapter concludes that the initial hope that an EU–Russian partnership could be firmly grounded in a set of shared political economic and political values has been dashed and that future cooperation will likely have to rely on reaching a common understanding of shared interests.
