Throughout the past
decade, the European Union (EU) has become a more assertive,
geopolitically-minded and capacitated security actor within and beyond the
Ukrainian context. This article aims to develop a conceptually informed account
of the EU’s shift in actorness in conflict and crisis situations across its
neighbourhood, probing into legal, political and performative aspects of the
rationale and forms of such an engagement.
First, the article
develops a conceptualization of the EU’s capacity to act in conflict and crisis
management, considering both the EU’s values, (strategic) interests and
(policy) objectives as constitutional and political imperatives to act. Then,
it follows a goal-oriented framework (GOF) for policy analysis in order to
unpack the EU’s capacity to act, and assess its effectiveness, in the empirical
context of Ukraine’s cascading ‘crisis’ developments – from 2013/14 domestic
revolution to Russia’s hybrid incursion in Ukraine’s south-east up to the
ongoing Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Thereby, the EU’s performance
is assessed across the dimensions of what is deemed a coherent, sustainable and
effective external action, with an eye on goal-attainment and lesson-learning.