The many faces of the European Union’s influences on Ukrainefrom state identity to the policy paradigms of energy, migration and foreign policy

Laburpena

The present thesis studies the relations between the EU and Ukraine since 1991 and the principal object of our study was the EU's exercise of power and its influence on the Ukrainian state identity and public policies. Therefore, our central research question is: What is the direct power of the EU on Ukraine? In order to answer this question we studied: 1) actors' state identity; Ukraine's patterns of recognition of/resistance of her representation by the EU; and, 2) the changes observed in the characteristics of different components of a paradigm of public policy in Ukraine. Furthermore, we propose the framework to analyse the conditions and mechanisms influencing the actor's recognition of its ideational representations and the acceptance of changes in the elements of the public policy paradigm. In the empirical part of the thesis, we analysed the dynamics of bilateral relations, revealing the increasing dynamism of these relations, going well beyond conventional approach in claiming that the relations between the EU and Ukraine are irrelevant for both actors and suffer from constant fatigue. In fact, Ukraine figured prominently on the European Foreign Policy agenda, as evidenced by the launch of a number of far-reaching and novel instruments and approaches that underlined the relevance of this country for the EU. However, our longitudinal analysis of EU-Ukraine relations from 1991 until the beginning of 2009 reflects limited capacity of the EU to change Ukrainian self-understanding in line with the EU expectations. Rather, it led to the reaffirmation of Ukraine's self-representation. To study the effects of the EU's influence on Ukrainian substantive policy paradigms, we present three case studies of Ukrainian policies in energy, migration, and foreign and security fields. The research of the EU compulsory power demonstrates that in some issue areas, the EU has considerable influence on Ukrainian policies, especially as concerns the migration management policy of third-country nationals and foreign and security policy.