‍Central Asia and The Caucasus Journal

Abstract The European Union’s joint security and foreign policy towards Russia has gone through numerous unwanted ups and downs after the collapse of the Soviet Union, especially over the last two decades, due to various reasons although during the post-collapse conditions hopes for integration of Russia with Europe had been strengthened. Some causal premises are more important in this regard such as complexity of relations from a historical standpoint, the impact of contradictory norm-value sources on the EU’s decision-making  towards Russia, lack of sanctions  of the enactments of the EU in the security and foreign policy area, priority of a national policy  and lack of consistency among the members in implementing the decisions, conflicting multifaceted political, military and security conditions and in the end, mutual dependence, especially in the energy sector. Considering the above-mentioned concepts, the question of this paper is that “why the European Union’s joint security and foreign policy towards Russia has had serious changes and vacillations  after 2000?” the primary response is that the European Union’s joint security and foreign policy has been, on one hand, under pressure from geo-political considerations and energy security for cooperation with Russia, on the other hand, has been under the impact of practical inconsistency in this sector among the EU members and necessity of adopting  a confrontational policy against the Russian dominance to remove the regional worries, and this has made the European Union’s joint security and foreign policy towards Russia vacillate. The method used in this paper is of Analytical-Qualitative type.

Abstract Since the beginning of the third millennium, the European Union's policy toward the Central Asia has been a major part of the EU's common foreign and security policy. Central Asia has traditionally provided a link between Asia and Europe and plays as a strategic route between the two continents. The most comprehensive European document on Central Asia entitled "EU-Central Asia: Strategy for a New Partnership" was adopted in June 2007 and boosted the EU-Central Asia relations. The Main question of this article is "in order to implement its normative power, which instruments are used by the EU and which challenges it confronts?" In response to this question, the following hypothesis is posed: "Promoting democracy, human rights, rule of law, education, and environment are among the most important programs implemented by the EU in Central Asia; however, due to some shortcomings such as the role of other powerful actors in the region, different approaches of the member states and the European institutions as well as structural weaknesses, the EU has failed to achieve all its goals in the region. The research method applied in this article is analytic-descriptive.

Abstract The role of norms in behavior of actors and the concept of “Normative Foreign Policy” are subject of interest for some theories of international relations. Based on these deliberations, some scholars aimed to apply this theoretical concept in international politics. In line with these efforts, some European researchers introduced the European Union as a normative actor and coined the concept of “Normative Power Europe”. The advocates of Normative Power Europe believe that the European Union is a distinct actor in international politics as well as a benign power whose foreign policy is not merely based on limited material interests but also on normative aims. Among the spheres of this self-regarded normative foreign policy is the policy of the EU towards its neighborhood.
The present article aims to assess the foreign policy of the EU towards Belarus and to verify to what extent this policy was in line with variables of normative foreign policy. The authors believe that while in some aspects the foreign policy of the EU possesses some normative variables, it is not in a position to be named as normative foreign policy. Therefore, the concept of Normative Power Europe is to some extent exaggerated.