European Foreign Policy

"A representative survey, which was conducted by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KMIS) in all regions with the exception of Crimea as a part of its Omnibus survey from April 29 till May 11, 2014 for my academic study on political regionalism in Ukraine, provides the latest and exclusive data on separatism in the one of the largest European countries in the midst of both a major internal conflict and the biggest post-Cold War conflict between the West and Russia. The survey shows that only the minority of residents of Ukraine (14%) support different forms of separatism, while the majority (53%) favors preserving the current status of their region within unitary Ukraine but with expanded powers. The survey results confirm that the majority of residents of Donbas now back different forms of separatism (54% overall and 61% excluding undecided). There is also significant but varying levels of support for separatism in three neighboring Eastern regions (15%) and in the South (10%). In all other major historical and geographic regions of Ukraine, separatist feelings are marginal or not detectable by the national poll. Specifically, the survey confirms that Rusyn separatism in Transcarpathia lacks significant public support, but the number of the respondents there was insufficient to determine the level of separatist attitudes among its Hungarian minority. This poll shows that the separatist attitudes do not necessarily mean preference for outright secession from Ukraine and formation of independent state or joining another state, which basically means Russia. Autonomy as a part of federal Ukraine is preferred by many separatists, including in Donbas. But regional autonomy with introduction of a federal system of government has currently no visible support in Western Ukraine and it has a marginal support in the Center. Minorities of the respondents in all regions back preserving the current status of their region with existing powers in unitary Ukraine. Preserving current status of their regions within unitary Ukraine but with expanded powers has a majority support in all regions, with the exception of Donbas.
     
The survey also indicates that the presidential elections scheduled for May 25 are unlikely to resolve the lack of the central government legitimacy in Donbas. Some 70% of the respondents in this region say that they either would not go to vote or do not know/unsure which candidate to support. Just 5% residents of Donetsk and Luhansk Regions express the intention to vote for Petro Poroshenko, an oligarch who previously switched his allegiances between the Party of Regions and pro-Western nationalist parties. He currently leads the presidential race with 33% of the national support, which puts him far ahead of other candidates. 

The survey results show that views expressed by the Russian government and media concerning widespread popular support for separatism in all Eastern and Southern Ukraine are unfounded. Crimea and Donbas are not representative of the entire South-East, because they have the much larger ethnic Russian populations and history of separatism. Overall, ethnic Russians in Ukraine are split on the issue of separatism. Similar percentages of ethnic Russians and people with mixed Russian and Ukrainian descent support preservation of the current unitary system (40%), mostly with expanded powers and different separatist options (44%), including joining Russia (18%). In contrast, only 24% of Russian speakers, who include many ethnic Ukrainians, favor secession from Ukraine or regional autonomy in federal Ukraine. 

However, the survey also confirms that the representation of separatism in Donbas by the Ukrainian and the Western governments and the media as small groups of armed Russian agents and local “terrorists,” who lack popular backing in this region, and therefore can be defeated by force is mistaken. In this case, crucial policy decisions in Ukraine, the US, Canada, the EU countries, and Russia are based on misunderstanding or lack of understanding of the regional Ukrainian politics and public preferences. An autonomous Donbas in a unitary state could be a model acceptable by people in different regions. The experience with similar models adopted in  Gagauzia in Moldova and in Crimea in the beginning of the 1990s suggests that this compromise solution might work, even though it cannot guarantee preserving country’s unity in the long run.
 
The survey also shows that during the current conflict, like in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the “Orange Revolution,” it is incorrect to view public opinion in Ukraine concerning separatism as static. This poll, which indicates significant rise in separatist attitudes, was held from April 29 till May 11, 2014 in the midst of the mass burning of pro-Russian separatists in Odessa by the Right Sector and football ultras, the killings of pro-Russian protesters in Mariupol and Krasnoarmisk by special government battalions organized with participation of this far right organization, and unrecognized referendums supporting self-proclaimed republics in the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions. And last but not least, it demonstrates the need for academic research of such politically controversial but crucial issues in the Ukrainian and global politics. There were political scientists specializing in Ukraine who were warning about possibilities of civil war and break-up of one of the largest European countries before and soon after the current crisis began in November of 2013. "

El sistema internacional durante los últimos 6 años ha sido testigo de una serie de cambios así como de estratégicos movimientos, todo los cuales han llevado a las unidades que son parte de él a una encrucijada y permanente tensión. Es, en esencia, un cuadro donde los procesos de transnacionalización e interdependencia compleja han dominado la agenda política y económica del mundo. Así por ejemplo tres importantes procesos son visibles. Primero, lo cual dominó el discurso a lo largo de los 90s, el mundo esta siendo un privilegiado testigo de la erosión de la idea de un orden unipolar. Segundo, como resultado de lo anterior, se observa como nuevos actores con alto potencial económico y militar (estatales y no-estatales) se han incorporado a la arena global. Y tercero, se puede observar el decline de la influencia política de los Estados Unidos.

"Since December 2009, the European Union has been represented abroad by more than 130 delegations, which are an integral part of the new European External Action Service (EEAS). This paper explores the performance and potential of the delegations in contributing to a common EU foreign policy.
The delegations have to strike the right balance between performing the functions of traditional diplomatic missions, while also representing the EU as a political entity that is more than an international organization, but less than a state. The delegations act as a bridge between nascent EU diplomacy and the national diplomacies of the member states. They are also microcosms that gather together under one roof different elements of the EU’s external relations, ranging from the Common Foreign and Security Policy to trade and aid, energy and migration.
The delegations have been rather successful in their three main tasks: representing the Union towards third countries, coordinating and providing services to the member states, and contributing to EU policy-making. This paper focuses on two key locations, Moscow and Washington, where the delegations are becoming visible diplomatic actors providing added value to member states as well as EU institutions. The authors argue that, following on from an early albeit cautious success, the delegations should take a stronger role in providing input into EU policy-making, promoting European interests abroad, and advancing consensus among member states’ representatives in the field. The EEAS headquarters should build a stronger link to the delegations, through more active political steering and by endeavouring to make more systematic use of the work on the ground."

"Since 2003 the EU has launched 16 peacekeeping missions in Africa in most cases in cooperation with the UN. Therefore, this article takes an inter-organizational perspective on the EU’s peacekeeping activities in Africa. Theoretically the article makes a contribution to the growing literature on inter-organizational approaches by applying niche selection and resource exchange theory to the field of security studies. The paper finds that EU missions in the past followed a targeted and niche approach in which it has played a facilitating but not dominating role in UN peacekeeping operations. However, in order to make effective use of this targeted approach the EU and UN are currently engaging in a substantial
reconstruction of their relationship by building an interlocking peacekeeping architecture
in which elements of resource pooling are central."

The EU’s foreign policy response(s) to the unfolding Ukraine crisis has further illustrated its difficulty in making effective foreign policy decisions. Using a neoclassical realist analytical framework, this paper argues that although the EU did have tangible collective interests in pursuing its Ukraine foreign policy, it was unable to adequately filter these through its domestic setting. Three key constraints to the EU’s Ukrainian foreign policy were identified: decision-makers’ miscalculations; rigid normative demands; and a reliance on consensus politics. Ultimately, the Ukraine crisis illustrated that the EU, in current incarnation, cannot translate interests into effective foreign policies, even when making policy for their direct neighbourhood.

This qualitative study examines the role of clients in petty corruption by analyzing actual corrupt exchanges between ordinary citizens and low level public and private employees in post-communist Hungary. Using a grounded theory approach, interviews reveal how clients from different social strata deal with low-level agents in corrupt situations. Findings suggest two contrasting forms of low-level corruption: transactions where the client and the agent do not have a prior relationship and where external factors dominate the relationship; and cases with stronger social ties between the actors, where the client has more freedom to structure the transaction. However, a client's social background frequently determines the form of corrupt transaction and the form of resources illegally exchanged in the deal.