Authors

Daniel Göler¹;  ¹ University of Passau, Germany

Discussion

Hardly any area of EU policy is as controversially discussed as the EU's external relations. The internal as well as the external perception of the EU as actor in International Relations differ considerably. These differing assessments of the EU’s role in foreign policy are primarily due to diverging basic assumptions about foreign and security policy. On the one hand, foreign policy can be viewed from a geostrategic perspective; on the other hand, it can be seen from the perspective of reshaping the foreign policy environment on the basis of values and norms. 
If a policy based on values and norms leads to changes, these can be perceived by third parties as a geostrategic threat. Or to put it another way: a foreign policy based on norms and values can become a geostrategic challenge. This problem has been insufficiently explored in the literature so far.  
This paper focuses on this research question. First, I explain the terms civil power and normative power, which are used in the academic debate as central to a foreign policy oriented towards norms and values. Against this background, I trace the relations between the EU and Ukraine up to 2014. In a first step, the longer-term policy of Ukraine's r