The EU and EAEU: Normative Power and Geopolitics in EU-Russia ‘shared neighbourhood’

The goal iof the chapter is to “deconstruct” the usual narrative of the EU as normative actor opposed to Russia – considered as classical geopolitical actor driven by rational calculation of interest. A more critical understanding of the differences and relations between norm-driven policies and interest-driven policies seems crucial to analyse those areas that both the EU and Russia consider their “neighbourhood” - and especially their respective integration projects. In this view, we argue that the ENP can still be reasonably regarded as an advanced effort by the EU to act as a normative power, but in its implementation a number of provisos and compromises with alternative rationales and targets may have to be made. Correspondingly, we also posit that Russia’s (re)engagement in Eurasian regionalism can be regarded as being not only motivated by material factors and “realist” considerations about power distribution. In fact, normative elements – though of a very specific kind – seem to inform its actions too: ideas about Russian identity, as well as the effort to maintain ‘normative pluralism’ in its near aboard – if not to promote a veritable “Russian model” – shape the progress and content of regionalization in Eurasia and the prospect of the Eurasian Union alongside strategic calculations.