The Future of European Integration in the Wake of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

Since the turn of the millennium, the European Union (EU) has faced a cascade of crises that have posed an existential threat to the project. These difficulties have sapped much of the optimism surrounding the integration and have made many within the EU skeptical of attempts to push the European project further, either through further enlargement or through deepening by expanding its institutional competencies. As a result, in the wake of the Great Recession, the migration crisis, Brexit, and the Coronavirus pandemic, the success of the EU has been measured in terms of its survival, not its achievements.

All of this changed seemingly overnight in the aftermath of the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Whereas the accession negotiations with the EU’s officially recognized candidate countries in Southern and Eastern Europe had previously been stalled, Russia’s attacked pushed EU enlargement to the top of the agenda by highlighting the dangers of leaving states in limbo outside the Union. The onset of the largest war on the European continent since the end of World War II, has also reopened the possibility of deeper integration, as the EU’s member-states have sought new forms of cooperation to boost both their military capabilities and their energy infrastructure, which was previously highly depended on cheap Russian gas.

It is not at all hyperbolic to say that Russia’s attempt to annex Ukraine has helped the EU to rediscover its raison d’être. This roundtable will explore the future of European integration – as well as its ability adapt to the changes and challenges regarding its own governance – in the wake of this seminal event. The panelists come from a variety of different backgrounds, including a number of speakers who hail from post-communist Central and Eastern Europe, the region most affected by the war in Ukraine. They will address a variety of topics, including (but certainly not limited to) the effect of these events on Brussels, the importance of integration for Ukraine, the threat that integration poses for Putin’s Russia, and what the renewed focus on the expansion of the EU could mean for Europe at large, including a post-Putin Russia, and the world.

Sub Unit

• Division 15: European Politics and Society

Chair

• Paul Petzschmann Carleton College

Presenters

• Peter J. Verovšek University of Groningen

• Vivien A. Schmidt European University Institute

• Oleksandr Komarenko Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

• Catherine Blanche Guisan University of Minnesota