The EU's Transformative Power Challenged in Ukraine

Moving from the analysis of the EU’s actions in the Ukrainian crisis, this article aims at openinga reflection on certain traditional taxonomies such as civilian, normative and transformativepower that have shaped the debate on both the EU ontology and its external manifestation.1While the peculiarity of the development of European integration might have quitespontaneously produced a normative power, on the external front the application of this powerrequires a political drive. The recent policies – ENP, EaP – promulgated to stabilize andrestructure the EU’s neighbourhood through the diffusion of norms have undoubtedly geopoliticalimplications. It is not yet clear whether these policies are simply replicating the enlargementrationale (although not contemplating membership), or, rather, they are part of a power politicsproject dissimulated under a normative veil.The EU responded to Russia’s aggressiveness in an‘unreflective’ way, a procession of ‘patterned actions’ with limited efficacy.The EU’s performancein Ukraine reveals both a lack of analytical capacity in the elaboration of policies directed to theneighbourhood and of tactical planning for facing up to the consequences of those policies.