Wider Europe : the influence of the EU on neighbouring countries : the case of Russia and Ucraine

Abstract

The EU has engaged in the promotion of an unprecedented process of policy export which involves not only candidates to enlargement, but also a wide range of countries beyond the Union’s present and future expected (at least at the moment) borders. In this framework, Russia and Ukraine have been an important test-case for the European Union which asked them to 'endeavour to ensure' that their legislation will be 'gradually made compatible with that of the Community' already in the mid-90s. This dissertation is intended to explore the mechanisms which have allowed the EU to promote legislative approximation in these 2 countries across 3 policy areas which are at the core of the internal market and where I, thus, expected the pressure for Europeanisation to be higher: competition policy, company law and consumers’ protection. In particular, I tried to understand if and how far the EU has been able to induce Russia and Ukraine towards the desired outcome as a result of the engagement of the parties in strategic inter-action. Then, on the other hand, I tried to assess if and how far rule adoption has been motivated by internalized, socially constructed identities, values and norms. The analysis has shown that there are interesting cases of Europeanisation not only in Ukraine, but also in Russia, allowing me to highlight the limits deriving from the use of conditionality in the new neighborhood and the need to reconsider the mix between different Europeanisation strategies.