09 March 2025. JMC Elisabeth Johansson-Nogués publishes “The 2022 Russia-Ukraine War—A ‘Watershed’ for the EU’s Foreign Policy in the Region?” in Liridon Lika and Dealan Riga (eds.) EU Geopolitical Actorness in a Changing World (Palgrave, 2025). 

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has seen a change in the European Union’s (EU) engagement with Eastern Europe and thePresident of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has deemed it to be a “watershed moment for our Union” and for theEU’s foreign policy in the region. This chapter explores the EU assistance to Ukraine through the lens of “actorness” with a view to ascertain whether the EU as a foreign and security policy actor in relation to Ukraine and Eastern Europe has changed. The chapter’s findings point to that, on balance, the overall effects on the EU’s actorness as a consequence of the Ukraine is less than expected.The chapter also argue that the EU’s wartime assistance to Ukraine is perhaps more a conjunctural one-off in the EU’s foreign and security policy in the region, rather than a turning point with sustained effects on EU actorness. Link