Paper Titles & Abstracts

Ukraine's 'Orange Revolution' was the first major crisis between the EU and Russia. One of the central issues of contention was whether Ukraine's future lay with the EU or with Russia. The Kremlin sought to persuade Ukrainians to choose the latter. The EU's position was more cautious, but when mass protests over election fraud took place, it sent a diplomatic mission to Kiev. It provided the catalyst for the negotiations that ensured the victory of the pro-EU candidate Yushchenko. The result was a drastic transformation of Russian perceptions of the EU. Five years since Yeltsin embraced the EU as the acceptable face of the West, key Kremlin officials conceived the EU as a threat to the stability of the post- Soviet space. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it examines the EU's ability to play a significant role in shaping the outcome of the 'Orange Revolution.' This paper argues that the confrontation between the EU and Russia during the Ukrainian revolution was caused by the EU's acquisition of 'actorness.' The EU's effective intervention in Ukraine was made possible by the Polish and the Lithuanian presidents, who provided leadership and local contacts. At the same time, the pro-Western Ukrainian elites' wish for Ukraine's EU membership destroyed the Russian policy-makers' plans of creating an integrative economic project with countries in the former Soviet space. Second, this paper analyses why the EU's interference in Kiev precipitated a crisis in EU-Russia relations.