Author: Maryna Rabinovych

Dr. Anne Pintsch and Dr. Maryna Rabinovych published a book chapter “EU External Differentiated Integration and Compliance: Theoretical and Legal Aspects” with the Routledge Handbook of Differentiation in the European Union, edited by Benjamin Leruth, Stefan Gänzle and Jarle Trondal.

While the volume seeks to offer a nuanced picture of differentiation in the European Union, the book chapter by the Project Team explores compliance in light of external EU differentiation. This phenomenon includes, for instance, the Schengen Area, EU sectoral agreements with Switzerland, the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement and the EU Association Agreements with Eastern Neighbours. As a first step, the chapter introduces theoretical expectations about compliance in the abovementioned cases, referring to the external enforcement, management, domestic pressure and legitimacy approaches. Next, it provides a nuanced overview of legal tools these agreements use to enforce compliance and discusses their relevance in light of compliance theories. It is concluded that fostering compliance under differentiated integration would require strengthening stakeholder engagement and structures for multistakeholder engagement.

News about Russia’s possible invasion of Ukraine and its provocations in the Donbas region have been hitting the headlines of world top newspapers since autumn 2021. What is the role of the EU in the current crisis? How has the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement helped improve Ukraine’s resilience amid hybrid and immediate military threats? And why is the 2022 crisis so different from the one in 2014? Find answers to all these questions in the blog post by the “Lowering the Bar” project’s Post-Doc Maryna Rabinovych, published with the EUROPP blog at the London School of Economics.

Dr. Maryna Rabinovych and Dr. Anne Pintsch worked together towards a book chapter “EU Differentiated Integration as a Tangible: Internal and External Dimensions” published with the Routledge Handbook of European Integrations, edited by Thomas Hoerber, Gabriel Weber and Ignazio Cabras. The Handbook offers a comprehensive coverage of various aspects of European integration, including the ones “usually neglected or excluded in European integration collections”. Such aspects relate to, for instance, football, tourism, Erasmus, as well as artificial intelligence, transport and energy. Moreover, the Handbook is marked by an insight into tangible benefits European integration has brought about, and this is where the Project Team’s chapter on differentiated integration comes into play.

The contribution explains tangible benefits, intangibles and challenges associated with a broad range of differentiated integration structures both within the EU itself (e.g., enhanced cooperation between Member States) and the ones also involving third states, such as Eastern Neighbours. It is demonstrated that the Association Agreements with Eastern Neighbours create valuable tangibles for the EU in terms of trade liberalization, sectoral cooperation and political dialogue. Strong association relations with third countries also help the Union to increase its visibility and reach in numerous policy domains, such as development and conflict management. Nevertheless, Member States’ divergent geopolitical interests and EU foreign policy’s contestation represent crucial challenges to the further advancement of the EU-Neighbours relations. Differentiation, nevertheless, remains a crucial aspect of European integration, requiring careful management and nuanced research for it to continue producing tangibles, rather than mushrooming challenges. 

The Report, published in terms of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine program at the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, presents novel data on Russia’s “passportization” and the voting by the residents of the the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Luhansk People’s Republic.” These data provides a nuanced insight into the political preferences of the self-proclaimed “People’s Republics’ ” residents and the role the engagement of the Donbas residents into voting has played for the Duma elections. Moreover, amidst Russia’s current military build-up close to Ukrainian borders, the Report illustrates how “passportization” paves the way for the combination of the conventional and hybrid aggression vis-à-vis Ukraine. It offers several policy recommendations for the Ukrainian government and the international community to address “passportization” as a form of hybrid aggression.

For the detailed summary of the Report, please visit the webpage of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University.