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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has been promoting the concept of a "geopolitical Commission" since her appointment in late 2019. Since then, successive crises--the Covid-19 pandemic, the ever-worsening climate crisis, and the war in Ukraine--have tested the Commission's intention to turn the concept into practice. This is particularly evident in the field of energy politics following Russia's attack on Ukraine. When the war started, Russia was the EU's largest energy supplier. The EU's desire to end its energy dependency on Russia called for "geopolitical actorness," notably swift political and diplomatic initiatives to find alternative suppliers considering the rapidly changing geopolitical circumstances. To what extent and how did this occur? Did the Commission achieve its goal of becoming a geopolitical actor in the field of energy politics? What does geopolitical actorness imply for the EU's energy policy and low-carbon transition? The article addresses these questions through an analysis of policy documents published by the von der Leyen Commission between 2019-2023, including the communications on the European Green Deal and Critical Raw Materials Resilience, the EU Hydrogen Strategy, the Global Gateway, the REPowerEU Plan, the External Energy Strategy, the Solar Energy Strategy, and the Green Deal Industrial Plan. The article argues that EU policy priorities progressively shifted from a focus on broad multilateral cooperation and open strategic autonomy to more narrowly defined strategic partnerships with "like-minded" Western and neighbouring countries. The 2022 war in Ukraine was a strong catalyst for this shift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Far-right and populist right-wing political parties have garnered significant scholarly attention in recent years. They have acquired importance also in European political institutions such as the European Parliament (EP). We explore this issue by focusing on the European Conservatives and Reformists' (ECR) group in the EP. We analyse its current and former main national party delegations – the British Conservative Party, the Polish Law and Justice Party, and the Brothers of Italy – and unpack the ideological underpinnings of 'conservative' positions of the ECR group. How is 'conservatism' constructed in the EP? What role does gender play in these constructions? Significantly, we locate gender equality as a key area, crucial to the identity of what it means to be a conservative party in Europe today. We combine the analysis of ECR political programs with interview and ethnographic data. The article contributes to both the study of European Union (EU) politics and to research on national conservative parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) has been facing an energy crisis since the autumn of 2021, which has been exacerbated by Russia's attack on Ukraine, geopolitical tensions, and the climate crisis. The war in Ukraine has changed European perceptions of energy trade with Moscow. In May 2022, the EU announced the REPowerEU plan, which aims at reducing imports of Russian energy by diversifying trade partners, increasing energy efficiency, and accelerating the energy transition. This article analyses the main developments in EU climate and energy policy since 2021, with a focus on the REPowerEU plan. The main elements of the plan are investigated, including a preliminary assessment. The article argues that the war in Ukraine has led to an acceleration of policies to implement the energy transition in the EU. However, numerous challenges and contradictions exist, such as the EU's quest of new and more polluting fossil fuel supplies in the short-run, which could lead to new forms of carbon lock-in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on debates whether the appointment of Giorgia Meloni as Italy's first female prime minister following the triumph of the far-right party Fratelli d' Italia (Brothers of Italy) reflects progress in terms of gender equality in the Italian political system. Cited are the claim by feminist scholars that Meloni reaps the fruits of a history of feminism that does not belong to her, and the party's positioning on gender equality.

Between 2014 and 2021, the EU's relationship with Russia oscillated between the ever more elusive quest for a mutually acceptable geopolitical balance and increasing conflict. The conflict focused primarily on the future of Ukraine. Three new books analyse essential parts of this conundrum: the changing nature of the EU's power in the context of the Ukraine conflict, the long-standing EU-Russia business and energy relationship, and the self-image and external perceptions of EU foreign policy towards Ukraine. While written before the 2022 war, the books remain highly relevant because they dissect an ongoing process of changing EU actorness in its Eastern neighbourhood. In order to analyse the path to the 2022 war and its aftermath, future research must expand on this scholarship by enlarging the spectrum of theoretical approaches while navigating the new constraints that the war and the ensuing tense policy debates have put on empirical work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European Union (EU) treaties have introduced legal frameworks for differentiated integration in European foreign and security policy, but they have rarely been used. Instead, member states have engaged in informal practices of differentiated cooperation. Based on an analysis of effectiveness, accountability and legitimacy of differentiated cooperation in the Western Balkans, the Middle East Peace Process, negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme and the Ukraine crisis, we argue that differentiated cooperation has had positive outcomes when it has adhered to common EU values and positions. When this has not been the case, differentiation has undermined EU foreign and security policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses European Union (EU) negotiations on the European Climate Law and the 2030 Climate Target Plan in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. Adopting Ansell and Trondal's (2018) conceptualisation of turbulence, it argues that the pandemic intensified the environmental turbulence within which European policy makers had been operating following Brexit, the rule of law dispute with Poland and Hungary, and the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Organisational turbulence within EU institutions also affected the negotiations, particularly due to the reliance of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on the political support of East-Central European governments that are sceptical of ambitious climate action. Moreover, the Commission, the European Council and the Parliament have taken different positions on the 2030 climate target and on the governance to pursue subsequent targets. Turbulence of scale--reflecting the nature of the EU as a multi-level actor--became relevant too, as the EU found it difficult to agree on its 2030 climate target due to disputes between member states and European institutions. European decision makers responded to turbulence through major policy initiatives, such as the EU Recovery Plan, the Green Deal agenda, and making funds conditional to the respect of the rule of law. They also pursued intra-EU compromises that accommodated different positions--for instance, on the Climate Law. Nonetheless, turbulence continues to pose a formidable challenge to the progress of the EU's climate agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most scholars have described the European Union (EU) as a liberal actor in its approach to international climate and energy governance. This paper argues that the EU has shifted to a strategic approach, including the use of legislation and the adoption of negotiating positions that promote a political agenda. This is illustrated through an analysis of the EU's evolving stance on multilateral energy governance and its handling of the Nord Stream 2 project. The EU began to shift towards a strategic stance already in the 2000s, in the context of the Energy Charter Treaty negotiations and the growing securitization of European energy debates. Following the polycrisis of the mid-2010s, the EU adopted a full-fledged strategic stance on external energy policy. Geopolitical crises and great power competition, together with intra-EU divisions and an increased focus on the climate agenda, have catalyzed the EU's shift to a strategic approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2020s promise to be a challenging decade for Germany in international affairs. The model of international relations that developed after the Cold War, based on multilateral cooperation and diplomacy, is coming under further pressure. As the US relative power is in decline and other actors, especially China and Russia, are increasing their international influence, the world enters a decade of growing international competition. Unlike the US, China or Russia, Germany is not engaging in this increasingly tense geopolitical competition. As this Special Issue of German Politics demonstrates, Germany's strength lies primarily in its tradition of diplomatic engagement on the European continent and beyond. The European Union (EU) is the main framework through which Germany pursues this cooperative approach. During the 2010s, Germany acquired a leading role in several areas of EU policy-making, including foreign and security policy. On numerous occasions, Germany's leadership in the EU was severely put to the test. This Special Issue investigates the origins, nature and limitations of German leadership in the Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates Germany's role in the European Union's (EU) foreign policy towards Russia. It argues that Germany has been a leader in EU relations with Russia since the late 2000s, most notably through attempts to upload its long-standing policy of dialogue and cooperation with Moscow – known as Ostpolitik – to the EU level. During the Ukraine crisis, German leadership in this field became hegemonic. Economic and institutional power, the consent of its European and transatlantic allies and supportive domestic politics allowed Germany to profile itself as the main EU negotiating partner for Moscow. By highlighting the long-term German quest for leadership in the EU's relations with Russia, the article makes the argument that Germany is not a 'reluctant', but rather an assertive hegemon in this policy area. Furthermore, the article highlights how the Ostpolitik tradition and its self-conception as a civilian power enabled Germany to lead Western diplomacy in the Ukraine crisis. At the same time, Germany's hegemonic leadership in EU-Russia relations faces several challenges and limitations, which relate to the nature of Germany's power, the consent of its allies and evolving domestic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the drivers and limiting factors of the transnationalisation of Second World War memory by focusing on the recently opened Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk. The creators of the museum presented it as an attempt to internationalise the memory of the conflict through the inclusion of East-Central European perspectives. The article contends that large parts of the exhibition foregrounded Polish narratives of the conflict. The exhibition reflected the intent of placing Polish (and through them East-Central European) perspectives at the centre of a broader transnational framework, and thus influence both the domestic and the international debate on the memory of the war. The article argues that the national agency from which the museum originated constituted the main limitation to the declared goal of providing a transnational narration of the war. This became particularly evident when the nationalist and conservative Law and Justice party rose to power in Warsaw and modified the structure of the museum. As part of a wider chauvinist memory politics, the new authorities weakened the transnational references in the exhibition and strengthened nationalist, Poland-centric narratives. The article concludes by arguing that national-level agency alone appears inadequate to sustain the transnationalisation of Second World War memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Cold War, Italy developed an economic and political partnership with Russia. The confrontation between Russia and the West following the Ukraine crisis initially appeared to have undermined this partnership. Instead, despite reciprocal sanctions and tensions, Italian-Russian cooperation has proved resilient. Security and humanitarian crises in Italy's Southern neighbourhood and Russia's renewed activism there have recently led Italian policymakers to intensify dialogue with Moscow. The quest for dialogue with Russia corresponds to the long-standing conceptualisation of Italy as a 'middle power', which can achieve its foreign policy goals most effectively through cooperation with the great powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the European Union (EU) has pursued a geopolitical approach to its external energy policy in the Caspian region, with the aim of importing gas via routes that bypass Russia. This approach treats energy as a strategic good that governments need to secure through political, diplomatic and economic involvement in energy trade. The geopolitical approach differs from the traditional EU stance to energy policy, which focuses on market liberalization, competition, and climate targets. Through an analysis of key policy documents and statements of top EU officials in charge of external energy policy, the article shows that the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) exemplifies a geopolitical approach to energy. In a second step, it highlights how the geopolitical logic that permeates the SGC has underplayed the important economic, technical and security challenges hindering the project. These challenges are compounded by Russia's response, which aims at strengthening competition to SGC gas through new export pipelines (Turkish Stream). Finally, the article argues that, due to the multiple challenges faced by the geopolitical approach, the EU is more likely to achieve energy security through its traditional market liberal approach. As a large, integrated and well-regulated market, the EU can acquire sufficient and affordable energy resources by encouraging competition among external suppliers and by relying on the existing, underutilized import infrastructure. Furthermore, the implementation of the EU's climate agenda makes long-term projects for the import of fossil fuels such as the SGC largely redundant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy trade is an essential factor in EU-Russia relations. This essay argues that Russia and the European Union have deployed two types of power in their post-Cold War energy relationship. Russia has predominantly exerted geopolitical power through the sale of its vast energy resources and selected strategies to channel them to partners. With a large market but lacking fossil fuels, the EU attempted to achieve its aims mostly through regulatory power. However, both the Russian and the EU external energy policy strategies have recently become more nuanced. This evolution in their approaches has resulted in Russia's gradual acceptance of the regulatory and market principles promoted by the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shows that national constructions of the Other are not fixed, but evolve as a result of policy makers’ agency, the domestic contestation among different identity narratives and their interaction with international structures. This is illustrated through an interpretive Social Constructivist approach and the Discourse-Historical Analysis (DHA) of narratives of Russia as an Other in German national identity. The article investigates the paradoxes of identity/difference and of continuity/change, which constitute the theoretical core of this Special Issue. It is argued that, in a longue durée perspective, narratives of Russia as an antagonistic Other have evolved and allowed for the emergence of less oppositional forms of difference. This change had an impact on German foreign policy, notably through the emergence of the cooperative Ostpolitik towards Russia. From the 1960s, Germany’s genocidal past was constructed as the main Other in national identity, whereas Soviet Russia was reconceptualised as an economic partner. I argue that this conceptualisation has proven remarkably resilient and has not disappeared in the context of the 2008 Georgian war and the current Ukraine crisis. While the Ostpolitik narrative temporarily lost momentum at the height of the crisis, it is ready to resurface as soon as structural conditions change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Europe, commemorations of the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War have reiterated the existence of different national narratives of the historical event. These narratives can be grouped into four distinct memory discourses. Each discourse is dominant in a particular European country or region: Russia, post-communist East-Central Europe, Germany and the Western European countries that fought against the Third Reich. On 8–9 May 2015, the four narratives found expression in distinct European commemorative locations: Moscow, Gdansk, Berlin and London/Paris. The paper argues that, while the four narratives have existed for several decades, the Russian narrative has recently been reformulated with a more nationalistic rhetoric and used as a conceptual framework to explain and interpret the crisis in Ukraine. Simultaneously, East-Central European narratives have been radicalised too, while nationalist discourses and highly controversial historical figures have been subsumed in a new post-Maidan official narrative in Ukraine. This further politicised the memory of the Second World War, leading to dissonance between the Russian and the German and Western European narratives and, most notably, to a radical discursive clash between the Russian and the East-Central European memory discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Energy trade has been an important and largely cooperative field of the EU-Russia relationship for nearly five decades. After the Cold War, liberal theories of international relations, which highlighted the two sides' interdependence, became entrenched as an explanatory framework for EU-Russia energy relations. From the late 2000s, Russia's increasingly assertive foreign policy, culminating in the annexation of Crimea in 2014, changed dramatically the political framework of the energy relationship. As a result, realist understandings of Russia's energy policy (re)gained popularity. However, despite the political crisis, EU-Russia energy trade has continued without major disruptions; indeed, Russian gas exports to Europe have grown after 2014. This article examines the evolution of the EU-Russia energy relationship and argues that it continues to respond to a commercial logic. Russia's use of an 'energy weapon' appears highly unlikely. Meanwhile, EU market and competition rules have strengthened the case for a liberal understanding of the relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ukraine crisis and subsequent tensions in relations with Russia urged the European Union to diversify its energy suppliers and integrate the energy markets of member states. However, the EU does not seem to have a clear strategy to strengthen its energy security. Member states are reluctant to relinquish control over their energy policy. Moreover, the diversification of fossil fuel suppliers may lead to new dependencies on authoritarian states, while the emphasis on unconventional energy sources may delay the development of renewables. A coordinated focus on renewable energy, coupled with investments in energy efficiency, appears to be the most forward-looking and climate-friendly way of reducing external dependencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the right to external self-determination as it applies to Abkhazia and Kosovo. The concept of external self-determination is differentiated from internal self-determination. The legal foundations of external self-determination are examined through international treaties and customary international law. The impact of the declaration of independence by Kosovo in February 2008 on international law is examined in relation to the secession of Abkhazia from Georgia. The parallels between Kosovo and Abkhaz are discussed.