Prof Dr Tobias SCHUMACHER, Chairholder of the European Neighbourhood Policy Chair at the Natolin campus of the College of Europe, has just published an article on “Territorial Conflict, Domestic Crisis, and the Covid-19 Pandemic in the South Caucasus. Explaining Variegated EU Responses” in the 2020 Annual Review of the European Union of the prestigious JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies.
The article, co-authored with Dr Cengiz GÜNAY, Deputy Director of the Vienna-based Austrian Institute for International Affairs, addresses the EU’s role in the South Caucasus in 2020 and argues that relations with Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia remained largely unaffected by domestic crises and regional conflict, whereas EU responses variegated considerably. It demonstrates that variance was due to a mix of factors: On one hand, local and regional scope conditions and the role of other extra-regional actors provided differentiated opportunity structures for EU engagement. On the other hand, variegated responses were the result of intra-EU dynamics that oscillated between passivity, disinterest, go-alone attitudes of individual Member States, and consensus when action seemed needed and possible.