Towards Stronger Normative Power: the Nature of Shift in EU Foreign Policy in the Context of the Crisis in Ukraine

The crisis in Ukraine of 2014 produced considerable change in the EU international environment, which not only tested its capabilities to react very quickly and adequately but also actually destroyed previous subtle balance of its Member States in relations with Russia. The EU Member States were not able to continue to maintain in these relations the "disunity" pattern, which was successfully described in the European Coun­cil on Foreign Relations study "A Power Audit of EU – Russia Relations" already in 2007. New turbulence pushed EU member states closer together, re-introduced old geopolitical constraints and concerns about national and international security and limited the room for diplomatic maneuver and finally produce new "unity" pattern. However nature of that new pattern remains not yet fully investigated from academic point of view. The aim of the article is to present results of analysis of this shift in foreign policy preferences of the EU and its Member States. The research is targeted to identify the nature of this change, which happened through process of adjustment to new reality, in the hierarchy of foreign policy preferences of Member States and finally of the European Union in general. The aim of the paper will be achieved by implemen­tation of analysis of collected empirical data on foreign policy preferences of the EU Member States. The analysis will be based on typical methods of foreign policy analysis. Those include analysis of legal acts, statements of politicians, analytical literature and interviews with experts from the EU Member States. The conclusion of the article is supposed to answer to the main research question and to explain nature of new choices in the EU Members States foreign policies and its effect to the EU foreign policy towards Russia in general.