Differences among the member states of the European Union and its influence on their relations with the Russian Federation: 2014-2019

Abstract

The article examines the relations between Russia and the member states of the European Union in the period from 2014 to 2019. Methodologically, the author assumes that the European Union is a heterogeneous structure that affects the Russian-European relations. This is especially true for the foreign policy field where each EU state pursues its own interests. The author sets a task to study the impact of the differences between the EU member states on the dynamics of their relations with Russia through quantitative analysis. Within the confines of the empirical study, the dependent variable is presented as the state of the relations between the EU countries and the Russian Federation, and it is operationalized by an event study. To identify the differences between the EU states, the author proposes to use a set of factors such as the duration of EU membership, dependence on the trade with the Russian Federation, the type of democracy and the great power identification. Mann-Whitney U-test is the tool to investigate the connections between the variables. The result of the quantitative analysis demonstrates that in the period under review it was only the factor of belonging of a number of EU member states to the great powers that had a significant impact on their relations with Russia.