The European Union as a Conflict Resolution Provider: What Europeanisation?

The proposed paper presents the main empirical findings of the analysis of the EU’s activity for conflict resolution in three case studies – Cyprus, Kosovo and Palestine – showing what are main challenges and opportunities for the EU in this field. The EU’s activity for conflict resolution will be conceptualized in terms of both the foreign policy instruments used to influence the conflict parties’ behavior and the norms promoted for the settlement of the conflict. While Europeanization will refer to the capacity of the EU’s activity for conflict resolution – the foreign policy instruments used and the norms promoted for conflict settlement – to favor a cooperative behavior of the conflict parties. The first part of the paper will briefly reconstruct how the EU’s activity for conflict resolution has developed since the European Political Cooperation until the Lisbon Treaty, and will propose a classification of the main foreign policy instruments at the disposal of the EU to contribute to conflict resolution in the different phases of the conflict (before escalation, during escalation, after escalation). The second part will present the empirical results of the Europeanization of the conflicts in the selected cases. It will focus not only on the foreign policy instruments used and on the norms promoted to contribute to conflict resolution, but also on the mechanisms and the conditions under which these can have an impact on the behavior of the conflict parties.