Official Communications of the European External Action Service with Russia: Crafting the Image of Normative Power Europe

The paper explores Russia-related official statements of the European External Action Service (EEAS), press releases and speeches of the European Union’s two High Representatives for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy posted on the website of the service during the whole period of its activities (2010‒2018). The goal of the analysis is to distinguish the elements of normative, soft and transformative power in EU’s official communications to Moscow and to specify what type of power the EU tries to exercise in Russia. Quantitative text analysis of the EEAS documents was carried out for this purpose. The results obtained demonstrate that the communications of the European diplomatic service with Russia are limited to a narrow range of problems. The principles of the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms dominate in the dialogue of the EEAS with Moscow. The state of Russian judiciary, legislation and responsibility of Russia for the fulfillment of human rights obligations have become the issues the European External Action Service addresses most often. As legal norms and their violation are put by Brussels in the first place, we came to the conclusion that the European diplomatic service on behalf of the EU communicates to Russia as normative power, promoting normative agenda in the country. The elements of soft and transformative power are very scarcely represented. During the period under consideration the EEAS have not made any explicit attempts to accentuate the aspects of soft or transformative power in its official communications with Russia. The paper consists of three parts: the first one is the methods section, the second presents the pattern and content of the EEAS official communications to Russia, the last section shows the dynamics of communications and defines what kind of actor the EEAS appears in relations with Moscow.