The EU currently tries to join the CFSP/CSDP instruments with the longer-term development policy efforts, in accordance with the so-called comprehensive approach, officially introduced in December 2013. It puts emphasis on coordination, cooperation and mobilisation of EU´s different strengths and capacities. The Global Strategy for the European Union's Foreign and Security Policy (EUGS), introduced in June 2016, expanded this approach into the form of the so called integrated approach, which is based even more on multi-level, multi- lateral, multi-phased and multi-dimensional (cross-sectoral) approach to peacebuilding in conflict areas.
The paper represents an analysis focused on the EU´s engagement in the response to Ukrainian crisis. It is based theoretically on the concepts of discursive institutionalism invented by Vivien Schmidt, applied here in the specific field of the EU´s Common Security and Defence Policy. It takes into account 3 levels of analysis: a/ discursive; b/ institutional; c/ contextual. More particularly, our analysis explored the role of the elements of comprehensive/integrated approach (as defined in the Joint Communication on the EU´s comprehensive approach to external conflicts and crises in December 2013 and in the EUGS in June 2016) in the coordinative discourse of the main responsible institutional actors, that were engaged in the decision-making in the case of the EU´s response to the crisis in Ukraine. Research questions: How the particular institutional actors share and understand these elements, how they are privileged or “foregrounded” in their discourse? What is the role of the references to the broader “background” debate about the EU´s role as an international actor in the coordinative discourse about the EU´s engagement in the Ukrainian crisis? What was the development of the coordinative discourse in the context of the Ukrainian crisis and in the context of the EU´s real engagement into the crisis?
The paper follows here also the real implementation of the key elements of the EU´s comprehensive/integrated approach in the Ukrainian situation. Particular emphasis is put on the EUAM, as the CSDP civilian mission in Ukraine. It represents one of the typical instruments of the EU´s comprehensive/integrated approach and at the same time it is one of the most practical, direct and supposedly long-term examples of the EU´s CSDP engagement in the Ukrainian situation.
The research was based on the analysis of official open access documents issued by the responsible CFSP/CSDP structures (European Council, Council for Foreign Affairs and the High Representative, the European Commission and its responsible structures) during the period from March 2014 (when the unrest in some regions of Eastern Ukraine escalated into armed clashes) until June 2017 (when the data collection finished). Other sources of data were semi-structured interviews with insiders (repr. of EEAS, PSC, European Commission and the EUAM).
