How contestation affects EU diplomacy in Eastern Europe

This contribution aims to address what constrains and enables EU diplomacy. Drawing on field-work conducted in Chisinau, Kiev and Minsk in 2013-2016 the paper explores practices of European diplomatic cooperation abroad, shows how EU diplomatic actors identify a common approach and emphasizes certain capability issues faced by the EU in these countries. Findings show that there is a high degree of networking and engagement in meetings by EU diplomats from EU delegations and MS embassies. Hence this paper aims to understand what forces drive EU diplomatic actors to engage in joint activities and fulfilment of common goals and which factors hamper this. Through a series of examples from the field I discuss the degree of coordination of joint activities among EU diplomatic actors and explore the “drivers” and “dividers” in this process. Contrary to initial expectation that the diplomatic field, i.e. the external context, influences EU diplomacy; the analysis shows how the practice of EU diplomacy is contested by practices of bloc diplomacy, multistakeholder and interest-driven diplomacy and how burden-sharing and unilateral diplomatic actions are embraced by national and EU diplomats on the ground.