The Rise of Resilience in EU Foreign Policy – A Shift of Paradigm or Parlance? : A comparative case study of the EU foreign policy before and after the EU Global Strategy

Abstract: This master’s thesis studies the European Union’s (EU) foreign policy in the Eastern Partnership before and after the EU Global Strategy (EUGS) and investigates whether or not there has been a policy shift towards the paradigm of resilience. Previous research disagrees on the implications of the EUGS and I argue that more empirical research on the matter is needed. The purpose of this thesis is thus to empirically investigate whether or not a shift in EU foreign policy towards a paradigm of resilience has indeed taken place in practice after the launch of the EUGS. Two sources of data are used in the study: the first and principal are the annual action programmes for the Eastern Partnership used by the EU for planning and delivering of external assistance; the second is a set of semi-structured elite interviews conducted with respondents representing the Eastern Partnership and the EU respectively. The results are mixed, showing a slight trend towards resilience-building but no ground-breaking paradigm shift has occurred. I argue that the resilience-building focus and principled pragmatism approach presented by the EUGS rather should be seen as an attempt by the EU to be honest with the foreign policy it is already conducting.