The EU and the Ukrainian Crisis: Legal and Political Aspects

Following the proclamation of independence of the Crimea and its accession to Russia, and in the presence of the (frozen) conflict between the Kyiv Government and the self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, the issue of EU relations with Ukraine and Russia has become one of the hottest political issues at a global level. it seems that the current, problematic state of affairs has among its strongest contributing causes some ideological contrasts between the Western Countries and Russia, which at the beginning of the nineties were considered largely obsolete, but which - in the absence of any real European foreign policy - reappeared and were dangerously reinforced by the arrival of some Central and Eastern European Countries as new Members of the EU (and of NATO). The absence of trilateral agreements between the EU, Ukraine and Russia too, expresses a lack of vision on the part of the EU. With regard to the new EU - Ukraine Association Agreement, a question arises: is this an innovative legal instrument providing for a new type of integration without membership ? And if so, what does this mean ? Or is it rather the result of a persistent ambiguity on the part of the EU towards its relations with Ukraine ? The adoption of economic sanctions towards Russia, and Russia's reaction to those sanctions represent a new obstacle to finding a common solution to the issues at stake. The prospects of relations between the EU and Ukraine, as well as the prospects of the relations between the EU and Russia are uncertain.