The European Union’s efforts to become a global power and to take the responsibility for its direct neighborhood may face a significant challenge. While news headlines remain fixed on Trump’s foreign policy, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the risks of global crisis, the region of Central and Eastern Europe is slipping into a spiral of political crisis. Between fragmented and polarized parliaments and fragile governmental coalitions, the EU’s borderlands are becoming political minefields. If their respective problems remain unchecked, the crises may impact the EU, paralyze governance, empower ‘sovereigntists’, and destabilize the EU from within. The cases of Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, and Poland, where systemic instability is the “new normal”, shed the light on the prospects that the whole EU may face in the very near future.
Author: Sergiy Gerasymchuk
Sergiy GERASYMCHUK is Deputy Executive Director at the Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism”, Board Member at the Strategic and Security Studies Group, and teaches at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. He is an author, co-author, and editor of a number of publications on NATO and EU enlargement, regional security in CEE, and Russian influence in the region. // Sergiy GERASYMCHUK ist stellvertretender Direktor des Foreign Policy Council „Ukrainian Prism“, Vorstandsmitglied der Strategic and Security Studies Group und lehrt an der Nationalen Universität Kiew-Mohyla Academy. Er ist Autor, Mitautor und Herausgeber einer Reihe von Publikationen über die NATO- und EU-Erweiterung, die regionale Sicherheit in Mittel- und Osteuropa und den russischen Einfluss in der Region.
