Changing EU Policies in Times of War: How Increasing EU Acceptance Affects European Identities in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine?

Research Project by Salome Minesashvili

This project is funded under the Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships. The project runs for three years (2025-2028) and is being conducted at the Research Centre for East European Studies (FSO) at the University of Bremen and the European Politics Research Group at ETH Zurich.

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The Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine marked a turn in the EU`s policy towards its Eastern Partnership (EaP) members, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The EU has been gradually opening since 2014 and offered a candidate status in 2022 and 2023, with a later drawback for Georgia. Thus, currently the EU faces a challenge of modifying its EaP policy and deciding how these countries can be led to the membership. However, these countries’ move towards Europe, which is based on European self-identification, has been contested domestically by alternative identities, including those advocated by Russia. The lack of a single identity has been noted as a challenge to domestic consensus on democratisation, to the EU rule transfer and implementation and as an incitement for external intervention. But considering the leap in the EU and Russian policies, this context faces potential restructuring. While we know how the EU policies might affect rule adoption beyond its borders, the question of its influence on identity debates has yet to be addressed. The goal of EUROIDE is to understand whether and under what conditions increasing acceptance from the EU side in times of Russian aggression instigates change in identity contestation. This understanding will provide insights into domestic constellations in regard to accepting or resisting democratisation and Europeanisation processes in value terms. 
 
EUROIDE will conduct a longitudinal and comparative study of identity discourses in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine under changing EU approach since 2014. For this purpose, the project will collect open textual data (e.g. declarations, statements, parliamentary debates, etc.) depicting identity discourses of the key actors (e.g. political parties, civil society representatives, churches, etc.) in those three countries between 2013-2025 as well as in-depth experts interviews. EUROIDE will be based on an interdisciplinary approach, bridging political and psychological theories and computer science, Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods to analyse identity discourses.