Eastern partnership vs Eurasian Union? The EU-Russia competition in the shared neighbourhood and the Ukraine crisis

This article examines the nature and implications of the emerging EU-Russia competition in their common neighbourhood. After analysing the two economic integration platforms that the EU and Russia are respectively promoting in the postsoviet space, the Eastern Partnership (EaP) and the Eurasian Economic Union, the discussion focuses on the case study of Ukraine. It is argued that depicting this emerging regional configuration as a geopolitical contest between two cohesive blocs was not fully corresponding to the reality on the ground but that it largely turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy in the case of Ukraine.