European Union and Russia: international relations evolution

Abstract

Today the relationship between Russia and the today EU-28 (today EU-27) members of the European Union is essential and very strategically important; this issue is bound to become more urgent as the two draws closer together over the next decades. In this paper, we discuss this and the Russian Federation’s role in the Ukraine conflict that has seriously affected EU-Russia relations. The EU and Russia have a long record of cooperation on issues of bilateral and international concern in several fields, from climate change to drug and human trafficking, but also the organized crime, terrorism, and non-proliferation. In particular, Europe, the “old traditional Europe”, acquires special weight for Russia in the context of the cooling down of relations between Russia and the United States. We will discuss gas, oil, and energy, but we can see that the solution can be only economic, and the oil and agriculture sectors could help do just that. “Business is business”.