Russian and EU powers of attraction
Does the eastern neighbourhood want to join forces with Russia, be part of the EU or go it alone?
Experts & Staff
Nicu Popescu
ECFR Alumni · Director, Wider Europe programme
Areas of expertise
Russian domestic and foreign policies; Eastern Partnership countries and their relations with the EU; post-Soviet conflicts; cybersecurity
Languages
English, Russian, French, Romanian
Biography
Nicu Popescu was the director of the Wider Europe programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and he works from ECFR’s Paris office. His topics of focus include EU’s relations with Russia and the Eastern Partnership countries.
In 2019, Popescu served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of Moldova. Previously, he worked as a senior analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies (2013-2018); senior advisor on foreign policy to the prime minister of Moldova (2010, 2012-2013); senior research fellow at ECFR’s London office (2007-2009, 2011-2012), and as a research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels (2005-2007).
Popescu teaches at Sciences-Po Paris. He holds a PhD in International Relations from the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. He is author of the EU foreign policy and post-Soviet conflicts: stealth intervention (Routledge 2010), and co-editor of Russia Rising: Putin’s Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa (with Dimitar Bechev and Stanislav Secrieru, I.B. Tauris 2021) and Democratization in EU Foreign Policy (with Benedetta Berti and Kristina Mikulova, Routledge 2015).
The EU?s decline as viewed by Russia
It’s always good to know what Russia thinks of you, especially when it may have a point
Moldova defies post-Soviet traditions
Moldova is the only CIS country with an uninterrupted cycle of legal and constitutional transfers of power through elections since 1991
Go east, Sweden
The Swedish presidency should tour the EU’s eastern periphery to ensure the region does not feel forgotten
Elections in Moldova. Again.
On 29 July Moldova will hold early parliamentary elections. Nicu Popescu offers a snapshot of the country two days before the elections.
The summer of eastern Europe’s discontent
The EU needs to better marshal its soft power in the eastern neighbourhood
The end of ?de facto states?
Nicu Popescu comments on developments in Abkhazia and South Ossetia after their recognition by Russia
A Swedish-led listening tour of the East
The EU should start listening and involving the small and fragile states of the eastern neighbourhood, and the Swedish Presidency should be the body lead this “listening tour” charge
European and Russian power in the troubled neighbourhood
The EU’s strategy for influence in the eastern neighbourhood
Reinvigorating the EU?s Eastern Policy
There will be dire consequences on the EU’s eastern border unless the EU rethinks its eastern neighbourhood strategy
Publications
Push back, contain, and engage: How the EU should approach relations with Russia
The bloc should reframe how it speaks of human rights and democracy, while developing closer security and military links with select neighbours
A new transatlantic bargain: An action plan for transformation, not restoration
The Trump years galvanised Europeans’ efforts to strengthen their own sovereignty; they now need to agree concrete offers they can make to the new administration
The best defence: Why the EU should forge security compacts with its eastern neighbours
If the EU is to be more geopolitically influential in its own neighbourhood, it needs to start developing strategic security partnerships with key neighbours to the east and the south
Defender of the faith? How Ukraine’s Orthodox split threatens Russia
Introduction An average Westerner may well have overlooked the potentially seismic geopolitical event of 6 January 2019. On that snowy Sunday – Epiphany in western…
Transnistria: A bottom-up solution
How to defrost Moldova’s frozen conflict
Dealing with a post-BRIC Russia
Learning to deal with a changing Russia under a familiar leader
A Chance to Reform: How the EU can support democratic evolution in Morocco
Helping Moroccan democracy through evolution not revolution
Turning Presence into Power: the EU in its eastern neighbourhood
The EU needs to be more influential in its eastern neighbourhood
After the revolution: Europe and the transition in Tunisia
Tunisians need European help to turn their revolution into a democracy
European and Russian power in the troubled neighbourhood
The EU’s strategy for influence in the eastern neighbourhood
Articles
A digital agenda for the Eastern Partnership
By reforming the Eastern Partnership, the EU can capitalise on the huge opportunities for economic and social development created by digitalisation
Vaccine passports: How the EU can win the next round of covid diplomacy
A new EUROVAX scheme should be at the heart of the EU’s new offer to help its neighbours tackle covid-19 in the years ahead
Why the EU should stop waiting for the Godot of Russian decline
Many in Europe think Russia is in decline, but basing EU policy on such deterministic thinking is a mistake. The EU should deal with Russia of today, not with that of 2050 or 2070.
Why attempts to reset relations with Russia fail
Offering ‘resets’ to Russia does not work. On the contrary, a more muscular approach to the country will yield results
The geopolitics of covid vaccines in Europe’s eastern neighbourhood
Many of the EU’s neighbours are hoping it will help them secure vaccines – leaving offers from China and Russia to flood in
How Russia and the West try to weaken each other
The West and Russia are both worse off for their efforts to try to weaken each other. This competition will only end when one side feels it is losing the race.
Europe needs to nurture security partnerships or face growing isolation
No matter who wins the US election, the EU will need to play a bigger security role in its neighbourhood
How the EU became marginalised in Nagorno-Karabakh
EU diplomacy could facilitate a conflict settlement process by pressuring Armenia and Azerbaijan to start implementing the Madrid Principles
A captive ally: Why Russia isn’t rushing to Armenia’s aid
Russia appears willing to allow Azerbaijan to recapture some areas around Nagorno-Karabakh, betting on Armenian dependency and Azerbaijani gratitude
A hill here, a village there: Nagorno-Karabakh and the salami-slicing wars
Azerbaijan and Armenia are shifting from two decades of ‘frozen conflict settlement’ to an era of ‘salami-slicing wars’ – small conflicts designed to extract diplomatic concessions or regain territory from the adversary slice by slice
Podcasts
Towards stability: A new concert of powers
Could a “concert of powers” be the solution for the increasing power competition between the US and China and the current crisis of democracy?
Belarus’s brutal politics
What kind of implications do the developments in Belarus have for the wider neighbourhood and Europe?
Stranger in Moscow: Borrell’s unwelcome visit
What lessons can be drawn from Josep Borrell’s controversial visit to Moscow?
Europe’s new transatlantic bargain for Biden’s America
When Biden enters the White House, he will look for a Europe that brings solutions rather than problems. Europeans should show they can be an equal partner & offer him a new transatlantic bargain.
Nagorno-Karabakh: Armenia and Azerbaijan’s thawing of the ‘frozen conflict’
The contested Nagorno-Karabakh region is at the heart of a decades-long armed standoff between neighbours Armenia and Azerbaijan. The…
Russia’s Syria, Turkey’s Libya?
The attempt of a peace process in Libya is facing several substantial hindrances, where a variety of actors keep on inducing significant upheavals in its…
As covid-19 arrives, Putin disappears – Russia in the age of corona.
How is Russia dealing with covid-19? What impact does the pandemic have on the other underlying political issues in Russia – such as the change…
Geopolitics in the coronavirus era – who will be crowned winner?
Last week’s episode saw our experts dissecting the coronavirus’ implications for Europe. In today's episode, we’re breaking down how the crisis is unfolding in the…
Europe’s Eastern Neighbourhood: Ukraine and Moldova
Standing in for regular host Mark Leonard, Anthony Dworkin, senior policy fellow at ECFR, looks at Europe's Eastern neighbourhood and interaction with Russia. He is…
Ukraine Under President Zelensky
Podcast de notre débat du 21 mai « Ukraine Under President Zelensky » en présence de Victor Andruziv, directeur de l’Ukrainian Institute for…
Events
11 Jun
What to expect from the Putin-Biden summit?
What, if anything, can one say about the longer-term perspectives for the US-Russia relationship?
12 May
An ambitious Eastern Partnership policy for a strong Europe
What policy changes do the EU and its member states need to envisage if the EU is to act more geopolitically and increase its influence in the Eastern neighbourhood?
27 Jan
The EU and Belarus in 2021
How is Europe planning to keep Belarus on the agenda and will it provide more political support for Belarusian civil society?
23 Nov
Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh: winners, losers, and a new status quo in the Caucasus
The relatively short-lived flare-up between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has ended in early November with a ceasefire brokered by Russia
In the media
Those elections could be a signal for other countries facing similar issues in Eastern Europe
Nicu Popescu is quoted in Le Journal du Dimanche on the Moldavian elections
It’s a significantly bigger win than anyone expected… It’s a once in a generation opportunity to defeat, and push back against and combat corruption, and that’s what this mandate is for
Nicu Popescu comments on what the landslide election victory of the pro-EU Action and Solidarity Party means for Moldova
Nicu Popescu talks in this podcast about the elections and state of politics in Moldova
From a European perspective, the evasive and dismissive attitude on the part of the German political class towards any military support for Ukraine is out of time
Why Germany should help Kyiv with weapons explains Nicu Popescu in his op-ed
Nicu Popescu explains in this podcast why and how the European Union should strengthen the security cooperation with its eastern neighbours