This paper examines the response of the members of the European Council towards the EU's sanctions policy against Russia following the 2014 Russian occupation and annexation of Crimea and the ...continued Ukraine crisis. The case is analysed to answer the question on the traits of the politicisation of the EU's Russia sanctions policy. Concretely, the main research question is: what does the interplay of actor range, salience, and polarisation tell us about politicisation of CFSP in the case of sanctions policy? The secondary research question deals with how actors interact when contesting a sanctions policy to boost their success. Considering that the European Council, as the main actor in CFSP, is something of a "black box", the paper heuristically focuses on statements (N = 223) on the sanctions policy given by its members from March 2014 till the end of 2019. The analysis shows how the politicisation of the sanctions policy seemingly entrenched itself into EUFP politics after it skyrocketed and fell in the wake of Russia's annexation of Crimea. Finally, a latent class analysis indicates the existence of two latent coalitions with opposing views on the sanctions policy.
This paper proceeds with an overview of the context in which the elections took place, followed by their results, which are compared with previous elections for added understanding of the ...similarities and differences. The second part of the paper enumerates the consequences of the elections for the political system, the political parties and individual actors, and the society at large. In the conclusion, a projection of the short- and medium-term influence of these elections is given.
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