China has established an unprecedented multidimensional influence on countries with both resilient state capacity and fragile state institutions. Both categories of states in the West and East alike struggle to cope with the far-reaching implications of China’s economic and political activism as well as soft power projection. The susceptibility of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries constitutes a prime example of the difficulties or lack of capabilities to withstand the negative consequences of intense Chinese influence. Notwithstanding some developmental prospects for local economies opened up by lavish investment, infrastructure, and trade opportunities, this situation creates destructive political ramifications both at the local CEE level and at the broader European (EU) level, particularly damaging European solidarity and the ability of the member states to ensure unity on the most pressing European issues. This paper focuses on the nature of CEE countries’ relations with China and local responses to Chinese activism. Doing so the paper tracks the evolution and trajectory of the CEE countries’ affairs with China and accounts for the current dynamic and key mechanisms of China’s engagement policies toward the region of CEE. The paper argues that the Chinese-led regional platform of cooperation institutionalized as the “16+ Initiative” constitutes the strategic “bridgehead” to spread influence over the rest of Europe and create an alternative to the established EU system of norms and values. Premised on this argument the paper attempts to determine whether weak state institutions combined with the political phenomenon of “elite capture” (in which private benefit directs elites’ execution of public authority) inherent in local East European political settings constitute a major facilitator of China’s critical activism in the wider region of Central and Eastern Europe.

This paper analyses the evolution of the discursive space and the interactions between ‘radical’ and ‘moderate’ discourses in the case of EU foreign policy towards Israel and Palestine. European politicians, civil society groups and other stakeholders have held divergent views on how the Middle East conflict should be approached. While some have advocated a so-called ‘radical’ agenda by promoting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, others have engaged in more technical and ‘moderate’ discourses. In this paper we examine how these discourses have evolved and interacted over time, testing three competing hypotheses: moderate discourses have marginalized radical ones due to less attention to the issue; there has been a radicalization of the discursive space, whereby moderate discourses tend to be pushed to the extremes; a situation of increasing polarization between radical and moderate discourses has emerged, to the extent that these discourses do not interact with each other anymore and act as echo chambers. To trace the evolution of discursive interactions we focus on the speeches and documents of non-state actors (e.g., NGOs) and EU policy-makers (e.g., MEPs, High Representative) in relation to the labelling of Israeli settlement goods in 2015 and the debate on Palestinian textbooks in 2021-22. In doing so, we aim to contribute to the literatures on EU foreign policy, on discursive power and on the radical flank effect. The paper will also generate wider insights on the potential relevance of so-called radical and heterodox perspectives on European politics.

How did the EU approach the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in the period 2010-2020 and what does this tell us about the EU as a ‘normative power’? The paper takes its starting point in what sometimes is referred to as a new more reflexive wave of theorizing about the EU as a normative international actor. We analyse how the EAEU has been perceived in EU discourse and what the different articulations of the EAEU say about the EU itself. We identify three different articulations. A) The EAEU as a false economic project - suggests that the EAEU is not a genuine economic project but an ill-disguised attempt of Russia to boost the power of its near neighbourhood. This articulation is linked to a realist line of reasoning about international relations. B) A competing economic project – understands the EAEU as an economic project but one that is designed to compete with the EU in the shared neighbourhood and is linked to a neoliberal logic. C) The EAEU as a compatible but defective economic project – views the EAEU as having the potential to develop into a proper regional organization. Only the third articulation allows for the EU to act as a normative power in relation to the EAEU.