Is Europe resilient? Will it preserve its core norms and identity in the face of critical circumstances? Specifically, did the ongoing crisis damaged the image of the EU as ‘normative’ and ‘soft’ power globally? Of special interest to this paper is the short-term influence on EU images of the three critical developments in 2015 – economic (the Euro debt crisis), political (debate on Brexit and Grexit) and social (refugees) crises. Our focus is on EU perceptions in the eyes of two ‘Eastern Giants’ – China and Russia. Both ‘emerging’ powers have demonstrated and increasing confidence on global arenas and a range of reactions to the EU’s normative messages, including resistance and rejection (Björkdahl et al. 2015). There is also growing evidence that the two see themselves as norm-makers, forming and projecting onto the world their own norms and values.
We predict that the a set of crises in the EU will create a background for the two emerging power to further contest the EU as a global norm-maker, and formulate location-specific normative messages contrasting them with European ones. As such, this paper positions itself within the ‘third wave’ of NPE theorization that considers “structural changes in international relations problematising Europe’s capacity for normative power; ontological and epistemological contestation of normative power Europe; and a contestation of Eurocentricity seen to be intrinsic to normative power Europe” (Whitman 2013, 186). The paper's analytical spotlight is on the external receivers of EU normative messages contesting NPE. Empirically, this paper studies EU images communicated through media and perceptions expressed by elites and general public in China and Russia.
