Soft, Normative or Transformative Power: What Kind of Actor the European External Action Service is in Communications to Russia

Russia's responsibility to implement its human rights obligations has become one of the issues that European External Action Service (EEAS) addresses regularly. This is evidenced by the analysis of official documents issued by EEAS. The author of the paper will analyze Russia-related human rights statements and speeches of EU High Representatives for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton (2009 - 2014), Federica Mogherini (2014 - to present) and of EEAS spokespersons since the inception of the service up to the present time. The statements of EU diplomatic service shed light on the Union’s stance on the point in question, contain evaluations of a number of facts and situations as they are perceived by the EEAS, and raise a wide range of human rights issues to be addressed by the Russian government. Throughout the period under consideration, the European External Action Service welcomed only a few positive changes in the area of human rights in Russia. The vast majority of statements indicate its concern over the current state of affairs in this sphere. The statements will be analyzed within three sections in the paper: 1) the state of Russian justice in evaluation of European External Action Service, 2) the EEAS on restrictive legislation in Russia, 3) the EEAS support for Russian independent journalists and human rights defenders. The statements issued by EEAS consider individual cases of criminal prosecutions in Russia, with politically motivated prosecution being in the first place, cases of abductions, kidnappings, illegal detentions, discrimination of national and sexual minorities, attacks on press freedom, persecutions of prominent non-governmental organizations, human rights violations in the North Caucasus and those stemming from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. European diplomatic service states that human rights violations in Russia are not merely individual cases; rather, they are considered to be a trend. The actions undertaken by Russia are qualified as illegal and involving apparent violations of national and international law. On the one hand, EEAS statements do not convey the far-reaching conclusions on the consequences of Russia’s illegitimate policy. On the other hand, the arguments of External Action Service are based on the conventional for the EU principle of conditionality. High Representatives stress that partnership with Russia should be built exclusively on the basis of shared fundamental values, which are an indispensable part of bilateral interaction.