Weaponization of economic interdependence in the EU-Russian ‘shared neighbourhood’: The use of economic sanctions and restrictive measures in Moldova and Armenia

Since 2014, the ‘shared neighbourhood’ of the EU and Russia is the scene of an ongoing conflict between Russia and the West. The competition over influence in countries like Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, or Armenia entered a new phase on 24 February 2022. Leading up the events were two decades of simultaneous efforts to disintegrate the economies of the formers Soviet states and to integrate with the European Union market. This made the region a nidus for the weaponization of economic interdependence by both Russia and the EU which at times had unintended consequences. In order to better understand the intended and unintended consequences of EU and Russian sanctions in the region, this paper systematically compares EU and Russian use of sanctions and restrictive measures towards two countries in its ‘shared neighbourhood’ (Moldova and Armenia) since the early 2000s. Research on the EU’s sanctions policy including its ‘sanctions revolution’ in response to the Russian escalation of the war in Ukraine, focused almost exclusively on the EU’s sanctions regime under its Common Foreign and Security Policy. However, the EU also uses economic sanctions and restrictive measures in other areas of its external actions. This paper further expands the perspective on EU sanctions by analysing the coercive nature of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and its Eastern dimension (EaP). The analysis is based on a novel dataset of 47 interviews with EU, Russian, Armenian, and Moldovan officials, and interest group and business representatives and two observations conducted between 2019 and 2021.