A new business as usual? The impact of the ‘resilience turn’ on the EU’s foreign policy and approach towards the eastern neighbourhood

The last decade has seen the concept of resilience gradually positioned at the centre of the way the European Union (EU) seeks to deal with endogenous and exogenous challenges, threats or risks. Originating primarily from natural sciences, resilience has provided an elegant and attractive option for the EU to revise its agenda. The so-called ‘resilience turn’ has come to permeate almost every aspect of the EU’s discourse. In this context, the article aims to analyse the nature of the policy change underlined by the way the concept of resilience has permeated the approach developed by the EU towards the eastern neighbourhood and foreign policy more broadly. Change evaluated by focusing on two key aspects that underpin the EU’s foreign policy: the scope of the EU’s foreign policy, EU’s understanding of the world order, with a particular focus on the role of geopolitics. The main finding of the article is the emphasis on resilience has induced only limited transformations in the EU’s practice and ideas, leading to the transition to a new business as usual.