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

A major shift in the way the European Union (EU) aims to behave in the world order was announced by the current president of European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen at the beginning of her tenure in 2019. The EU seemingly started to embrace the concept of geopolitics with von der Leyen promising to lead a ‘geopolitical’ commission. This particularly salient shift has also seen the concept of resilience being placed at the centre of the way the EU seeks to deal with endogenous and exogenous challenges, threats and risks. In this context, the article aims to evaluate the nature of the policy change underlined by the way the concept of resilience has permeated the ideas and policies developed by the EU. The main finding is that even though the adoption of resilience as the key rationale in the EU’s foreign policy might be akin to paradigmatic change, in practice, the emphasis on resilience has induced only limited transformations in the in the EU’s practice and ideas, leading to the transition to a new business as usual.