The article reconstructs the historical context that shaped the financial capitalism in England at the turn of the XVII– XVIII centuries. It focuses on the crisis of Christian values and the development of secular rationalistic morality. The author connected the socio-economic context of England in the early modern period with the intellectual atmosphere of the late Stuart era and the early Hanoverian dynasty. The problem is considered from three points of view: (1) economic and political situation in the context of mercantilism, (2) the South Sea Company as an example of the interaction between the corrupt cabinet members and the London merchants; (3) social attitude, e.g., D. Defoe's The Anatomy of the Exchange Lane or the Exchange Trading System (1719). The epoch under discussion saw the emergence of a bipolar world of the poor and the rich in Western Europe in the early XVIII century, when the society of landowners replaced the medieval hierarchy.

The article deals with modern Russian historiography of the political relations between Russia and Germany in 1991– 2021. Due to the vastness of the research scope, the paper covers only the major trends in the Russian-German political relations in the Russian historiography. The work relied on the problem-chronological method that made it possible to consider the topic in diachronic and synchronic perspective, simultaneously revealing its temporal and problematic components. The research featured works by contemporary Russian historians, political scientists, and economists on the political relations between the Russian Federation and the Federal Republic of Germany. The thirty-year history of relations between the united Germany and the Russian Federation was full of events and can be divided into several periods. As a result of the historiographical process, the modern Russian historiography consists of three stages, which partially coincide with the chronology of direct political relations between Russia and Germany. The assessment of the Russian-German relations in modern historiography directly depends both on their conjecture and the historical and political context.

The renewable energy sector is becoming increasingly important in the global energy balance. This process can be explained by the depletion of fossil resources and the global environmental concern. Economies need more energy-efficient technologies to meet the growing volume of energy consumption. In the last quarter of the century, the European Union has seen a rapid development of renewable energy sources. Its aim is not only to diversify energy consumption, but to switch to renewable sources in order to reduce its dependence on traditional energy imports. The article examines the strategy of the European Union in the field of renewable energy technologies and their prospects. In the European Union, the renewable energy sector is regulated both at the organizational and national levels. The current regulatory framework is being improved; it establishes uniform requirements for all member states. However, each country has adopted its own national plans for renewable energy development. The European Union countries can independently determine the measures of state stimulation and support of renewable energy development. The most effective of them are: tax incentives, green tariffs, grants and loans. Despite certain difficulties, including those associated with the current level of technology development, renewable energy has a very high potential for further development, and the share of energy generated from renewable sources is increasing every year.

The article features the values of the European Union in the context of applying modern approaches to the study of integration associations. The analysis of the role of values in the policy of the European Union can be done in various ways. The historical and legal method shows the process of legal consolidation of the values and reflects the formation of the political subjectivity of the EU in the last 30 years. The starting point is the concept of shared heritage that demonstrates the main stages and tasks of European integration. The concept of acquis communautaire reaches its climax with the Treaty of Lisbon, and this was when the list of EU values became complete. The concept of the common heritage retains its legal meaning but transforms the goals into a discrete set of political values of the modern European Union. The present analysis of the social dimension of EU values was based on the Copenhagen School of Security. The analysis made it possible to identify the short-term values of modern European society through media monitoring and showed the specifics of European perception, e.g., the dominant importance of personal and political rights of citizens. The pandemic exacerbated the manifestation of these values within European society. Despite certain problems, the value dimension of EU policy is now complete and has become integral to European society and politics. The political component depends on specific interests, e.g., criteria for cooperation, membership conditions, interaction prospects, etc.

This article features the special position that Poland and Hungary demonstrate towards the national government institutions and civil rights. The research objective was to describe the internal transformation and adaptation processes of Hungarian and Polish societies to the European concept of acquis communautaire, as well as the tensions between these two countries and the older EU members. This special position can be explained by the growing sentiments of national pride and identity. The social and economic achievements that happened aſter the 1990s allowed these states to increase the quality of life, and their citizens are not willing to give up on their identity to accommodate the demands of the European Union. For instance, people of Poland and Hungary saw a certain threat to their identity in the pressure from Brussels to welcome migrants from the Middle East, whom they could not accept on the mental and religious levels. Another threat was the Brussels’ pursuit to make Poland and Hungary accept sexual minorities in a very short timeframe, despite the fact that this process took Western Europe several centuries. Considering that the church had a very negative attitude to both issues, certain political parties managed to seize the power. They suppressed the freedom of speech, denied the independence of the judicial power, and challenged Brussels.

Until today, the European Union (EU) has associated its foreign policy with normative power, which is the main instrument of soſt power. However, the crisis of global governance has affected the global strategy of the EU. The article explores the most pressing of these changes. The research was based on official publications made by various European think tanks and individual analysts. The EU has an effective mechanism for interaction between think tanks and political leaders. As a result, the European analytics can justify various concepts and approaches that later acquire legislative forms. Also, the scientific analytics makes it possible to test the decisions being made. The article focuses on the following EU issues: new strategic culture; geopolitics and normative power in strategic documents; strategic autonomy; differentiation and fragmentation as policy tools; the end of unanimity in making responsible decisions; the concept of pragmatic federalism; military development; the so-called Strategic Compass; the Russian military special operation and the concept of world order, etc.

The coronavirus pandemic triggered a qualitative reformatting of the pan-European identity. Early in the pandemic, it clashed with national self-awareness. As Brussels attempted to strengthen solidarity and cohesion, the situation in some EU countries became extremely instable. The present article contains a theoretical description of the concept of EU identity and the transformations it underwent during the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses on the early challenges to the EU’s identity, its subsequent plunge into uncertainty and confusion, and Brussels’ attempts to build trust and solidarity as the basic principles of the EU’s identity. The author analyzed the Eurobarometer surveys to reveal the public attitude towards the two conflicting levels of identity. During the pandemic, the pan-European identity served as a protective mechanism against the exacerbation of chronic unification problems.

The article explores the EU diplomacy toward Russia since Josep Borrell took office as EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The approach adopted by the European External Action Service (EEAS) in a time of crisis is examined, in the context of the rapidly changing international security environment and the unprecedentedly low level of engagement between Russia and the EU. The research featured the EEAS official documents, press releases, and Josep Borrell’s statements issued from late 2019 to early 2022. The analysis revealed some of Borrell’s ideas about the international role of the EU, his image of Russia and his suggestions on the EU’s course of action towards Russia. The author believes that Borrell’s approach clearly failed the reality test. The EU diplomacy demonstrated its inability to adjust to the escalating tensions and the major changes in the bilateral relations, as well as in Russia itself. As a result, the European strategy has proven ineffective and unable to address adequately the challenges it faces.

The research features the theoretical (legal) and practical aspects of EU’s export control over the dual-use goods circulation as a sanction measure against Russia in 2014–2022. It gives a brief overview of the common EU approach to the dual-use goods export control. The authors focus on the special sanctions regime against Russia in this sphere, i.e., its legal basis, content, development, and implementation. The article introduces a comparative analysis of restrictions in the sphere of dual-use goods circulation before and aſter the tightening of EU sanctions in February-March 2022. The theory is illustrated by several court cases against individuals suspected of violating the sanctions regime. Based on the available EU statistics for 2013–2021, the authors analyzed the impact of the sanctions on cooperation between the EU and Russia in the sphere of dual-use goods export. Restrictive measures in the sphere of export control are a unique case of using Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) instruments in the context of implementing the principles of the EU Common Commercial Policy (CCP).

The article features the civil component of the crisis response in the European Union, as well as the Russian role in its development. With the new security threats and challenges, the civilian instruments necessary for the post-conflict society stabilization are becoming increasingly important. The research was based on the universal evolutionism and included such methods as conceptual and structural modeling, comparative analysis, and historical approach. The methods made it possible to reveal the civil component within the crisis management system of the European Union. The civil component unites and coordinates European national resources, creates platforms and opportunities for experience exchange, increases the motivation and professionalism of experts, etc. The author also focused on the interaction between the European Union and the Russian Federation in this sphere. The key parameters for developing the civil dimension of crisis response include two points: (1) the political will to implement the civilian component of security policy by the European Union institutions and member states, (2) the will to solve the problem of human resources. For the current and foreseeable Russian-European relations, the cooperation potential of the civilian component of crisis response is not included in the security policy. The research makes a significant contribution to the study of the European Union development problems, genesis and development parameters of the civil missions, and the Russian-European dialogue.

The article describes the value category behind the political development and practice of the European Union and the European integration project. Values are tools of developing the supranational ideology, identity, and political development vector. The author describes the connections between values and integration institutions, e.g., how the institution affects the stability of the value foundations of the integration project, how the interest of Europeans in the value discourse depends on the success of integration, etc. Public attention to values grows as the integration process slows down. Based on the theory of values, the author analyzed the current relations between Russia and the European Union. The analysis revealed a critical attitude of Europeans to the value component of Russia's contractual obligations, which developed as early as in 1994, the year of the first the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement. Europeans see Moscow as a threat to the integration values. Therefore, Moscow acts as a convenient opponent that can be held responsible for numerous integration failures. As a result, Europeans cannot understand that the integration problems are caused by the internal European political processes, which prevents them from reaching any compromise with Russia.

The article deals with the image of Russia and its relations with the European Union as reflected by two Spanish newspapers in 2021. The content analysis covered twenty publications from The El Mundo and fiſty from The El Pais. The articles focus on the following topics: expulsion of diplomats, mutual accusations in espionage and disinformation, Nord Stream II, Satellite V, A. Navalny, Russia and Belarus, and the recent events in Ukraine. The official position of the European Union towards Russia oſten seems incoordinate. The bilateral relations between Russia and Spain receive little attention while evaluative statements made by European politicians about Russia create a negative and aggressive image of this country in the Spanish press.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in the late 2020, demonstrated that the global community is unable to act effectively in the face of a new enemy, hence the need for a new format of interstate interaction. The present research objective was to explore the impact of the pandemic on the relations between Russia and the European Union, as well as to identify new standards of cooperation in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic. The study revealed the absence of fundamental changes that would improve the political communications between the two parties because no non-politicized dialogue was possible at that stage. The author describes the geopolitical realities that prevented Brussels from building relations with Moscow in the new paradigm. The pandemic did not level the sanctions pressure on Russia. In the context of unilateral restrictive measures against Russia and the geopolitical conjuncture of mutual deterrence, the new formats of interaction included the humanitarian cooperation with Italy and Russia's "vaccine diplomacy" in Hungary and Slovakia. However, the new types of cooperation between individual states in the context of the pandemic can restore a systemic dialogue between Russia and the European Union. Russia’s contribution to the fight against COVID-19 in Europe can hardly be overestimated.

The article features the role of the EU in the Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP), a common geo-economic area in Eurasia proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in 2016. The author assessed the prospect of cooperation between the EU, China, and the Russian Federation on a bilateral level, including the GEP concept. The author sees no premises for establishing Greater Eurasia at present: the interactions between China and the EU and between China and Russia as part of The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are independent of each other. If relations between the Russian Federation and the EU ever return to normalcy, the parties can begin a multilateral cooperation in the field of infrastructure construction in Eurasia, e.g., multimodal transportation systems, as well as in the investment sector, e.g., the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

The Indo-Pacific region concept, having a significant place in the U.S. as well as their Asia-Pacific allies’ official discourse in the latest decades, is also penetrating the diplomatic terminology of both the EU and separate European nations. This paper features a review of how the Indo-Pacific strategies are designed as exemplified by the corresponding documents adopted by the said international organisation and some of its member states (including the former ones, such as the UK), particularly in the security realm and nuclear non-proliferation, given the importance of these factors for strategic stability in the global and regional dimensions. In terms of methodology, the article employs some elements of discourse analysis, content analysis, comparative political studies, and prognostic methods; the sources are represented by the EU and European countries’ official documents, as well as speeches made by politicians. Thanks to analysing the states’ strategies, main trends, which are also reflected in the common EU strategy, are singled out. The author draws a conclusion that the deterioration of the Ukrainian crisis will limit the opportunities for further development of the interregional ties between Europe and Asia.

The article introduces the prospects of cooperative co-existence for Russia and the European Union in former Soviet republics within the current confrontation paradigm. It describes their foreign policies, strategies, and interests in the post-Soviet space. The author applied discourse and case-study analyses to the case of Armenia. The authentic idea of cooperative co-existence was projected on the relations between Russia and the European Union in post-Soviet countries. In Armenia, cooperative co-existence could be a win-win strategy, beneficial for all actors involved. The case of Armenia proved the possibility of a collaborative co-existence between Russia and the European Union in the post-Soviet space, the risk factors being the policies of small Caucasian states, the USA, China, and Turkey.