Leadership Revised: How Did the Ukraine Crisis and the Annexation of Crimea Affirm Germany’s Leading Role in EU Foreign Policy?
Journal: Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review
Year: 2016

The recent string of existential crises in Europe – the Euro crisis, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and the refugee crisis of 2015 – have resulted in new dynamics within the European Union. In Brussels, Germany has emerged as the hardly contested nexus of decision making. It was in particular through the Ukraine crisis and the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 that Germany found itself assuming a leadership role also in the EU’s foreign policy, a role it has shunned in the past. However, fo