Cultural Analysis Of EU’s Policy To Russia

Europe is not just a geographical concept. We can see that Europe is a cultural concept more than a geographical one from the European history. Classical Greek and Roman thoughts, Christian and the same concepts and values in Europe form the common European spiritual bond. The European culture helps to make up for the lack of European integration functionalism and makes the EU members to strengthen cooperation. It is not only the one which forms the basis of EU’s development, but also affects the EU’s foreign policy.The European Union is the highest level regional organization, which involves the broadest geographic range. As a military power, the nuclear forces Russia owns rank in second place, just behind the United States. In the foreign policy of the European Union, the EU’s Russia policy has been highly anticipated. Owing to geographical reasons (Russia locates at the edge of Europe, which consists of a large buffer zone between Europe and Asia), Russia’s historical experience completely different from the Europeans. It led to the different culture between EU and Russia. The cultural similarities and differences constitute one of the most important reasons for the EU’s policy to Russia. I believe that the consistency deepens dialogue and cooperation in the EU’s policy towards Russia and the EU-Russia cultural conflicts lead to the twists and turns of the EU’s policy towards Russia.Unlike other papers which study EU-Russia relationships, this paper attempts to analyze the EU’s policy to Russia from the European cultural perspective. Europe is the main body in this paper. The article begins with the ordinary meaning of culture and investigates the connotation and characteristics of European culture. On this basis, the article continues to analyze the European culture’s influence on the EU’s foreign policy. Subsequently, the article describes the EU’s policy to Russia which includes the establishment of the partnership between the EU and Russia and its institutional results; the EU’s security policy to Russia; EU’s economic policy to Russia; EU’s cultural and educational policy to Russia; EU’s eastern enlargement policy. These policies provide a realistic basis for analysis of the EU’s policy towards Russia from a cultural perspective. This paper tries to analyze the cultural reasons of the EU’s policy towards Russia and it elaborates cultural similarities and differences between them. Then this article will give an assessment of the EU policy towards Russia from a cultural perspective.Finally, the article will put forward on the future of relations between the EU and Russia from a cultural perspective on the basis of a series of theoretical and realistic analysis before. The author believes that Russia could not join the European Union in the future.