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The Concept of ‘Resilience’ in EU External Relations: A Critical Assessment
The 2016 Global Strategy (GS) made resilience central to the European Union’ s (EU’ s)
external activities. However, many aspects of resilience were ambiguous. Three of these aspects
are identified in this article: whether resilience is about risks or resources, whether resilience means
stability or change, and what is the role of values. These ambiguities created a space for the policy
work of EU bureaucracy. This work is examined in development and neighbourhood fields, and
in relations with Russia. Documents’ analysis and semi-structured interviews reveal a difference
in how three ambiguities were interpreted. Differences were identified among policy fields but not
between EU institutions. These differences reflect the efforts of EU officials to preserve consistency
in ‘ their’ fields. This policy work undermines one important goal for introducing resilience in the
GS, the enhanced coherence of EU external activities. Finally, the study revealed that some
interpretations moved closer to the theoretical writings on resilience compared with the GS.