The Foreign Policy Setting of the Russian Federation, Ukraine and the European Union in Context of the Normandy Format Negotiations

This research analyses the foreign policy of Russia, Ukraine and the European Union, with a focus on Germany and France, in the context of the Normandy format negotiations. The research explains the varying outcomes of the peace agreements in the Minsk process through different stream dominance at each stage. The applied theory is hereby the Five Stream Confluence Model, an expansion of Kingdon’s Multiple Stream Framework. The analysis relies on a mixed approach of qualitative and quantitative data. The policy, politics and process stream analysis are based on a structured review of official documents and statements. The programme stream is analysed through event data in the Minsk format and the problem stream is analysed through opinion surveys. These streams are then compared to the change in conflict data at the confluence points, the agreements of the Minsk process of 2014, 2015 and 2019. The research shows that the first Minsk agreement can be explained through politics stream dominance, the second Minsk agreement through process stream dominance, but the Paris agreement of 2019 is a mixture of dominance of the problem and politics stream. This unclear stream dominance shows a shortcoming of five stream confluence model. Therefore the research comes to the conclusion that the five stream confluence model can be used to explain foreign policy in the context of peace negotiations, but shows some limitations.