The EU in NATO’s World? Ukraine, Kosovo, and the Limits of European Conflict Management

This thesis analyzes the evolving role of the European Union (EU) in conflict management, comparing its actions in Ukraine and Kosovo against varying levels of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) involvement. Rather than judging the EU's voyage into the conflict space by traditional NATO military standards, this thesis addresses a gap in the literature by evaluating the EU's actions through the lens of its specific toolset. The coding framework codes official EU, NATO, and third-party documents across four key dimensions, including NATO involvement level, EU-NATO interaction type, EU function, and EU effectiveness. The comparative findings indicate that NATO involvement does not crowd out EU relevance but shifts where it appears. Ukraine exemplifies EU relevance under NATO-dominated security, while Kosovo exhibits EU leadership under NATO-enabled security. Across both cases, complementary EU-NATO interaction is the most common pattern, yet it yields partial rather than full effectiveness in most coded rows. EU effectiveness in conflict management is conditional and depends on the functions it performs.