The notion of connectivity in EU foreign policy discourse and practice

Since the mid-2010s, the concept of connectivity has gained traction in international studies, having secured a significant place for itself in the debate around structural factors of leadership. This growing academic engagement with the topic has been rising partially due to active integration of the term into the foreign policy discourse of the European Union and its interpretation as a competition instrument for the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, aimed at strengthening the EU presence in the neighboring regions. However, existing research remains confined to the current phase of the EU policy, preventing the scholars from tracking down the evolution of the European connectivity policy, identifying similarities and differences between periods and, therefore, from accessing the depth of the EU foreign policy toolkit transformation. The article presents the diachronic analysis of EU transport, logistics and infrastructural policies. Through a comparative assessment of the official documents and the accompanying discourse in the 1990-2000s and the 2010-2020s provides for identifying main objectives of the EU external connectivity practices and, mainly, the key features of the current international infrastructural Global Gateway initiative. The authors conclude that it would be incorrect to interpret the EU’s connectivity policy as a fundamentally innovative instrument of influence projection for the European Union. On the contrary, the research demonstrates that the core instruments of EU engagement with partners in the infrastructural domain were initially established to enhance internal connectivity and support enlargement by promoting European norms and standards, upholding the EU energy security and exploring new transit opportunities. The active integration of the connectivity concept into the EU’s foreign policy discourse in the late 2010s is, in its turn, part of a self-reflection process on the nature of the EU actorness and is driven by its agenda-setting ambition.