EUROPEAN UNION EXTERNAL ACTION IN UKRAINE: SECURITISING CRITICAL MINERALS

Abstract

This article examines how the European Union (EU) securitises Ukrainian Critical Raw Materials in its external action following Russia’s invasion in 2022. It asks how minerals such as lithium and titanium, once framed as economic assets, have been redefined as matters of European security, strategic autonomy, and geopolitical survival. The analysis of EU external action combines lenses from the Copenhagen and Paris Schools. It traces how EU leaders and policy documents construct critical raw materials as existential conditions for decarbonisation, resilience, and sovereignty. By linking supply chain dependence, climate transition and Ukraine, EU discourse repositions access to Ukrainian minerals beyond normal economic politics. Second, it examines how this securitisation is embedded in governance practices, including core EU external policy instruments. These instruments institutionalise security logics through regulatory alignment and financial conditionality, normalising the management of Ukrainian resources within EU value chains. The article argues that this securitisation operates through discursive power and bureaucratic practice. Framed through resilience and strategic autonomy, this technocratic logic carries political consequences. While it may accelerate European decarbonisation and reduce dependency, it also risks reinforcing centre periphery dynamics and prioritising European energy security over Ukrainian socio-economic and environmental concerns. By analysing Ukraine, the article contributes to debates on green geopolitics and EU external action, showing how climate transition, resource governance and security are (de)constructed within a geopolitical rationality that defines vulnerabilities, stabilises certain forms of expertise and marginalises alternative pathways. This (in)securitisation process of Ukrainian critical minerals within European supply chains reveals tension between the EU’s normative self-understanding and the logic of green geopolitics.