In Different Languages 2.0.

Since the early 1990s, the EU (previously the EEC) has positioned itself as a normative actor, thus ensuring the dominance of the neoliberal agenda on the world stage. Some of its partners accepted this state of affairs, while others, like Russia, advanced alternative interpretations of various categories to challenge the EU’s hegemony. Moscow and Brussels failed to establish a dialogue in the same language. In recent years, a reverse process has developed: the EU has been integrating the categories of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘geopolitical’ into its discourse. This article aims to identify whether the use of the same terms signifies that Moscow and Brussels are about to find a “common language.” Theoretically, the article is based on critical geopolitics, which implies discourse analysis as a methodology. It helps to disclose common elements in the interpretations of sovereignty and geopolitics, as well as fundamental distinctions in the way these categories are integrated in the discourses of the European Union and Russia. The plurality of interpretations results in the conceptions of “correct” sovereignty and “negatively charged” sovereignism, and of “good” and “bad” geopolitics in the discourses of Russia and the EU. The EU’s adaptation of the language of realism further complicates communication between Moscow and Brussels.