Security in Central and Eastern Europe in a period of strategic shocks

The study examines the security policy shocks and responses to these shocks in the countries and societies of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region, and how these shocks and responses have changed the relationship of CEE countries with the European Union since 2008. It interprets the financial and economic crisis of 2008, the illegal Russian annexation of Crimea and Russian support for separatism in Eastern Ukraine from 2014, the migration crisis of 2015, the Covid-19 epidemic and the escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian war in February 2022 as a security shock. It concludes that while CEE countries have improved their crisis management capacity, they often rely more on national solutions than on joint European crisis management actions.