TRADE BETWEEN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES AND THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION IN THE CONTEXT OF SANCTIONS AND COUNTER-SANCTIONS

Abstract

The year 2014 marked the deepest crisis in EU-Russia relations since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The bilateral relations cooled down because of the Ukrainian conflict. The EU started to impose restrictive measures on Russian Federation and Russia has responded by imposing counter-sanctions. The sanctions imposed by European Union in conjunction with the counter-sanctions adopted by the Russian Federation on EU food imports had massive consequences on the bilateral trade. The main purpose of this research is to identify and evaluate the impact of sanctions and counter-sanctions on trade in goods between eleven Central and Eastern European Countries and the Russian Federation. This paper tries to determine the factors that can explain why, after the adoption of economic sanctions, some Central and Eastern European Countries recorded losses higher than others. The research methodology combines tools of both quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis.

Keywords

• European Union, Russian Federation, economic relations, economic sanctions