The impact of the Malian political and security developments on European security, considering Malian relations with France and Russia.

Abstract

This research paper is a Master’s degree dissertation, studying the nexus between the European Union’s (EU) security outlook, political and security situation in Mali and the dynamics in Malian relations with France and Russia. Then main interest of this research is to find out what the EU could have done differently in its Malian policy in order to avoid the diplomatic crisis with Mali that emerged gradually after the army took over the power in August 2020. Since there is a visible link between the unfolding of the tensions between the EU and Mali and discord between France and Mali, the paper has adopted an approach that investigates the Malian-French relations. It also studies the ties between Bamako and Moscow because Russia bluntly overthrew France from its position as key military partner for Bamako at the exact same period when France was losing its impetus. The major finding of this paper is that the imperfections of the European Malian policy cannot be considered the main reason behind the decline of its reputation in Mali; the Russian need for political leverage among African states and the Malian junta’s simultaneous pursuit to remain in power led to unproportioned accusations against the European allies. Despite that, the EU could adopt several changes to its current approach and make this crisis the corner stone of its new relations with Mali