Publication

Spain has never had a particularly strong interest in Eastern Europe. In recent years Spain has rushed to engage with Russia, due to Moscow’s importance for European security. But there is little long-term thinking behind this engagement, and Spain still neglects the rest of the EU’s eastern dimension. The reason for this is that Spain still sees the region in terms of an area to trade-off against gains in Mediterranean policy rather than as intrinsically important in its own right for Spanish national interests.