CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Fernandes, Ben |
|---|---|
| Title | Balancing peace-making aims with strategic trade goals: The EU's approach to conflict in the Great Lakes region of Africa |
| Summary | The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is home to one of the world’s largest and most complex humanitarian crises. Since March 2022, violence in eastern DRC has spiked again following a renewed offensive by the Rwandan-backed armed group M23. The intensification of the conflict has resulted in a progressive increase in global attention, particularly since early 2025 when M23 was able to seize the city of Goma, the largest city in the DRC’s east. Subsequently, international actors and organisations have considered how best to address the crisis unfolding. This thesis examines how the European Union (EU) interacts with countries in the Great Lakes region, bearing in mind its pursuit of natural resources and concurrent efforts to attain peace in the region. In particular, the paper focuses on the case study of EU interactions with Rwanda, one of the Great Lakes’ most important players, to assess how effective and consistent the EU’s approach is to balancing trade with its desire to be a peace-making actor. This thesis argues that the EU’s approach to conflict in the Great Lakes region is mired with inconsistencies that limit its capacity as a peacemaker. By using the case study of EU interactions with Rwanda, this paper demonstrates that the EU has struggled to balance its strategic trade goals with its peace-making aims, with the two objectives sometimes working contrary to one another. Additionally, this paper finds that the desynchronised nature of the EU’s approach to the Great Lakes historically can still be identified today. |
| Supervisor | Labuda, Patryk |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/chester_ben.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University