Stefano Braghiroli
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has generated the most significant challenge to European security since the end of the Cold War. The European Parliament (EP) emerged as the first EU institution to articulate a unified political stance and to advocate concrete measures in support of Ukraine, despite its limited formal competences in the field. This article examines how the EP asserted its democratic legitimacy and its parliamentary positioning within the EU’s geopolitical response during the war by analysing voting dynamics across the 9th and 10th terms. The study investigates a selected set of roll-call votes and amendments between February 2022 and August 2025, identifying the partisan, national, and regional factors shaping MEPs’ behaviour. Using cohesion indices and cluster analysis across economic, security, and value-related issues, it assesses how the evolving war context influenced alignments within and across political groups. The findings show that while the EP’s initial response was marked by broad consensus and high party cohesion, the war’s protracted nature generated declining ideological coherence, stronger national and regional clustering, and a more polarised divide between pro-Ukraine mainstream and more accommodationist forces. The EP’s role evolved from exceptional unity to a more differentiated and contested parliamentary landscape.