Consistency in the EU’s Normative Foreign Policy: Crimean Tatars and Xinjiang Uyghurs

Public Consistency in reactions to human rights violations is an essential part of any normative foreign policy. Human rights abusers usually exploit these cases to delegitimize international norms and cover up their abuses. This usually happens when cases of violations are similar, but the reactions are different, due to some geopolitical concerns. Crimean Tatars and Xinjiang Uyghurs are two Muslim minorities that have a kind of confrontation with two nonwestern rising powers, Russia and China. The article investigates the EU's reactions to these two cases of human rights violations by looking into documents, statements, press releases, and speeches. It is normally expected that the EU pays more attention to the Crimean Peninsula, as it is so close to Europe‘s homeland. However, despite some slight nuances, the EU maintained a passable rate of consistency in its normative foreign policy which has not been affected by geopolitical concerns and differences are explicable by normative concerns.