Abstract. In 2023 socio-economic challenges and political changes led to growing disagreements between the supranational level of governance in the EU and individual member states. Attempts of some states to defend their interests on the pan-European platform delayed the process of adopting agreed decisions and pushed to search for «non-standard» ways out of the situation. There was still a heated debate around the Ukrainian issue, which concerned both financial assistance and the admission of Ukrainian agricultural products to the European market. The lack of unity was also evident with regard to the expansion of sanctions measures against Russia: the wide range of already imposed sanctions made it difficult to expand them further without affecting the interests of individual EU member states.