The European Union and its Eastern Partners: Beyond the Limits of Current Approaches to Regional Cooperation (original) (raw)
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HARNESSING THE GEOPOLITICS OF THE EASTERN PARTNERSHIP: A WAY OUT FROM THE EAST EUROPEAN DEADLOCK?
On 7 May 2009, the EU summit with its Eastern European Partners (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine) in Prague launched the Eastern Partnership with a view to developing a specific Eastern European dimension of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP). However, this EU initiative has been perceived by Russia as a geopolitical process because, on the one hand, of the wide-ranging consequences of what the EU thought to be a purely technical, norms setting process of modernization, and, on the other hand, since it saw it as competing with the Eurasian Union project instrumented by Moscow in the former Soviet space. At present, the area from Vancouver to Vladivostok was hijacked by a new East-West geopolitical confrontation, while powerpolitik rather than cooperative security seems to prevail in shaping the future destiny of Eurasia. Apparently, the Eastern Partnership has been at the core of this dramatic change of the European and Euro-Atlantic security environment. However, other factors, such as the growing ideological gap between Russia and the West; and the chronic persistence of the protracted conflicts have also been at work in bringing up the collapse of the post-Cold War European security system . What role did the Eastern Partnership really play into this tragic evolution on the European continent? What lessons could the EU learn regarding its relations with the Eastern neighbors?
The Eastern Partnership, Europe’s Eastern Neighborhood Policy
The aim of this paper is to define the framework and to explore the main objectives and key challenges of the Eastern Partnership (EaP), the EU’s Eastern Neighborhood Policy. To do so, the scope of our analysis will be delimited by focusing on the outlook and aspirations of the EU’s policy towards its eastern neighbors (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine). In addition to the description of the EaP’s rationale, the key issues of the (Eastern dimension) policy will be broached. The paper shows that, despite its relatively recent nature, the EaP has enhanced the role of the EU at the global level regarding foreign, security and defense policy. Nevertheless, the recent blows endured by the EU with the escalation of the current Ukrainian crisis and the still unsolved issues in the Eastern Neighborhood in matters of democracy, economy, governance... h!ave shown that progress remains to be made in improving the EaP. !
The aim of this article is analysis of the European Union’s new initiative directed to the Eastern neighbours known as the Eastern Partnership. Article shows: firstly Poland’s role in the creation the concept of Eastern Dimension of the European Union. Secondly, the European Neighbourhood Policy as a frame for the Eastern Partnership. Thirdly, key features and potential contribution of the Eastern Partnership and finally assessment and implementation of the Eastern Partnership initiative.
The Eastern Partnership (EaP) represents the most ambitious project launched by the European Union in order to support political and socio-economic reform in its neighbourhood, with a view to stepping up political association and economic integration. Notwithstanding the achievements of the framework, the EaP requires re-conceptualization focusing on those issues where cooperation and convergence are not only feasible but also more suitable in view of pan-European economic growth and security. Moving from the relations between the EU and Azerbaijan, which is gradually but steadily emerging as a key interlocutor for EU Eastward projection, the aim of the volume is to assess the functioning of the EaP bilateral and multilateral track along selected policies, in order to identify means to improve the overall efficacy of the framework, taking into consideration both EU and Eastern partners’ expectations and needs. Providing fresh analysis on the EaP development, the volume – the result of an ISPI-SAM joint research project – brings together and compares perspectives and expertise from the EU and the neighbourhood, fostering dialogue and mutual comprehension on issues of common concern.
Facing a Fragmented Neighbourhood: The EU and Six Eastern Partnership Countries
The EU in a Trans-European Space, 2019
After the so-called eastern crisis engulfed the EU Neighbourhood, attention was drawn in particular to the mismatch between eastern neighbours’ needs and vulnerabilities and the EU assistance, to the changing geopolitical context in the region as well as to the limits of the EU transformative power. This chapter focuses on six countries—Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan—that fall under the EU-Eastern Partnership framework. It takes stock of the ‘pre-crisis’ evolution of the European Neighbourhood Policy in the east by crossing two dimensions: the outside-in policies promoted by the EU vis-a-vis its eastern neighbours and the inside-in practices of adaptation, contestation, or subversion of EU programmes by local actors. This exploration helps illuminate broader questions about the limits and enabling conditions for the EU’s transformative power in its neighbourhood.
EU-Russia relations in the context of the eastern neighbourhood
2015
This paper briefly examines EU-Russia relations in the context of the eastern neighbourhood. Both the EU and Russia’s ambitions for the eastern region have evolved into two competing region-building projects underpinned by differing strategies, norms, instruments, and actors. Although projecting competing rationalities, the two projects, until recently, had peacefully co-existed, working around conflicting issues of political norms and economic convergence, which were not necessarily seen as insurmountable for furthering regional cooperation. Their subsequent politicisation and securitisation, as a consequence of events in Ukraine, have rendered regional partnership currently incompatible, revealing a profound lack of understanding the region by both the EU and Russia; and the EU under-exploited capacity to work co-jointly with the Eurasian Union (and Russia) vis-a-vis the region. The author of this paper, Elena Korosteleva, contends that the EU must make an effort to acknowledge and engage with the above actors over the region, in order to develop cooperative strategies, based on shared interests, international norms and compatible instruments for the advancement of economic and political convergence across the region.
Which Geopolitics for the European Union? The EU’s Eastern Partnership
International Relations and Diplomacy, 2015
This article discusses whether the European Union (EU) has engaged in a geopolitical approach when it comes to its Eastern neighbors, now included in the EU's Eastern Partnership. The paper concludes that the EU has not engaged in a geopolitical approach when it comes to its policies towards its Eastern neighbors. Instead, it has approached them through the prisms of inter-connectedness and interdependency. The main reason for that rejection of geopolitical approach lies in the role that the EU has assigned to itself as an international actor, i.e. as a civilian and normative power. Finally, the use of civilian instruments would avoid the EU falling into a geopolitical trap that would lead to a zero sum game situation for its Eastern neighours in their relationships with Russia.
Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies - SCEEUS, 2023
The EU’s strategic ambiguity on the future of the Eastern Partnership region was perceived as a weakness by the Kremlin, and this provoked Russia’s aggressive behaviour. The European Union can no longer afford to build its regional policies on the foundations of avoiding conflict with Russia at all costs. Reacting to Russia’s aggressive agenda with “too little, too late” half-measures cannot sustain stability in Eastern Europe. In the post-February 24 status quo, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia can no longer remain in what the Kremlin has attempted to turn into a grey zone. Russia has imposed a zero-sum game in which all parties must make clear choices. Concrete strategic vision, posture and messaging on not only the security of the EU and NATO member states, but the whole Euro-Atlantic area should be an essential aspect of deterring Russia’s aggression. The EU should ensure that the organizing principle of the European security architecture brings sovereignty back to the centre of the discussion. This would exclude the possibility of manipulation through “frozen conflicts” and “grey zones”. A sustainable policy is outlined below that would counter the risks of entering the same vicious circle that led to the war in Ukraine and the current geopolitical turbulence.