An agency of the EU

Overview

The EU’s Eastern neighbourhood is a region in transition. On one side of the spectrum are Ukraine and Georgia with a clear commitment to democracy and Euro-Atlantic integration following the Colour Revolutions. On the other side is the ‘last dictatorship in Europe’, Belarus. Diverging foreign policy orientations, frozen conflicts, and a very low level of inter-state cooperation further fragment and polarise the region. Russian claims for a dominant position make it difficult for the EU to respond adequately to the challenges emanating from the Eastern neighbourhood.

In 2004 the EU introduced the European Neighbourhood Policy as an instrument to regulate its relations with its new neighbours. The ENP offers ‘a privileged relationship, building upon a mutual commitment to common values.’ In the framework of the ENP, the EU has concluded Action Plans with Ukraine and Moldova in 2005 and with Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2006. In November 2009, the Cooperation Council adopted the EU-Ukraine Association Agenda, replacing the former Action Plan.

The ENP has met with criticism for not offering a membership perspective and thus limiting the incentives for the partner countries to quickly implement the Action Plans. At the same time, reform processes unfold slowly, and the democratic credentials of ruling elites remain doubtful. Belarus remains isolated, with no prospect of change on the horizon. Three years after the inauguration of the ENP, the main problems of the region – transition, fragmentation and polarisation – remain far from resolved.

The EUISS analyses political and security-related developments in the Eastern Neighbourhood. lts seminars have focused on the frozen conflicts in Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Alongside its publications, the EUISS also aims to build up a network of contacts with experts and think tanks in the countries of the Eastern neighbourhood.

Publications

  • Russia: anchoring in troubled seas

    The year following 11 September witnessed Russian movement on a wide front. Agreement was reached with the United States on the reduction of strategic nuclear warheads. Russia joined a new NATO-Russia Council. In Russia’s backyard, US and European forces have been deployed in Central Asia, and the United States has launched a programme to develop Georgia’s armed forces. These changes seem to mark a shift in Russian policy away from a previous pursuit of ‘multipolarity’, in which it was assumed that Russia was one of the world’s ‘poles’, towards one that seeks its inclusion in the Euro-Atlantic ‘pole’. In the flurry, however, the origins of Russian shifts have been obscured. It is worth recalling that they reside not so much in September 2001 as in 1999. 11 September was an accelerator, not a turning point

     

  • Risks of the status quo

    Many observers have mocked the divisions among Europeans, their absence and therefore their impotence, in the search for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But that is to forget that it is above all the strongest player who lacks the will to act, and that today it is in particular in the European theatre that the Union’s performance, or lack of it, should be judged.

  • Crisis in Moldova

    One could have been forgiven for thinking that little had changed since the 1980s when, in late February, thousands of pro-Romanian demonstrators took to the streets of Chisinau, Moldova's capital, to protest against government measures seen as pro-Russian.

  • A new European Union policy for Kaliningrad

    Just as Königsberg became known for its intellectual weight, symbolised by the brain-twister how to cross the city's seven bridges without passing one of them twice; Kaliningrad is notorious for the immense problems it has to deal with, perhaps mirrored by the inconclusive ways the EU and the Kremlin are figuring out how to assist the oblast.

  • The future of Kaliningrad

    Due to its history, location, and its position as a backward region in the midst of the Baltic Sea region, the Russian autonomous province of Kaliningrad is arguably the most controversial entity in post-Cold War Europe. It is an exclave cut-off from mainland Russia by Lithuania and Poland.