The Eastern Partnership, as part of the European Neighborhood Policy, aims to support political association and economic cooperation between the European Union and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine. How does this system of policies, activities and measures really work?
Dr. Judith Dellheim
Judith Dellheim holds a diploma and a doctorate in economics. Since 1990, she has been working on economies of solidarity, on political parties and movements, economic policies and economic theories. She was a member of the Federal Board of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) from 1995 until 2003, a freelance scientific consultant from 2004 to 2010, and has been a senior researcher at the Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation since 2011.
Christopher Forst
Christopher Forst is Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung's Representative for Belarus and Head of the Regional Office Dialogue Eastern Europe of FES. Currently he works from Tbilisi, Georgia, from where he frequently travels to Ukraine as well as to other countries in the EaP region. He holds a master’s degree in EU-Russia Studies from the University of Tartu in Estonia.
Anastasia Pociumban
Anastasia Pociumban is a research fellow and project manager of the Think Tank Network on the Eastern Partnership in the Center for Order and Governance in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). Her work focuses on EU enlargement and the EU’s relations with its eastern neighbors, as well as the foreign policy of the countries of the Eastern Partnership.
Anastasia Pociumban
The Eastern Partnership was established following the Russian aggression against Georgia in 2008. It was initiated by Poland in cooperation with Sweden and launched in Prague in 2009. The idea was to ensure a safe and prosperous Eastern neighborhood and to build a community of like-minded individuals in Europe, and to ultimately include Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Belarus. The association and EU membership were not on the table back then. I bet the EU failed to get its message across to the interested countries.
Christopher Forst
One more thing I'd want to say is that the Eastern Partnership is built on a foundation of compromise. The proposal which was made was a Polish-Swedish initiative, obviously they had to get France, Germany and other EU-members on board which were more critical to a clear perspective towards potential new memberships at that time. It might be argued that the haziness surrounding the Eastern Partnership and its potential outcomes was intentional. As the question was why it was established, and we may also have been looking for the purpose behind the EaP. The Eastern Partnership's framework has been so focused on the rule of law that I feel it lacks commitment to the most basic principles and values of democracy. Economic prosperity, too, was one of its objectives.
Judith Dellheim
I would like to get back to the background of the Eastern Partnership. I think it’s worth mentioning that on the eve of the EU enlargement in 2003, the neighborhood policy was launched to prevent further political division in Europe, to promote stability and prosperity, and to build a "circle of friends". There’s also a Southern Partnership, and we see that the Eastern Partnership is the Eastern wing of the neighborhood policy. Yes, it was supported by the Czech Republic, by Poland and Sweden – but Romania and Bulgaria, for example, were very cautious. Germany and France and other older members of the EU were not happy with the fact that the Eastern Partnership could be misconstrued as a further step to EU membership. Some of the governments in these countries were not committed to democracy. It's no secret that back in the 1990s, Aleksander Lukashenko began persecuting the opposition in Belarus. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a bitter conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for decades now. It has been one of the biggest security challenges that makes it hard to deal with this crisis and help them overcome the violence within and between the countries.
Anastasia Pociumban
It's worth noting that the Swedish government was a driving force behind the establishment of the Eastern Partnership Policy. The EaP also draws on the idea of the EU being a normative power – not to say to spread the values – but to integrate the countries in a common value-based framework and also to avoid more conflicts in that region.
Christopher Forst
We also have to remember that Sweden held the EU Presidency in 2009 and this is always an important factor when you want to influence the agenda, so they had the power to push this idea forward. All in all, it’s all about European neighborhoods, which means that it’s very understandable that it is the countries that have land borders with EaP that are looking for this kind of partnership. We also had two enlargement rounds in 2004 and 2007, so the next step would be to start thinking about a new Eastern neighborhoods policy.
Judith Dellheim
We must also consider the fact that the governments in countries like Poland were very different from what they are today. They had a very open, European-oriented government in power. They were very interested in promoting the European Union and European development. There was a lot of optimism about what we could change in Europe at the time. We could create a peaceful Europe. There was a lot optimism and enthusiasm back then, like "let’s build a European community we all want to live in".
Anastasia Pociumban
The countries were going through a major transition, even though they had been independent for around 20 years, there was still a lot of turmoil. The key issues in the EaP countries at that time were corruption, migration and organized crime, so the Eastern Partnership was seen as a remedy to also help the countries address those issues.
Anastasia Pociumban
The key criticism that the Eastern Partnership has faced is its one-basket-fits-all approach. The initial idea was to treat the countries in a similar way. But this doesn’t work for countries that are so much different from one another and have different policies towards the EU. Eventually the EaP led to further differentiation, for instance some of the countries signed the Association Agreement and received the visa-free regime, some of them didn’t. In my opinion, it is one of the major issues the Eastern Partnership is facing now, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and it is proving its relevance. Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova are now EU-candidate countries and Georgia is a potential candidate, while Belarus has suspended its membership in the Eastern Partnership, but at the same time it’s the one framework that brings together Armenia and Azerbaijan – so, what do we do with a cooperation like the Eastern Partnership and how do we adjust? Even though the EU and the participating countries reaffirmed their commitment to the EaP last year, it’s a policy that needs to evolve to stay relevant and it needs to include a stronger security component, as well as seek regional cooperation in a wider Europe framework.
Christopher Forst
The Eastern Partnership was way too bureaucratic and complex at first, which made it hard to communicate different goals and interests. This bureaucratic structure is also not adaptable to a dynamic and rapidly evolving region, which is why we have seen the emergence of some new and additional frameworks recently, and we still see a lack of time to reflect on them. In my opinion there’s also an issue in the implementation of guidelines set by the Eastern Partnership because they are very technical in nature. What is truly missing are the components that make people the benefits of it in their everyday lives. For example, there is a lack of efforts to improve working conditions in the countries of the Eastern Partnership in terms of equal job opportunities and a safe work environment. Unfortunately, we still see a lack of commitment and interest to change this.
Judith Dellheim
I would also like to look into the material foundation that the Eastern Partnership is built on and to point out a study carried out by Ia Eradze, a researcher at the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History in Potsdam, in 2021. She analyzes imbalanced foreign trade, debt and investment relations in Georgia and shows how the country is getting more and more dependent on foreign investments to boost its economic development and gets in between power dynamics in the economic sphere. The country’s debt increases and weakens its position within international hierarchies. One major issue is that many countries of the Eastern Partnership export huge masses of raw materials and are thus unable to explore new sectors of their own economic development. This leads to an increase in EU exports, while the types of export materials remain the same. The dependence on tourism also leads to a fragile economy. The global COVID-19 pandemic showed us how much countries like Georgia struggled.
Anastasia Pociumban
To me, the civil society cooperation and youth exchanges, such those offered by the Erasmus+ programs, proved extremely successful in the Eastern Partnership. The Eastern Partnership has also led to modernization of infrastructure and inclusion into the European Union's transportation network. The elimination of visa requirements in Georgia, the Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine was a progressive step that led to increased trade and travel. More and more people are talking about and making commitments to the green agenda and energy efficiency. While the Eastern Partnership has a lot of advantages, not all of its successes can be pinned on this particular program. There is no set timeline for a country’s growth as it is contingent on its own internal situation, priorities and the policies of the government in power at a given moment. All this is especially true for Georgia that was one of the front-runners in terms of the implementation of the Association Agreement reforms, but we can now see its democratic backslide.
Judith Dellheim
I couldn’t agree more. The Eastern Partnership projects are supported by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and other institutions, and there’s also an Eastern Partnership technical assessment trust fund that finances students who are citizens of the mentioned countries and can receive professional training under internship programs with a compensation package including monthly salary, insurance, and reimbursement of travel expenses. To me, the most important question for the people living in the countries of the Eastern Partnership countries is whether it brings them closer to the better standards of living in terms of strengthening their physical and mental integrity, self-determination, democratic participation, clean drinking water and healthy food, good work and adequate income, housing, medical care, education and so on. The success of the European Union's efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 will be crucial to ensuring that.
Christopher Forst
I would like to underline the point that the Eastern Partnership is a step in the right direction. It's amazing that we can all get together to discuss European neighborhood policies, that the EVZ Foundation can fund so many different initiatives, and that we can focus our efforts on fostering cooperation. The EaP has also strengthened intraregional connectivity, which is crucial. And it's clear that the locals' standard of living has improved thanks to the influx of cash.
Anastasia Pociumban
In the future, the Eastern Partnership should work on a more security-oriented framework that also includes cyber security and non-military defense mechanisms. This is a shift which came with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The European Union (EU) should be able to take a firm stand against escalations and violent conflicts in the region, as well as face the difficulties that arise from such a cooperation. It’s crucial that we provide assistance to countries when they need it.
Judith Dellheim
The future challenges of the countries of the Eastern Partnership are multidimensional: What is the best way to handle debt? How do we navigate the geopolitical arena? How to deal with the negative impact of economic dependence in terms of investments and export? How to introduce sustainable production and working conditions? These questions are very important for the future of these countries.
Christopher Forst
The situation drastically changed since 2009 and we now need to focus on the EaP, including Belarus, Armenia and Azerbaijan, because the instability in this region really dwarfs everything else. If we lose these countries, the whole idea behind the Eastern Partnership would collapse. I think it is also important to stress that even though Belarus suspended its EaP membership, we want to keep supporting the Belarusian civil society and those living in exile. In any case, I think the one-basket-fits-all mindset has shifted in the right direction, and the countries are viewed as their own entities now. This, however, should not be seen as giving up on one of our eastern neighbors.
The debate was moderated by Antonia Skiba