12 February 2010
The EU's Eastern Partnership: Civil society expectations and new opportunities
Author:
Tamara
Pataraia
Publisher:
Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development, Tbilisi, Georgia
72 Tsereteli Ave., 2nd floor
0154 Tbilisi
Georgia
Tel: +995 93 36 28 38
Fax: +995 32 33 41 63
http://www.cipdd.org
(attached in English and in Georgian)
The European Union’s Eastern Partnership was inaugurated in Prague on 7 May 2009. It represents a concerted effort on the part of the EU and six non-EU former Soviet Bloc nations – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus – to upgrade and expand their relationship.
The project is designed to facilitate the political and economic integration with the EU of the Eastern Partnership countries, including Georgia, with the help of various bilateral and multilateral co-operation programmes. At the same time, the Eastern Partnership should not be seen as an alternative to the action plans signed by the EU and partner countries within the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy. Instead, it aims to give new impetus to existing co-operation initiatives. However, two factors make the Eastern Partnership different from past and ongoing co-operation formats.
This policy paper reviews the main objectives and development priorities of the Eastern Partnership. However, as specific co-operation programmes for Eastern Partnership states have not yet been prepared and because the process is likely to take a lot of time and effort on the part of both the EU and the partner countries, this policy paper focuses on the recommendations of the Civil Society Forum presented in Brussels in December 2009. These recommendations can shed light on what civil society in the Eastern Partnership states think of the new co-operation format and what results they expect it to bring.
The paper is published with the financial support of the Think Tank Fund of the Open Society Institute - Budapest.
Podcast
