Intra-Regional Cooperation in Eastern Dimension of the European Neighborhood Policy: Challenges and Opportunities
- Institution: Warsaw School of Economics
- Year of publication: 2016
- Source: Show
- Pages: 26-39
- DOI Address: https://doi.org/10.15804/rop201602
- PDF: rop/2016/rop201602.pdf
The Eastern Partnership was established by the EU in 2009 as a new institutional framework for building cooperation between the EU and six countries from Eastern Europe and Southern Caucasus (i.e Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine) as well as between the partner-countries themselves. The initiative was based on commitment to fundamental values such as democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights, market economy rules, sustainable development and good governance. The idea of how to treat the countries left after the downfall of the Soviet Union was one of the biggest challenge for the EU’s foreign policy. After the admission of Central European Countries to the EU in 2004 and 2007 the Union decided to launch a program which would provide the Eastern neighbors with an alternative to membership a set of incentives for engaging in economic, social and political reforms. The EU decided to promote regional cooperation under the Eastern Partnership instead of bringing the countries closer to the accession formula.
The aim of the paper is to present and analyze the problem of cooperation between the Eastern partners. Major question is whether the initiative has contributed to enhancing of cooperation among the partners and if it has what tangible progress has it brought to the benefit of the whole European Neighborhood Policy.