The Eastern Partnership establishes a framework for the EU’s engagement with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Fabienne Bossuyt, Louise Amoris, Karolina Kluczewska, Katsiaryna Lozka, Laura Luciani and Servaas Taghon write that almost fifteen years after it was launched, the future of the initiative looks bleaker than ever.
The Eastern Partnership was formally launched by the EU in 2009 at the initiative of Sweden and Poland during the latter’s presidency of the Council of the EU. It was in essence a Polish-Swedish answer to France’s efforts to establish the Union for the Mediterranean in 2008 and aimed to offer a complementary policy framework for the EU’s relations with the six countries in its “Eastern neighbourhood”, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
The rationale behind the Eastern Partnership was that these six countries deserved a more intimate relationship with the EU than the countries in the “Southern neighbourhood”. As former Polish Foreign Affairs Minister Radoslaw Sikorski proclaimed back then, “whereas the EU’s partner countries in the South are neighbours of Europe, the eastern countries are European neighbours with a natural membership perspective”.
While the idea of a natural membership perspective for these countries remained contested (even off the table) within the EU until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, from the beginning, there was strong consensus in the EU about the need to reinforce ties with the six countries, which were considered to be of strategic interest to the EU.
The Eastern Partnership was embedded within the European Neighbourhood Policy that had been launched in 2004 in the context of the EU’s big bang enlargement to the East and was driven primarily by a concern with guaranteeing regional stability. As tensions over the EU’s so-called “shared neighbourhood” with Russia started to emerge following the onset of the Russia-Georgia war in 2008 and as Russia started developing its own regional initiatives for these countries, the Eastern Partnership also served the goal of counterbalancing Russia’s influence over the six states and societies.
A bilateral and a multilateral track
The Eastern Partnership comprises a bilateral and a multilateral track. From the start, the Eastern Partnership conceived of these six countries as forming a homogenous region by virtue of being eastern neighbours of the EU that shared a Soviet past, ignoring the fact that these countries had markedly diverging interests and aspirations. While the bilateral track was designed to improve relations with each of the six countries, the multilateral track was initiated to set up interregional cooperation and dialogue.
At the bilateral level, the main ambition was to foster stronger political engagement through a new generation of Association Agreements. This would upgrade the status of the six countries from “outsiders” to “associates”, partly through integration into the EU’s market via the establishment of a deep and comprehensive free trade area.
Bilaterally, the EU also committed to easing travel restrictions from these countries to the EU through gradual visa liberalisation, as well as increased financial and technical assistance. All these commitments were firmly anchored in a conditionality approach, demanding far-reaching reforms and the adoption of the EU acquis. At the multilateral level, several forums were created to foster interregional dialogue and cooperation at governmental, political and societal levels. These include the Eastern Partnership summits, the EuroNest interparliamentary forum and the Civil Society Forum, among others.
A patchwork of bilateral arrangements
The one-size-fits all approach to the Eastern Partnership soon became obsolete when the EU encountered the vastly different interests and aspirations of the six states. Gradually, the bilateral track of the Eastern Partnership became a patchwork of diverse bilateral arrangements. Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine followed the EU’s initial plan by negotiating and signing an Association Agreement and entering into a visa-free regime, while the other three countries each followed their own path.
Armenia signed a Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement that closely resembles an Association Agreement but excludes the section focused on trade. Azerbaijan managed to pressure the EU into offering it a bespoke agreement, though this has yet to be finalised. Belarus, in contrast, suspended its participation in the Eastern Partnership in June 2021 in response to sanctions imposed by the EU following the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk. Although the EU has committed to developing relations further with the Belarusian people, the implementation of this policy remains uncertain.
Today, almost fifteen years after the Eastern Partnership was launched, the EU’s goal of fostering stability in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus seems more elusive than ever. With its six countries now grappling with war and democratic backsliding, the Eastern Partnership has proven to be an ill-designed framework for creating stability. Arguably, this is because the meaning of stability, and how to achieve it, was not shared among the EU and the six participating states. Moreover, the initiative’s region-building dimension and antagonistic positioning towards Russia proved to be counterproductive.
The multilateral track of the Eastern Partnership, with the notable exception of the Civil Society Forum, is now collapsing. What we are observing is the culmination of something that was clear from the very beginning: these six countries display highly diverse aspirations and interests and do not form a region.
The view from Eastern Partnership countries
When the Eastern Partnership was first proposed, most of the participating countries saw the initiative as an opportunity to strengthen their multi-vector foreign policies. For some, if not all, developing closer relations with the EU served their interest of counterbalancing Russia’s influence.
While they agreed to the EU’s ambitious plans on paper and paid lip service to the lofty bilateral commitments, the domestic ruling elites of the countries were often primarily concerned with consolidating their own power and had little genuine interest in reform. Instead, they sought to manoeuvre between the EU and Russia. However, domestic developments in each country along with the push and pull effects of the EU’s Eastern Partnership and Russia’s competing regional initiatives, which over time became mutually exclusive, resulted in the countries diverging in their relationship with the EU.
The divergences reached their peak following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The war led to Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine applying for EU membership, while Belarus aligned with Russia. Azerbaijan meanwhile took advantage of the opportunity to complete its takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh, emboldened by the extra leverage it had gained due to the EU’s energy dependence.
What we are left with is a largely bilateral framework consisting of highly fragmented types of cooperation. For Moldova and Ukraine (and potentially Georgia), the Eastern Partnership is now overshadowed by negotiations over EU accession. It remains highly uncertain whether these countries will join the EU in the foreseeable future, but with this goal now in mind, the Eastern Partnership holds only limited value for them.
Although Georgia was recently granted EU candidate status, the situation there is more ambiguous: the country’s aspiration to join the EU seems to be driven more by an increasingly repressed, largely liberal civil society than by the government, which, while remaining formally committed to European integration, has increasingly turned to pragmatically balancing its position between the EU and Russia.
In Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko’s regime maintains a timid interest in reaching out to the EU to break free from its current political isolation. However, its survival hinges on violent repressions domestically and on Russia’s political and economic support internationally. Armenia is mired in an existential crisis following Russia’s unwillingness to keep Azerbaijan out of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia’s borders. Azerbaijan feels more victorious than ever following its unhindered military takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh. This resulted in what a European Parliament resolution on 5 October 2023 described as the “forced exodus of the local Armenian population, which amounts to ethnic cleansing”.
Under these circumstances, it is doubtful whether the Eastern Partnership countries will continue to have an interest in the initiative even if the EU decides to reform it. The time may well have come to shelve the Eastern Partnership for good and propose something more constructive in its place.
About the Authors
Fabienne Bossuyt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Ghent University.
Louise Amoris is a PhD Fellow in the Department of Political Science at Ghent University.
Karolina Kluczewska is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Political Science at Ghent University.
Katsiaryna Lozka is a PhD Fellow in the Department of Political Science at Ghent University.
Laura Luciani is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Political Science at Ghent University.
Servaas Taghon is a Teaching Assistant and PhD Student in the Department of Political Science at Ghent University.