Eastern partnership conference debates - Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum

On 29 September, Polish Institute of International Affairs, Centre for Eastern Studies and EaP Civil Society Forum organized the international conference entitled “The Eastern Partnership Conference: Towards a European Community of Democracy, Prosperity and a Stronger Civil Society”. Our guests debated a numerous issues of partner states and its relations with EU, like empowering civil society, development of democratic values and liberalising visa regime. Now, we are glad to present the abbreviated transcripts with the most interesting fragments of three discussing panels.

Empowering civil society. What Partnership for citizens?

The delicate and sophisticated interrelations in society and between governments and the EU in their countries were discussed by Leila Alieva (Center for National and International Studies), Ulad Vialichka (co-chair of the EaP Civil Society Forum, EUROBELARUS), Iris Kempe (Heinrich Boell Foundation), Sorin Mereacre (East Europe Foundation) on the 1st session of the Eastern Partnership Conference in Warsaw. The participants tried to ask a difficult question: If the EaP has contributed to the improvement of these relations and if it can further enhance them.

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Promoting EU democratic values and standards through opening borders EaPCommunity

The faciliation of the visa regime was discussed by Robertus Rozenburg (EC Directorate-General for Home Affairs), Florian Trauner (Institute for European Integration Research), Ghenadie Cretu (International Organization for Migration, Chişinău), Maxim Boroda (International Center for Policy Studies, Kiev), Olga Shumylo-Tapiola (Carnegie Europe) and Gunnar Wiegand (EC Directorate-General for External Relations) during the 2nd session of the Eastern Partnership Conference in Warsaw. Among the issues the participants argued on was whether the facilitation is just a matter of fulfilling technical conditions or a political decision.

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Building prosperity. Challenges to the economic integration of the EU's Eastern partners?

Can we still speak of a particular European social economic model? When we observe new Europe, old Europe and different reactions to the crisis, does the EU really have something to offer to our Eastern partners as a model? - These were the main questions discussed by Alan Mayhew (Sussex European Institute), Olga Shumylo-Tapiola (Carnegie Europe), Staffan Nilsson (European Economic and Social Committee), Kakha Gogolashvili (Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies) and Olaf Osica during the 3rd session of the Eastern Partnership Conference.

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All debates are published on the Eastern Partnership Community web page