Renewed EU-Russia competition to change Eastern Partnership?

Dmitri Trenin, Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, analyses the impact of the new phase of EU-Russia relations, which is characterised by putting aside the ideas of a broad EU-Russia association, on the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries.

The changed geopolitical environment between the EU and Russia has important consequences for the EaP, since they will need to make a choice between east and west. While the EaP countries and most prominently Ukraine continue to play off Brussels and Moscow against each other reaping the benefits of the geopolitical situation, this game may no longer be possible in the future.

When writing about the geopolitical situation in the region, Dmitri Trenin identifies Ukraine, which is “indispensable for the creation of a Moscow-led power center in Eurasia” as the key country in this aspect and stresses that the decision about Ukraine’s future orientation will not be made in November 2013 at the Vilnius Summit but in 2015, when the next Presidential elections in Ukraine are due.

The full article of Dmitri Trenin is available here.