Is the EU's Eastern Partnership promoting Europeanisation?

The Eastern Partnership (EaP) was launched in May 2009 with the aim of establishing a political association and economic integration between the European Union (EU) and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.

After more than two years of implementation, the EaP has proved an effective tool for political dialogue and cooperation in a number of areas, including trade, migration and border management, energy and the environment. It has set up a number of bilateral projects to improve relations and has opened negotiations on an Association Agreement with all the EaP countries except for Belarus.

However, now that the EaP multilateral institutions are fully in operation it is pertinent to ask what has been achieved. Do these new institutions and intensified processes entail successful rapprochement with the EU? Is the EU responsible for progress in some cases but regression in others? Is there something that the EU could do to better encourage Europeanisation processes in partner countries?

This policy brief aims to address these questions by drawing on the preliminary results of the European Integration Index for the EaP countries ‒ a project undertaken by a team of researchers from the six partner countries and the EU. The Index examines the state and dynamics of European integration in these countries. The final results of the Index will be published in November, and the Index overview can be found at irf.ua

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