{"id":721,"date":"2018-07-02T21:55:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-02T21:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demsecinstitute.org\/?p=721"},"modified":"2024-09-04T18:32:58","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T18:32:58","slug":"to-sleep-perchance-to-reform-the-continued-relevance-of-the-eus-eastern-partnership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demsecinstitute.org\/?p=721","title":{"rendered":"To Sleep, Perchance to Reform: The Continued Relevance of the EU\u2019s Eastern Partnership"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Emmet Tuohy<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much as the related \u201cUkraine fatigue\u201d pandemic swept Washington in the aftermath of the 2004-05 Orange Revolution, Eastern Partnership (EaP) fatigue is alas an increasingly common illness among many contemporary observers, both within the EU and in the six partner countries. Even in Tallinn\u2014the capital of one of the most enthusiastic and effective supporters of the EaP\u2014one occasionally hears critiques (if more often whispered or off-the-record) that the initiative is \u201cirrelevant\u201d or \u201cineffective.\u201d  And its showcase event, the biennial Eastern Partnership Summit, was (accurately) described as \u201clow-key<\/a>\u201d and \u201caimed<\/a> at avoid[ing] drama.\u201d  Following Shakespeare\u2019s Danish prince\u2014who was actually, frequent misquoting aside, talking about a rather more final state of repose\u2014are the EaP\u2019s dreams of ever-closer European integration eastward  simply dead?  Or, like Hamlet, has the initiative found a reason to keep going?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a generally fair-minded analysis, my EDSN colleague Michael Cecire still dismisses<\/a> the EaP\u2019s signature 2020 Deliverables\u2014the concrete set of objectives launched at the 2015 Summit and refined before the 2017  edition that that serve as the fundamental blueprint for action under the initiative\u2014merely as a way of \u201cselling\u201d the EaP as \u201ca cooperative platform for reform.\u201d But has the Eastern Partnership ever been anything but <\/em>such a platform, at least at its core?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly, it\u2019s true that there have been considerable differences of opinion among EU member states since  the EaP was launched in 2009. These differences remain salient along several fault lines, whether it is the level of attention being paid to the East (at the expense of the broader European Neighborhood Policy, which also includes <\/a>the countries on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean); the degree to which the initiative should prioritize political values over strategic interests; the desirability of differentiation, or \u201cmore for more\u201d in past jargon; and most of all, whether those EaP countries that desire it should have the possibility of someday attaining membership in the EU itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet despite the frequent criticism of the EaP as being insufficiently geopolitical, or of being overly technocratic, this \u201ccooperative platform\u201d is essentially what it has always been\u2014and recently, it has done this type of cooperation increasingly well. Certainly, those of a more realist foreign-policy bent can find fault with the earnestly na\u00efve tone of EU officials when they speak on the issue\u2014whether it was former European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy \u0160tefan F\u00fcle<\/a> in 2013 rejecting the very concept of \u201czero-sum games,\u201d or current Commission Vice President Federica Mogherini<\/a> earlier this month stressing that \u201cour friendship and partnership with our eastern partners is never against anyone, it is always cooperative, and we never think in a logic of spheres of influence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, while Cecire acknowledges many of the headline agreements that have emerged from the Eastern Partnership\u2014such as the 5 visa liberalization\/facilitation agreements or 4 association\/partnership agreements (with Belarus not included in either, and with negotiations ongoing with Azerbaijan on the latter), it is important to note that these have all come from the bilateral<\/u> <\/em><\/strong>dimension of the EaP, which is only one part of the proverbial story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Especially after the reforms adopted during the 2017 Summit\u2014which streamlined <\/a>the institutional architecture of the initiative, consolidating the four thematic platforms and tying them more closely to the political work of the EaP itself\u2014it is the multilateral<\/u> <\/em><\/strong>dimension of the Partnership that plays the biggest role in delivering tangible results to actual people in the six partner countries. But how?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To cite only a few examples, in this dimension the EU, its members, and the partner countries have worked actively in ensuring that businesses<\/strong> both large and small have access to funding (with over \u20ac1.5 billion provided<\/a> thus far since the launch of the EaP), in promoting<\/a> greater energy <\/strong>efficiency and security through new technology and new interconnector investment, in creating greater educational <\/strong>opportunities to growing numbers of students and professionals through the Erasmus + and other programs, and in opening up new transport <\/strong>routes<\/a> between EaP and EU countries, including through a new EU-Armenia aviation agreement initialed at the Summit (calling to mind the infamous quote<\/a> by Ryanair CEO Michael O\u2019Leary that the low-cost airline \u201chas done more for European integration than vast waves of European bureaucracy.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, the thematic platforms\u2014and the specific subject-area panels<\/a> they contain, all of which meet on a biannual basis\u2014are not just meetings for meetings\u2019 sake, and do not include only <\/em>diplomats or international relations specialists (even if, surely ironically, Estonian foreign minister Sven Mikser along with my fellow international relations specialists and I are visible in the Public Adminstration Reform panel image that illustrates Cecire\u2019s article), but primarily bring together working-level officials who can together cooperate to bring about very specific solutions to shared problems in clearly defined ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly, the EU can always improve on the way in which it discusses the nature of the reform process, and \u201cdo this because we did it\u201d is not always the most compelling argument. However, while Cecire concludes that the \u201corganic case for reform should develop in parallel to, and grow out of, conditional processes,\u201d one should question how \u201corganic\u201d any reform process really is\u2014or how lasting it would be\u2014if its implementation grew out of the carrots of conditionality imposed from outside. Certainly, European examples are valuable\u2014especially of those countries that themselves emerged from the legacy of Soviet rule, as did Estonia and its Baltic partners. In the end, however, it is regular engagement in the less glamorous, less \u201cgeopolitical\u201d sectors of government work by the people of the region themselves\u2014<\/em>as actually takes place in the EaP multilateral track\u2014that will bear the most organic fruit (and fruit that\u2019s sustainable and locally-grown, to boot!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those countries that have made the most progress towards reform already, however, these sectoral partnerships are in reality the source of bitter disappointment. But kindly permit a small digression, a brief tale that illustrates why one really should not underestimate the degree to which narrowly-tailored strategic partnerships can evolve into far more profound and consequential forms of cooperation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once upon a time, there was a group of countries that, for various geopolitical and economic reasons, agreed to pool certain energy and industrial resources together for their mutual benefit. This partnership chose to call itself by the stirringly inspiring poetic title of \u201cCoal and Steel Community,\u201d which non-specialists will most assuredly be forgiven for not having heard of. But perhaps its modern name\u2014after a few mergers and treaty updates along the way\u2014might be more familiar: the European Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Brussels has continually\u2014if perhaps self-servingly\u2014stressed<\/a>, the EaP is an initiative created by the choice of the partner countries. The partner countries really do <\/em>have agency in the process\u2014and with the quill in their own hands, it is up to them whether this play of reforms and integration ultimately ends in tragedy\u2014or comedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emmet Tuohy <\/em><\/strong>is senior research fellow at the Estonian School of Diplomacy <\/em>and a fellow of the Eurasian Democratic Security Network. A former senior researcher at the Estonian Center of Eastern Partnership (2016-2018), Tuohy was closely involved with the conceptualization and implementation of the official EaP events\u2014notably the e-Partnership Conference, the Business Forum, and the Civil Society Conference\u2014held during the Estonian presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2017. The opinions reflected here are, however, solely the views of the author. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Emmet Tuohy Much as the related \u201cUkraine fatigue\u201d pandemic swept Washington in the aftermath of the 2004-05 Orange Revolution, Eastern Partnership (EaP) fatigue is alas an increasingly common illness among many contemporary observers, both within the EU and in the six partner countries. Even in Tallinn\u2014the capital of one of the most enthusiastic and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-publications"],"yoast_head":"\nTo Sleep, Perchance to Reform: The Continued Relevance of the EU\u2019s Eastern Partnership - Democratic Security Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/demsecinstitute.org\/?p=721\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"To Sleep, Perchance to Reform: The Continued Relevance of the EU\u2019s Eastern Partnership - Democratic Security Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Emmet Tuohy Much as the related \u201cUkraine fatigue\u201d pandemic swept Washington in the aftermath of the 2004-05 Orange Revolution, Eastern Partnership (EaP) fatigue is alas an increasingly common illness among many contemporary observers, both within the EU and in the six partner countries. 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