Executive Summary

The Eastern European countries have three major assets:

(1)   they are relatively functional and predictable so they appear unlikely to become sources of crises which could pose a serious threat to the European Union’s security;

(2)   the region has significant potential for grassroots democracy: over the past decade, mass protests against election fixing took place in each of the countries on at least one occasion, some of which ended in blocking attempts at deepening authoritarian practices;

(3)   most of these countries also show significant potential related to their European identity. The development of closer relations with the EU enjoys strong public support in most of the countries in this region. Although a major part of the elite is not clearly resolved to integrate with the EU, political leaders in Georgia and Moldova, and to some extent in Ukraine and Armenia, see the EU as a ‘civilisational model’ worth copying. Most of these countries, despite the lack of clear [membership] perspectives, feel they have the right to expect the door to the European Community to remain open to them.

Strong as those assets may be, the task of drawing Eastern Europe closer to the EU is one of the toughest integration challenges. This is Europe’s poorest region, where none of the countries has a political system which meets EU standards. At the same time, the differences between individual Eastern European countries and EU member states vary quite significantly. Moreover, proximity at the political level does not entail similarity at the economic level. Paradoxically, the two countries which are most distant from the EU in political terms, Belarus and Azerbaijan, are the richest ones and can boast the fastest economic growth rates (in terms of GDP per capita). In turn the countries most assimilated to the EU, which are seen as the leaders of the European Neighbourhood Policy, may deem the past fifteen years as wasted time from the point of view of reducing the economic gap between them and the European Union. Ukraine’s and Moldova’s GDP per capita has increased since 1995 in comparison to the average EU level by as little as 2–3%. Eastern Europe also has surprisingly weak economic ties with the EU. The European Community’s largest partner in this region, Ukraine, sends as much as three quarters of its exports to countries other than EU member states.

Challenges in the context of integration policy not only result from the situation in Eastern European countries but are also posed by an external actor, in the form of Russia. Moscow has been trying to limit the integration between Eastern European countries and the EU, seeing it as competing against its own influence. To implement its strategy, Russia has employed such measures as economic pressure, supporting separatism (especially in Abkhazia, Southern Ossetia and Transnistria) and authoritarian political forces (for example, it supports the Belarusian regime).

The EU has heightened its activities with regard to Eastern Europe since 2004. Bilateral contacts have been intensified and multilateral institutions for co-operation have been established. The EU has also shown greater engagement in critical situations in the region (for example, a post-conflict monitoring mission was sent for the first time to an Eastern neighbourhood country). New financial instruments have been created which enable assistance to be offered in more varied forms, including direct budgetary support and reinforcement of individual state institutions. The value of funds allocated for both financial assistance and preferential loans (for example, from the EIB) has been raised.

However, such activities have led primarily to the development of a network of mutual contacts and mechanisms for policy implementation. Some of these activities were preventive as they did not allow conflicts to escalate and inhibited authoritarian tendencies in the region.

Nevertheless, the actual integration process has been very limited. Most of the goals set as part of the Partnership and Co-operation Agreements currently in force - and the Action Plans developed on the basis of those agreements - remain unfulfilled. Although work on Association Agreements commenced (with all countries except Belarus), and negotiations regarding the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) with Ukraine are on track, problems appeared right from the beginning. Negotiations with Kyiv have been in place for almost three years now, and no end date has been determined as yet. Meanwhile, after an Association Agreement is signed it must still be ratified by all member states.

The slow progress on integration was due to a number of factors, many of which were not linked to EU policy. However, one can point to three problems within this policy which have undoubtedly reduced the effectiveness of the EU’s actions.

1.  The strategic deficit and de-Europeanisation of policy

The EU has been unable to answer the question regarding the membership prospects of Eastern European countries or to determine clearly the goal which an integration not involving membership should seek. This gave rise to a policy of evasion, where the key strategic issues were either not mentioned or formulated in a very complicated and vague manner. This made EU policy incomprehensible to both member and partner states, and also undoubtedly had a demotivating effect on both parties. The fear of the Eastern neighbours’ membership aspirations also resulted in the de-Europeanisation of the policy towards Eastern Europe. Clear statements as to whether three countries from this region were part of the old continent and references to the idea of a united Europe were avoided in EU documents. This inhibited the potential provided by virtue of their European identity. In this manner the EU deprived itself of an important element potentially capable of generating political will in the integration process.

2. The limited offer and ambivalent perceptions as regards integration

The policy of integration with Eastern European countries was being implemented in conditions where the measures applied to date had been significantly restricted. First of all, the lack of membership prospects entailed both a significant reduction of financial support and an inability to make full use of the conditionality mechanisms. However, the limitations went far beyond this issue. The EU very quickly withdrew from its initially stated readiness to share “everything apart from the institutions.’ The documents regarding policy towards Eastern Europe provided for selective integration separate from membership. The scope of potential exclusions was not precisely determined. The lack of readiness to formulate a more attractive offer stemmed from an ambivalent approach, visible at the beginning and gaining in strength over recent years: while seeking to draw Eastern European countries closer to it, the EU was at the same time taking a defensive approach in an attempt to prevent opening itself up to neighbour countries. It is worth noting that the EU was resisting precisely those areas where a move towards the EU was seen as especially beneficial by most partner states (for example, the introduction of a visa-free regime, access to the agricultural market, etc.).

3. Unresolved dilemmas: democracy or stabilisation; policy towards Russia

The EU, in the context of promoting its values, was unable to resolve the dilemma of whether it should condemn authoritarian tendencies and support grassroots democratic movements or rather choose stability and economic benefits resulting from trade co-operation with Eastern European governments (regardless of their attitude to democracy). The inability to resolve this problem was especially evident in the case of Belarus, with regard to which the more business-oriented and pro-democracy options were chosen interchangeably, and no decisive actions were taken in either direction. The attempt to reconcile the priority for democratisation with the business-oriented and stabilisation goals also led to a blurring of the criteria applied as part of the diversification policy. Initially, it was intended to provide a more generous offer to those neighbour countries which had made greater integration progress. In practice, the more advanced forms of co-operation were always offered in the first instance to Ukraine (the biggest partner in the region), and relations with Azerbaijan (a country rich in raw materials) were much better than with Belarus, which has a similarly authoritarian regime.

The EU also was unable to resolve the dilemmas linked to Russian policy, which in many areas opposed the goals and actions taken by Brussels. If this issue were raised explicitly, it would entail a confrontation with Russia, for which the EU is unprepared. At the same time, turning a blind eye to Moscow’s actions undermined the credibility of the EU and its policy. In an attempt to save face and at the same time avoid an overly costly confrontation with Russia, the EU was on the one hand sending discreet signals of dissatisfaction (at the time of the Orange Revolution or the Russia-Georgia war),  and on the other hand was minimising its activity in potentially contentious areas (for example, issues linked to separatism).

The EU has been trying to compensate for a deficiency of genuine integration with its Eastern neighbours by making progress in procedural and institutional areas (creating Action Plans, launching negotiations regarding Association Agreements, establishing multilateral institutions as part of the Eastern Partnership, and granting Action Plans for establishing a visa-free regime to Ukraine and Moldova). These new institutional solutions are obviously necessary for the implementation of the ENP goals in the East. However, the risk is that the Agreements and the Action Plans will become an objective per se and instead of supporting integration they will be merely imitating the process. The dynamics of relations between the EU and Eastern Europe since 2004 makes this scenario seem increasingly likely.

Avoidance of this scenario is not entirely dependent on the EU. The actions taken by the partner states are equally important, if not more so. However, since this text concerns EU policy, the recommendations are made in reference to this. The following actions appear to be of key significance for supporting genuine integration:

-         Formulating a clear and attractive strategic message referring to the idea of a united Europe. Contrary to broadly voiced concerns, this is possible without making a clear offer of membership.

-         Taking the risk of applying a more decisive policy of diversification.On the one hand this would mean giving up (or slowing down, in the case where previous measures cannot be rescinded) those actions aimed at creating new instruments which produce no added value (for example, Association Agreements with countries which are not interested in integration and treat the EU as an ordinary partner, or the development of an excessive number of multilateral bodies). On the other hand, those countries which are interested in integration should be encouraged through: 1) applying the available policies and instruments as soon as possible (at present, starting DCFTA negotiations with Moldova and Georgia and granting the latter country an Action Plan for a visa-free regime are of key significance); 2) admitting that, as modernisation progress is made, the EU will open up the agricultural sector to them, introduce the free movement of people and undertake the process of building privileged institutional relations.

-         A broader opening of the EU to Eastern European societies by providing them with better access to EU programmes and offering more efficient support to civil organisations.

This kind of support requires not only money but also adequate measures aimed at developing self-reliance instead of dependence. It would be reasonable to create a financial facility designed specifically to support civic society organisations (which inter alia would make it possible for the EU to award small grants for the grassroots activities). 

It seems unreasonable to prematurely declare a more intensive engagement than is presently the case in an area of so-called ‘frozen conflicts’ (which many experts have recently encouraged). The EU is still lacking the measures and political will necessary to confront Russia in this field. Given this situation, any attempts at intensifying the EU’s security policy are doomed to failure and may only undermine the European Community’s credibility.

The full text of the report is available here.