PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
Contacts
Address 1957 E St NW, Washington, DC 20052 adminponars@gwu.edu 202.994.5915
NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • In the Caucasus, There Is a Peace Agreement but Not Peace

    View
  • Russia’s Niche Soft Power: Sources, Targets and Channels of Influence

    View
  • A Weak Link in NATO? Bulgaria, Russia, and the Lure of Espionage

    View
  • Russia’s Weak Strongman: The Perilous Bargains That Keep Putin in Power

    View
  • Special Issue: Russia’s 2020 Constitutional Reform: The Politics of Institutionalizing the Status-Quo

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • How is the Russian Government Coping with Rising Food Prices? [Lipman Series 2021] March 15, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Anton Tabakh about rising food prices in Russia, and what they might mean for Russia's current and future stability.
  • The Communist Party of the Russian Federation: More Than Just Systemic Opposition? [Lipman Series 2021] March 5, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Felix Light and Nikolay Petrov about the contemporary Communist Party of the Russian Federation, including the divisions between its leadership and membership, its attitude toward Alexei Navalny, and why it might be more than just "systemic" opposition after all.
  • Internet Resources: Civic Communication and State Surveillance [Lipman Series 2021] February 16, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Andrei Soldatov and Tanya Lokot about the role of the internet in contemporary Russian politics, including both as a tool of the Russian opposition and as an instrument of the increasingly repressive Russian regime.
  • The Rise of Alexei Navalny's Political Stature and Mass Protest in Russia [Lipman Series 2021] February 1, 2021
    In the first PONARS Eurasia Podcast of 2021, Maria Lipman chats with Greg Yudin about the current protests taking place in Russia, and what Alexei Navalny's growing popular support means for the Putin regime.
  • Russian Social Policy in the COVID-19 Era [Lipman Series 2020] December 21, 2020
    In 2020’s final episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sarah Wilson Sokhey and Ella Paneyakh to discuss Russian social policy in the COVID-19 era, and public perception of Russia’s overall pandemic response.
  • Conscious Parenting Practices in Contemporary Russia [Lipman Series 2020] December 10, 2020
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Julia Yuzbasheva and Maria Danilova to learn more about the proliferation of "conscious parenting" practices in contemporary Russian society.
  • The Transformation of Belarussian Society [Lipman Series 2020] November 11, 2020
    In this episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Masha Lipman chats with Grigory Ioffe about the long-term and short-term factors that led up to the current protests in Belarus, and the ongoing transformation of Belarussian society.
  • Russian Lawmakers Adjust National Legislation to the Revised Constitutional Framework [Lipman Series 2020] October 26, 2020
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about ongoing changes to Russia’s national legislation based on the recently revised constitutional framework, and what these changes portend for the 2021 Duma election.
  • Russia's Regional Elections [Lipman Series 2020] September 25, 2020
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Graeme Robertson and Konstantin Gaaze about Russia’s September 13 regional elections and whether or not the Kremlin should be worried about upcoming Duma elections.
  • Understanding the Protests in Belarus [Lipman Series 2020] September 11, 2020
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Natalya Chernyshova (University of Winchester) and Nikolay Petrov (Chatham House) about the ongoing protests in Belarus, and what they mean for the future of the current regime.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Eastern Partnership Debate: Not Only About EU’s Neighbors

  • December 19, 2013
  • Andrey Makarychev

Ambassadors' Debate Day in Tallinn brought together heads of diplomatic missions from four Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries—Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan—and also from Poland, a co-founder of the event. Tellingly, the Ambassador of Ukraine revoked his participation on short notice and a Belarusian diplomat didn't say a word. This seems to be a highly symbolic silence of these two governments who increasingly share a lot with each other.

The debate, organized by the Tartu-based Europe College, confirmed that Eastern Europe faces a new and very complicated reality, where values and interests usually merge, and political and economic issues overlap. Given this complexity, borderlines between domestic and international matters blur. Evidently, for Moldova, the Association Agreement with the EU is a powerful factor to shape its parliamentary elections due next year, and the mass-scale political protests in Ukraine’s Maidan is a major European event. In this situation, there is no room for black-and-white thinking, and those who choose to base their strategies on zero-sum-game approaches are ultimately most likely doomed to failure.

The debate had started from Eastern Partnership countries, yet it gradually transformed into something of much wider scope and significance—into a discussion on Europe itself. In this sense, the EaP is a kind of mirror that reflects the dilemmas that the EU faces. Of course, we all are aware of an ongoing debate on whether the EU should move toward a more centralized union (the federalist option) or remain an intergovernmental alliance of sovereign nation states. But there are other dilemmas as well—for example, is the EU a (geo)political player capable of striking political deals by negotiation agreements with its partners, or does it choose to remain a purely institutional actor that offers its neighbors certain projects that can only be accepted or rejected?

The ambassadors' debate made two important things clear. First, each of the ambassadors explicitly or implicitly admitted that there is a strong geopolitical context in EU's policies. Paradoxically, this is what many EU member states vehemently deny. Yet even having assumed that the EU indeed tends to play geopolitical games, we need to see that this is not the same geopolitics as it has been known from the textbooks of the last century. The EU geopolitical inclinations are more norm-based than power-related, and more about giving incentives than controlling territories.

Secondly, the debate revealed that a "common neighborhood" still remains a figure of speech and lacks institutional substantiation. Politically, the EU and Russia keep drifting away from each other, and it is hard to foresee so far whether they can come up with more or less coordinated solutions in either Eastern Europe or South Caucasus. Multilateral diplomacy is still a wish for these regions, which seems to be more a challenge to the EU than to Russia, which traditionally has a much stronger preference for unilateral policies.

Andrey Makarychev
Andrey Makarychev
Website | + posts
Visiting Professor, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies
Affiliation

University of Tartu, Estonia
Links

Johan Skytte Institute (Bio), "PONARS as a Transnational Epistemic Community: An Insider's View" (2010 article)
Expertise

Russian Foreign and Security Policies, EU-Russian Relations, Issues of Regionalism and Federalism
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/andrey-makarychev/
    The Minsk–Khabarovsk nexus: Ethical, performative, corporeal
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/andrey-makarychev/
    Twigg: I worry about whether or not people are going to be willing to take Sputnik V in Russia
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/andrey-makarychev/
    Culture as an Instrument
  • Andrey Makarychev
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/andrey-makarychev/
    The Coronavirus and the Future of Liberalism
Related Topics
  • Makarychev
Previous Article
  • In the News | Hовости

От нашего стола – вашему столу

  • December 18, 2013
  • Arkady Moshes
View
Next Article
  • In the News | Hовости

Six Reasons to be Cautious about The Likelihood of Opposition Success in Ukraine

  • December 19, 2013
  • Lucan Way
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Путин и Лукашенко

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 29, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Отравление оппозиционеров в России превратилось в регулярную практику

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 22, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Авторитарные режимы не вечны: О ситуации в Белоруссии

  • Vladimir Gelman
  • August 14, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

В Беларуси пока что все идет по российскому сценарию

  • Olexiy Haran
  • August 12, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Опасная игра Лукашенко

  • Pavel Baev
  • August 11, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Власть справилась

  • Sergei Medvedev
  • August 10, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Непереломный момент: Смена Конституции

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 6, 2020
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Кейс Фургала и три мифа режима

  • Kirill Rogov
  • August 5, 2020

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.