Jean Monnet Chair: Dr Milenko Petrovic

The scope and limitations of the European Neighbourhood Policy and Eastern Partnership – the cases of Ukraine and Georgia

This project investigates the weaknesses and shortage of the European Neighbourhood Policy and Eastern Partnership in an attempt to democratise and Europeanise the countries of the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood which have expressed a very strong desire to adopt Western standards and norms but have regardless achieved very moderate results in their post-communist political and socio-economic transformation.
The research focuses on the role of domestic and foreign agents of Europeanisation in the two countries as well as on the scope and limits of the EU’s attempts to promote its basic norms of democracy, human rights, the rule of low and economic marketization within the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy and/or Eastern Partnership. The impact of Russia as a major external opponents to the EU’s presence in these countries on the domestic institutional settings and major political and economic choices will also be investigated in greater detail.

In particular, this research activity aim to answer the following key research questions:

• What are the scope and limitations of Europeanization of Ukraine and Georgia through the framework of Eastern Partnership?
• What should be done with the current Ukrainian crisis and its EU future?
• What about the immediate prospects and future of EU relations with Russia? Is it possible to establish long-lasting friendly and mutually beneficial relations between the EU, its member states and Russia? And on what grounds?