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Eastern neighbours & Russia

The Eastern neighbourhood is of strategic importance to the EU: although the Union’s relations with the states of the region vary significantly, the EU and its Eastern neighbours maintain high levels of interdependence in several different spheres, from trade and energy flows to the joint management of security challenges and migration.

The EU has long developed its policies in the region and its relations with Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan in the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership.

Association Agreements containing provisions on the establishment of deep and comprehensive free trade areas, form the cornerstones of EU engagement. Such agreements have been signed and are implemented by Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia.

 Eastern neighbours & Russia 2.0

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine reshaped demographics, geoeconomics, and geopolitics in the Eastern Partnership states. It also prompted the EU to innovate its engagement with the countries of which it consists. Security has become a key emphasis in addition to trade, energy or migration The EU and Member States provide Ukraine with substantial support that includes military assistance and training, while security cooperation with Moldova has been upgraded and the EU has engaged in mediation between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In a dramatic change to the existing paradigm, the enlargement agenda has been expanded to the Eastern neighbourhood. Russia’s war on Ukraine encouraged the ‘Association Trio’ of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia to formally apply for EU membership. The three states were granted the European perspective in return - Ukraine and Moldova received candidate status in June 2022, while Georgia was recognised as a potential candidate. Relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan also see developments outside of the enlargement track.

Over the coming years, the newfound momentum of the EU’s engagement with Eastern neighbours needs to be sustained by political will and sufficient resources. The EU’s success in the neighbourhood will depend to a great extent on its actions in the security realm – not only in Ukraine, but also in Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, given that Russia’s war and other trends in the regional security altered the status quo of protracted conflicts in these countries, creating also new needs for humanitarian assistance. Progress in the enlargement process will also be a major driver of positive change in the region, together with the easing of remaining trade barriers, encouraging good governance and regional connectivity conducive to peace and prosperity in the region.

Until 2022, the EU and Russia were bound by a dense web of political, economic and people-to-people contacts. Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has fundamentally reconfigured the EU’s relationship with Moscow. The EU's response to Russia's war on Ukraine now dominates the mutual relationship, with Russia subject to multiple rounds of restrictive measures and the economic and energy relations having undergone a significant decoupling. 

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  • 06November 2014
    Presentation of YES 2014 in Vienna

    In partnership with the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, the EUISS presented the abridged German version of its Yearbook of European of European Security 2014 on 6 November in the Austrian capital.

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    10October 2014
    First lessons from the Ukrainian crisis
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    This Alert outlines some initial lessons which can already be drawn from the crisis in Ukraine. Dispelling certain commonly held assumptions about the origins of the current conflict, it also outlines how the EU could move forward with crafting policies towards its eastern neighbours.

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    19September 2014
    The changing game of multilateralism
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    This Alert examines the outcome of the BRICS summit that took place in July, as well as the reluctance of individual BRICS to criticise Russia over the conflict in Ukraine. Does the establishment of the New Development Bank herald an age of opposition to Western-dominated institutions and policies?

  • 11September 2014
    EUISS annual conference 2014

    The EUISS held its annual conference on 11/12 September in central Paris. This year’s event, entitled ‘European security in a changing global environment’, was an opportunity to convene numerous policy planners and think tankers from across the Europe to discuss European security during a period of major institutional change within the Union.

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    09September 2014
    Eurasian Union: the real, the imaginary and the likely
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    This Chaillot Paper examines Russia’s Eurasian project. Is this a new twenty-first century version of the Soviet Union? Does the project make economic sense, or is it simply a ploy by Putin to restore Russia’s great power status? It also looks at how the crisis in Ukraine will affect Moscow’s plans, as well as how the EU could interact with this potential rival.

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    04July 2014
    Ukraine’s impact on Russia
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    Although Moscow appears to have achieved its short-term goals in Ukraine, what about its long-term objectives? This Alert demonstrates how, despite the domestic boost for Russia’s president, the destabilising of country on its doorstep hardly counts as a Russian victory.

  • 18June 2014
    EU-Russia and a neighbourhood in crisis

    The second EUISS Task Force on the eastern neighbourhood, this meeting explored the future of the Eurasian Union and possible steps forward for Ukraine following the election of President Poroshenko.

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    28May 2014
    Ukraine: four crises, one country
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    This Brief assesses the array of challenges facing Ukraine as it attempts to maintain territorial unity and reform its oligarchic economy. Despite the turmoil that has plagued the country in recent months, can its new president, Petro Poroshenko, now embark on a mission to save the state?

  • 22May 2014
    EU-Russia Forum

    The EU-Russia Forum, hosted by Carnegie Europe in partnership with the EUISS, convened civil society experts from across Europe, Russia, and the US in Brussels for an exchange of views with EU officials on the current EU-Russian relationship.

  • 24April 2014
    Ukraine and beyond: the Association Agreements with Moldova and Georgia

    The second EUISS Task Force on the eastern neighbourhood, this meeting explored possible steps for how the EU could keep Moldova and Georgia on track to complete their EU association deals.

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    11May 2011
    The role of EU defence policy in the Eastern neighbourhood
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    While the current focus of EU foreign policy is firmly trained on its southern neighbourhood, this paper explains why the EU should not forget about the long-simmering disputes in its Eastern neighbourhood – disputes which might once again require EU responses in the future.

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    18January 2011
    The Institute's quarterly newsletter No.34
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    In this quarter's issue, The Economist's Anton La Guardia proposes a unique role for the EU in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Nicola Casarini says the EU should get more involved in East Asia, and Álvaro de Vasconcelos forwards the case for better preventing conflict.

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    06December 2010
    The EU, Russia and the neighbourhood
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    A thaw in the frosty EU-Russia relationship has been occurring over the last year. But with Russia’s cheerier tone being buoyed by strategic gains in its neighbourhood, the EU should be under no illusion about Russia’s agenda.

  • 01December 2010
    Sapsan: a parable of Russian modernisation
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    In this piece, the author ponders on how the high-speed Sapsan trains can be seens as a parable of the Russian leadership's superficial notion of modernisation.

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    22October 2010
    The Institute's quarterly newsletter No. 33
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    In this quarter's issue of the newsletter, EUISS director Álvaro de Vasconcelos, explores the increasing inter-connection of actors beyond the big powers, F. Stephen Larrabee highlights the work yet to be done by the EU in the Balkans and the Eastern neighbourhood, and Luis Peral considers the EU's responsibility within the International Criminal Court.

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    12April 2010
    The Double Tragedy of Katyn
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    In a historic ceremony on 7 April 2010, the Prime Ministers of Poland and Russia marked the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre during which Soviet secret police executed thousands of Polish prisoners of war and buried them in mass graves alongside victims of the Stalinist purges.  The belated gesture represented an unprecedented step towards a process of reconciliation between the two nations, one that would never have begun without an acknowledgement of Soviet responsibility for the atrocity.  Polish and Russian commentators were optimistic, and expectations abounded of a new era in Ru

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    09April 2010
    A Good START
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    The New START, a bilateral nuclear arms reduction treaty, aims to significantly reduce the weapons stockpiles of both the US and Russia. While it may be seen as a positive step towards disarmament and for US-Russia relations, getting it past the US Senate is Obama’s next big challenge, writes Jean Pascal Zanders.

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    07April 2010
    The Institute's quarterly newsletter No. 31
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    Articles in this current issue: "After Lisbon: the States of the Union", "The EU and natural gas: the new security agenda", and "Obama's first year: a transformational presidency?"

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    12November 2009
    Back from the cold? The EU and Belarus in 2009
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    The Russian-Georgian war of 2008 induced a thaw in relations between Brussels and Minsk, yet relations with Belarus continue to be a headache for the European Union. Chaillot Paper No.119 aims to provide in-depth empirical analysis on Belarus which, due to its long-standing isolation, remains a blank spot on the European map.

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    09November 2009
    The fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification
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    On 30 October, three elderly statesmen met to congratulate each other on the role they played in Germany’s reunification: Helmut Kohl, Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush. They all all their own reasons for doing so. The Russian President had ruled out the use of violence to keep the Soviet empire intact. He just let go and, with the fall of the Wall, the most dramatic event which closed the twentieth century, the whole Soviet empire collapsed, and in a domino effect that spread with breathtaking speed the regimes of Eastern European bloc countries were toppled one after another.

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