Session II - European Neighbourhood Policy Review and its Priorities for the Associated Countries

Since the Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiative was launched in 2009, it has gone a long way in shaping the agendas of bilateral and multilateral cooperation between the EU and its partner countries. In 2014, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine reaffirmed their European choice, signed the Association Agreements with the EU and recognized their aspiration for the EU membership. The Agreements brought bilateral cooperation between the parties to a new level. To the different extent, the associated partners have made significant progress in implementation of political and economic part of the Association Agreements, including Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas and Visa Liberalisation Action Plans. Differentiation in ambitions and interests of the EaP countries toward partnership with the EU was one of the reasons for the European Neighbourhood Policy review. Keeping integrity of the EaP initiative, especially on multilateral level remains one of the priorities for the EU and its partner coutries. Number of experts and stakeholders involved in the ENP review have been supporting an idea of creating separate institutional cooperation mechanism between the EU and partner countries, however in parallel, there is an idea of creating new enhanced platform that will bring associated countries and EU candidates side-by-side.