EU Eastern Policy: Shaping relations with Russia and Ukraine

 

The international conference "EU Eastern Policy: shaping relations with Russia and Ukraine” was organised by the Research Centre of Slovak Foreign Policy Association on November 3, 2015 in Bratislava, Slovakia in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

 

NISPAcee, as a recognised international organisation dealing with the targeted region, was also invited to participate. Governance and public administration reforms were highly relevant to the subject matter of the conference. Ludmila Gajdosova, NISPAcee Executive Director and Elena Zakova, Senior Manager, represented NISPAcee at the event.

 

The keynote speech was made by Miroslav Lajcak, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic.

 

The aim of the conference was to discuss EU policy regarding Eastern Europe with focus on the topical issues that frame its current agenda with Russia and Ukraine. The one-day conference examined the prospects for further development of the EU sanctions policy in relation to Russia in light of the implementation of the Minsk agreements and the investigation into the shooting of the Malaysian aircraft MH17. Various questions were discussed in the forum, for example, what are the consequences of EU sanctions on Russia and vice versa? Does the Minsk 2 agreement provide a solution to the Donbas conflict? Is there any chance of a Russia-Ukraine agreement on Crimea? What are the red lines for the EU when it comes to an eventual review of the sanctions on Russia? What are the short-term and mid-term scenarios for EU-Russia relations?

 

The second part of the conference focused on the evaluation of the situation in Ukraine with the emphasis on reform progress and domestic political (un)stability. Again, various questions were discussed as follows: What has been achieved by the current government of Ukraine in the field of reforms? What are major challenges Ukraine is coping with? How strong is public support for the current political leaders? What do the October local elections mean for leading political actors? How is the implementation of the association agreement with the EU progressing? How efficient is EU support for the reforms in Ukraine? What are the short-term scenarios for political developments in Ukraine?

 

Finally, during the last part of the conference, the potential was analysed for cooperation between EU member states in Central and South Eastern Europe and Ukraine regarding the security of the natural gas supply against Russia’s moves in its export policy.

 

The almost one hundred conference participants included diplomats from many European countries, mainly the Eastern neighbouring countries of the EU, experts from the European Commission, international and Slovak experts representing governmental institutions, academia and NGOs.  Presentations which reflected the conference’s challenging questions were discussed in depth by participants but there were no simple answers or solutions. Discussions also reflected upon a revised European Neighbourhood Policy which would  be proposed by the European Commission in autumn 2015, and which aimed to contribute to the preparation of the EU global strategy for foreign and security policy, recently launched by the European External Action Service.

 

There is a clear need for NISPAcee to share the organisation’s knowledge and experience, accumulated during more than 20 years in the countries of the Eastern Partnership. Reforms in Ukraine and Moldova, as discussed, would require many improvements and learning from international experience would certainly be useful. According to the EC expert, Ukraine has adopted an impressive set of reforms, but there are major problems with the capacity for their implementation, mainly concerning the new legislation.  Anti-corruption reforms, security and human rights are at the centre of interest for civil society representatives. The major challenges addressed by the speakers appeared to be anti-corruption reform, civil service reform, and building trust through communication of the reforms with the public. The capacity building of adequate human resources, capable of coping with these challenges at a national as well as local level, is therefore crucial.  This creates a lot of room for training, educational and research institutions in the area of public administration and public policy in the targeted countries and learning from NISPAcee’s experience.