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Alyona Getmanchuk, director of the Institute of World Policy, participated in the European Neighbourhood Conference held in Berlin. The theme was ‘Towards a New European Neighbourhood Policy’.Organised by Bertelsmann Stiftung, the Conference aimed at discussing ways to reinforce the EU Neighbourhood Policy and at tackling the need to better respond to the aspirations of the EU and its neighbours given the new geopolitical realities.

Sessions were dedicated to the EU’s and the EU Neighbours’ expectations on the future of the ENP.

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Alyona Getmanchuk highlighted the main expectations that Ukraine has towards the EU and explained why the EaP has no strong support in Ukraine.

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“The EU must recognize that the Eastern Partnership has not adequately substituted for a membership perspective. The prospect of Ukraine’s membership in the EU could remove a very serious counterargument abused by the opponents of Ukraine’s pro-European course. Namely: “No one waits for us in the EU” and Ukrainians are perceived as slaves in EU member states.

That not a secret it was a serious question about the Eastern partnership’s added value for Ukraine from the very beginning. Ukraine agreed and even started negotiations on AA and visa liberalization before the EaP was launched. Ukraine was against package approach and was promoting the idea to put bilateral relations first. So in Ukraine’s case EaP played more the role of demotivator rather than a motivator since main achievements were reached on bilateral level.

Ukraine was right to some extent given the multispeed partnership we are witnessing today – for some countries EaP offers too much, for some its not enough. Its not hard to predict that the gap between associated countries willing to deepen their integration and not associated countries opposing it will increase.

What to do? Firstly, to increase bilateralism. Secondly, the EaP should address the real and the most burning issues – security and energy”.

Photos: Bertelsmann Stiftung.