Deepening the economic integration in the Eastern Partnership: from a Free Trade Area to a Neighbourhood Economic Community?

Abstract:

Different forms of cooperation and regional integration, implying specific institutional agreements and instruments, have been developed in the last decades in the EU neighbourhood. The offer provided by the Eastern Partnership (EaP), which includes both economic and political objectives, has not proven attractive enough for the Eastern Neighbourhood.

The region is currently divided between two global powers (EU and Russia) and two competing regional integration areas, the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area and the Eurasian Single Economic Space. The paper focuses on the main limits of the economic tools included in the EU’s current offer and proposes several directions for EaP’s reform.

This article appears in Thematic issue of the Eastern journal of European studies: Ukrainian crisis. Rethinking geopolitics in Europe.