Trends of Eastern Partnership
The aim of the research project “Important, Forgotten, or Irrelevant? Stakeholders' Survey on Post-Vilnius Eastern Partnership” was to map the ideas, opinions and visions of important stakeholders coming from V4 member states and EaP partner countries towards the EaP initiative. Our respondents (politicians, diplomats, civil servants, analysts, NGO workers, journalists, and businessmen) answered 15 questions in areas relating to the up to now development of the EaP initiative, its principal benefits and shortcomings for the participating countries and its future prospects.
The results are available in three forms:
- interactive charts and visualizations
- research paper in hard copy and pdf
- downloadable datasets for further research
Try completing the questionnaire for yourself.
Main Findings
- In all, 1,783 people from the V4 and EaP countries were approached, of whom 651 (36.5%) responded to the questionnaire, with 390 (21.9%) replying to all questions.
- The EaP initiative is generally viewed in a positive light, with the vast majority of respondents from EaP countries asserting that there had been progress in the political association between EU and EaP partner countries.
- Security-related advances are generally viewed quite negatively by stakeholders from the majority of EaP partner countries.
- Funding should, as a matter of preference, be channelled into regional development programmes, the SME Facility, the development of regional energy market, energy efficiency, and EaP partner countries’ participation in EU Community programmes.
- Although mobility has been an EaP priority since the initiative’s inception in 2009, there is room for improvement according to the stakeholders approached.
- V4 countries share the view that the EaP mainly works to the benefit of partner countries by consolidating political cooperation. However, closer study of the data reveals that preferences for economic and political integration are split, as Slovak and Hungarian respondents favour the former, Polish and Czech the latter.
- Interestingly, 37.9% of stakeholders still view the EaP as a geostrategic tool wielded by the EU against the Russian Federation’s interests.
The research project was kindly supported by the International Visegrad Fund.
