About

The research project Trends of Eastern Partnership concentrated on issues related to the Eastern Partnership initiative and reflected the EaP and V4 stakeholders' opinions. It aimed at the evaluation of up to now results of the EaP, its benefits and shortcomings for the participating countries and their visions towards the initiative's future.

What values and qualities did the EaP bring into the relationship between EU and EaP partner countries? How is the EaP perceived by those actors? In what respects could the EU change its approach towards the EaP partner countries to enhance mutual cooperation?

Inspiration

The project follows on the research projects Trends of Czech Foreign Policy: Study of Foreign-Policy Elites (2011) and Trends of Czech European Policy: Study of European Policy Elites (2013) which were conducted by the Association for International Affairs (AMO). Foreign inspiration and methodological guidance for both research projects were Trends der deutschen Aussenpolitik by the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and the YouGov Survey by British think-tank Chatham House.

Course

The project was carried out in three stages between February 2014 and April 2015. First, the questionnaire and a list of potential respondents were prepared and consulted in detail. Data was gathered from September to November 2014. In November 2014, the initial project results were presented at the General Assembly of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum in Batumi, Georgia. In the following three months, the research team analysed and evaluated the data that had been collected. The whole project was rounded off with the publication of project results and the public presentation thereof in Brussels, Belgium.

More about activities

Stakeholders

A broad range of contributors to the public debate were approached to participate in the survey. We addressed stakeholders who were involved in, or had the opportunity to engage in, the EaP on a regular basis, and as such were theoretically in a position to offer a frank assessment.

Those approached included

Questionnaire and topics

The questionnaire was dispatched electronically and comprised 15 questions (one question was intended strictly for EaP countries). The questions can be thematically divided into three areas. First, we solicited an evaluation of the EaP since its inception in 2009. Secondly, we probed expectations regarding the EaP’s future direction. The final set of questions was given over to recommendations.

There were three types of questions. Respondents most often expressed their level of agreement with presented statements. There were also open-ended questions. These had to be categorized during evaluation; i.e. converted to a higher level of abstraction. The number scale was used in one case. Respondents could skip any question. The answers were gathered anonymously.

Download complete questionnaire

Participating organizations

Research team

Head of project

Vít Dostál (vit.dostal@amo.cz), Director of the Research Center, Association for International Affairs (AMO)

Research team

Leila Alieva (CNIS), Victoria Bucataru (APE), Natia Daghelishvili (CIESR), Aliaksandr Filipau (idependent expert), Daria Gaidai (IWP), Stepan Grigoryan (ACGRC), Nikola Karasová (AMO), Václav Lídl (AMO), Rebecca Murray (SFPA), Agnieszka Slomian (KI), Zsuzsanna Végh (CENS)

Technologies used

The following technologies were used in processing the results of the project. All technologies are free and open for non-commercial use.

Partner

The project was kindly supported by the International Visegrad Fund (IVF).

License

Licence Creative Commons
Trends of Eastern Partnership is subject to a Creative Commons license.