The upcoming EaP summit (December 15) will be a watershed in the promotion of visionary policies or “business as usual,” wrote Teona Lavrelashvili and Ramūnas Stanionis, who shared their thoughts on how to promote the “relevant trio” format.
Teona Lavrelashvili European Party Ombudsman Manager, Brussels; Ramūnas Stanionis is the policy advisor of MEP Andrius Kubilius.
The EU and its Eastern partners will finally hold their long-awaited summit on December 15.This will be the first physical summit since the outbreak of the pandemic and is expected to provide a “The Vision of Rebirth Cooperate with EU-EaP and approve Post 2020 agenda“.
Although the EU has an important proposal For its partners, with the support of an economic and investment plan of 2.3 billion euros, the plan has the potential to mobilize up to 17 billion euros in public and private investment, including the increase in security. The EaP vision is missing.This fact may jeopardize their fate Related trio.
Despite the infamous expansion fatigue plagued many people, EaP and (mainly) the Western Balkans, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine still have hopes for Europe’s prospects and expressed firm goals to become full members of the European Union.
On May 17, the three foreign ministers strengthened their ability to negotiate with the EU sign A joint memorandum to establish a joint trio was signed in Kiev, and a few months later, their heads of state adopted a trilateral statement in front of the President of the European Council Charles Michel.
Therefore, the so-called triple process was launched, and Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova pledged to work together to strive for “a peaceful, democratic and prosperous Europe’s future“.
The response to this seems more promising than mixed. Central and Eastern European countries welcome this form. It also received the support of the European Parliament, and the delegation of the Foreign Affairs Committee cordially met with the three ministers.The prime ministers recently Summarize They met with the presidents of EU institutions in the form of Trio before the EaP summit.
However, while some people in the European Union Agency (DG NEAR) are cautious about the EaP initiative becoming more fragmented and lacking multilateral elements, others believe that the initiative can instead bring a geopolitical perspective and revitalize the Eastern Partnership. Reform processes, even though they have stalled today.
Fortunately, Brussels is increasingly aware that it is difficult to ignore the differences between the desire and ability of EaP countries to pursue EU integration in Europe.[1].
Therefore, in addition to recognizing the post-2020 agenda, it is possible and necessary for the Eastern Partnership Summit to take additional measures to recognize the three-nation process and reach agreement on its intermediate goals.
To help achieve this, Trio countries should be more entrepreneurial when designing their vision for the Trio initiative.From the recently published Paper Written by Andrius Kubilius, President of the Euronest Parliament, and Ramūnas Stanionis, his political adviser.Among them, they believe that the EaP policy should be adopted through the application of Romano Prodi’s “Nearby Policy“, also called “everything except institutions” for the Trio country. The main ideas are as follows:
- The EU Trio Process and its agenda- The implementation of the Joint Trilateral Agenda can be guided by EU institutions and member states. As an aid to the reform of the three countries, it can initiate an EU process similar to the Berlin process enjoyed by the Western Balkans.
- With the goal of the three countries gradually joining the EU single market- The trio’s agenda should contribute to the practical steps to join the EU single market- Intermediate model of cluster EEA typeThis can be done through the Trio roadmap similar to EU law and the EEA model, which has the same EU legal basis as the affiliate agreement.
- Strengthen the institutional participation of the trio—— From a political and institutional point of view, more EU participation is needed. In the Trio process, the actual elements of the Association Trio agenda can focus on establishing a connectivity strategy with the EU to establish infrastructure access to the EU single market: interconnection projects for energy, transportation, and digital agendas. A priority list of large-scale infrastructure projects should be developed and reviewed every year.
These are ambitious, but also feasible steps. In order to put them (or some of them) into practice, a more systematic and enhanced approach is needed to structured reflection on Trio’s vision and strategy.
Unless the EU and domestic actors, including social groups, civil society organizations, think tanks, and political actors continue their efforts, the joint trio will not succeed. For this reason, it is worth considering the establishment of a trio of advisory groups composed of representatives of civil society organizations, experts and think tanks from the three countries and the European Union.
This type of platform or forum can be initiated by the Presidents of the European Council and the European Commission in the Trio Forum’s special civil society partners. This will have high political potential for reform support and simplification strategies, and will help increase stakeholder participation and effective outreach.
Another idea is to think about how European parties can better participate and their contacts with sister parties in Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova to support the joint trio process, perhaps by encouraging them to create/improve the potential of internal party platforms and networks. Efforts to promote constructive dialogue to ensure that cross-party consensus is reached on the initiative of the three-nation process at the regional, domestic and EU levels.
In the absence of prospects for EU expansion in these countries, the Trio process can be understood as a new impetus to seize and further enhance the eastern partnership reform and economic growth process.
Obviously, this needs to consolidate the efforts of political and social actors, and most importantly, the EU institutions and their leadership need a clear political will to support such initiatives. This is why the upcoming EaP summit will be a watershed in the promotion of visionary policies or “business as usual.”
However, if you choose the latter, it will gradually hollow out the EU’s transformative power and overall geopolitical credibility.
