On 5 July 2021, Dr Andriy TYUSHKA, Senior Research Fellow in the European Neighbourhood Policy Chair at the College of Europe in Natolin, gave a talk within a conference session on the future(s) of the EU’s Eastern Partnership, organized in the framework of the 93rd International Session of the European Youth Parliament in Warsaw.
In his lecture and the following Q&A session, Dr TYUSHKA discussed some of the enduring issues in the EaP’s functioning and the emerging challenges as well as mounting uncertainties in both the EU’s own policy and strategy towards the Eastern neighbourhood, relations among the six EaP countries themselves, and the ever-lasting shadow of great power politics in the region.
Against the backdrop of multiple postponements of the decisive EaP revision summit, now to be held in December 2021, the recent Belarusian drop-out from the EU’s EaP initiative, and the persisting neglect of the associated EaP-3 countries’ EU membership aspirations, the discussion also unveiled the repercussions of such a ‘waiting-for-Godot’-styled fatigue, or stalemate, for the future dynamics of EU-Eastern neighbours’ relations.