From its very formation, the EaP pointedly sidestepped one of the region’s main problems: the profound security challenges stemming from protracted conflicts, hybrid threats and weaknesses in national security sectors, all of which have a negative impact on the domestic reforms foreseen by the EaP. Both EaP countries themselves and several analysts increasingly argue that this approach is becoming untenable and that this security deficit needs to be addressed within the EaP in one way or another.[26] This argument is further elaborated in the external contribution of Gustav Gressel in Annex 3. Cognizant of the geopolitical risks involved, France among others maintains that including security and defence could be ‘dangerous and counter-productive’ for the EaP.[27] The EC itself prefers to speak about ‘resilience’ rather than ‘security’, but did plead for ‘stepping up support for security dialogues and co-operation’ in 2020.[28] Questions on the security dimension of the EaP are therefore likely to feature prominently on the agenda for the March 2021 summit. Here we discuss the pros and cons of an EaP engagement with each of the three aspects of the security deficit (that is, protracted conflicts, hybrid threats, and security and defence cooperation).

The protracted conflicts – the buckets behind the boats

Five out of the six EaP countries are grappling with unresolved territorial disputes or non-recognised entities on their territory in which Russian troops are (in)directly involved (see figure 2). Russia holds the key to the resolution of these conflicts and actively leverages them as a deterrence to geopolitically risk-averse EU member states and to distract association countries’ governments from much-needed reforms. Sometimes it uses them as outright pressure points, as it did towards Armenia.

The EU has been cautious about inserting itself fully into the resolution of these protracted conflicts due to its reluctance to engage in a geopolitical square-off with the Russian Federation, its internal disagreements and a subsequent tendency for France, and increasingly Germany also, to act in their national capacities. The EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus is one of three co-Chairs in the Geneva International Discussions on Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the EU is one of two observers in the OSCE-mediated 5+2 negotiations on Transnistria. But the EU has no formal role in the Normandy Format, where Germany and France negotiate with Ukraine and Russia on the settlement of the Donbas conflict; and it is wholly absent from the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh, where France is one of three co-Chairs. As the conflict escalated the EU could do little more than issue statements and had to cede the initiative to Russia and – to a lesser extent – Turkey.

Ultimately, a more geopolitical and strategically autonomous European Union cannot afford to shy away from addressing protracted conflicts in its direct neighbourhood. It should invest more political and financial capital into their resolution, even if there are no quick fixes. Most of the negotiation formats were set up in the 1990s and still featured a prominent role for the United States, which remains nominally committed but in practice is increasingly phasing out its involvement. It is up to Brussels to pick up the slack, and the EU has a range of tools at its disposal to do so. Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions such as the EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in Georgia or the EU Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) make a modest but nonetheless significant difference in mitigating the negative effects of protracted conflicts on EaP countries. EU Special Representatives (EUSRs) remain valuable diplomatic assets who can maintain a permanent political dialogue, even if they sit somewhat uneasy within the EU’s legal structure.[29] EU support for civil society dialogue and peace initiatives can help prepare the ground for longer-term conflict resolution; these projects could be further mainstreamed into the bilateral assistance provided within the EaP framework.

However, it is exactly its multilateral dimension and diverging views between EaP countries themselves that makes the EaP not the ideal format for conflict resolution. Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova demand more active EU involvement in their protracted conflicts but do not necessarily want to discuss them in the presence of Belarus, Azerbaijan and Armenia; the latter two were already barely on speaking terms even before the Karabakh conflict escalated in 2020. In that regard, concerns that these conflicts will derail the EaP altogether are well founded. Instead of ‘importing’ conflict resolution into the EaP or pretending that the conflicts do not exist, the EU could instead make it explicit in its strategic communication that it intends to play a more active role in conflict resolution within other formats, most notably but not exclusively in the various OSCE-facilitated processes.[30]

Countering hybrid threats

The EU’s reluctance to insert itself into conflict resolution processes contrasts sharply with the political attention given to combating ‘hybrid threats’, a catchphrase that includes everything from disinformation campaigns to cyber attacks, and from hostile intelligence operations to covert military action.[31] This issue has increasingly gained in prominence in the EU’s security discourse since 2015, as it is clear that the EaP countries – in particular the three association countries – face a wide range of hybrid threats emanating largely from the Russian Federation. Disinformation campaigns aim to undermine the momentum for reforms, erode support for Euro-Atlantic structures, and influence the outcome of electoral processes. The generally low trust in democratic institutions and, more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic, create fertile ground for such campaigns.[32] Vulnerability to cyber attacks is only likely to increase with the rapid digitalisation of the economies of the EaP countries and the growing share of the ICT sector in their exports.

While primarily of importance to the three association countries, the overarching theme of ‘counter-hybrid’ and protection of critical infrastructure fits well with the overall objective of improving resilience across the region and could be expanded upon.[33] This would not only increase the security of EaP countries and remove obstacles to reform, it would also increasingly benefit the EU itself, given the growing security interdependence between the EU and its neighbourhood. Not only can EaP countries learn from the EU but individual EU member states – including the Netherlands – can benefit from the expertise and experience of countries that have been in the front line of hybrid threats for much longer.[34] Even for countries reluctant to embark on security cooperation, countering cyber threats and disinformation are relatively uncontroversial starting points; a logical step might be to extend the current cyber security co-operation with Ukraine to Georgia and Moldova. But more could also be done to diversify the media landscape and make electoral systems more robust against interference.

Security sector reform and defence cooperation

In the last decade the EU has ramped up its assistance to security sector reform in EaP countries but has primarily focused on ‘soft security’, most notably the prosecutors, the judiciary and the police. Due to its reluctance to address matters of ‘hard security’, including the military and the security services, it has largely deferred to the United States, NATO and individual EU member states. This in turn reduces the leverage and relevance of the EU as a security partner. It is no surprise that the EaP countries, and in particular the three association countries, seek assistance elsewhere, given the paramount importance they attach to their national security and building the capacity of their military and security services to ward off external threats. This is why Gressel and Popescu have advocated for an ‘Eastern Partnership Security Compact’ that includes intelligence cooperation, both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ security and even assistance to modernise military hardware.[35]

It remains debatable whether or not the EaP itself is a suitable framework to engage in such security and defence cooperation. France and other countries that do not want to antagonise the Russian Federation incorrectly assume that if Europe stays out of the security sector, so will Russia; on the contrary, this self-restraint creates a situation where the EU focuses on ‘soft issues’ and Russia exploits hard security vulnerabilities. The EU has a growing range of instruments at its disposal, including the beefed-up European Defence Fund (EDF) and the Permanent Structured Co-operation (PESCO) framework. It also has relevant training facilities such as the European Security and Defence College. In theory these could be opened up bilaterally to EaP countries.[36] But the EU itself already struggles to strengthen defence cooperation among its members and grapples with the unresolved question of the role of third countries (including the UK) in PESCO and the EDF. Few member states will be ready to open up these mechanisms to EaP countries. A gradual approach whereby training of military and intelligence officers is included in capacity-building projects, building on experience obtained from the EU’s bilateral assistance to Ukraine, might be more feasible in the short to medium term than an ambitious programme aimed at modernising the armed forces and military industries of the three association countries.

Finally, valid concerns about corruption in unreformed security services and military establishments further deter EU engagement with these partners. However, corruption is not only a matter of good governance or financial transparency, it is also a security issue that undermines the ability of these institutions to protect the vital interests of EaP countries. The EU’s efforts to support the fight against corruption should therefore explicitly include the armed forces and the security services. In particular, reforming the intelligence services, linked as they are to the vestiges of power in EaP countries, is an arduous and long-term process that could benefit from both longer-term European assistance and increased political attention – including within the EaP.[37]