When the European Union (EU) launched the Eastern Partnership (EaP) in 2009 to bring ‘stability, security and prosperity’ to the EU and to the six countries of its eastern neighbourhood, little did it know how rocky that ride would be. A decade later, three countries (Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) have signed Association Agreements (AAs) but are grappling with multiple protracted conflicts within their territories. Two others (Armenia and Azerbaijan) have just fought a war over Nagorno-Karabakh, while the sixth (Belarus) is facing a sustained popular uprising against its autocratic leader. Reforms in the three association countries are frustratingly slow and often stalled by vested interests; after a decade of unmet promises, their populations’ trust in their own institutions is low and their initial over-optimistic enthusiasm for European integration has been replaced by realism at best – or cynicism at worst. The Russian Federation has pushed back hard against what it considers European encroachment on its traditional sphere of influence, using a range of political, military, economic and other means that the EU struggles to respond to. As a result, the EaP has become a geopolitical tug of war in all but name, despite European leaders’ insistence to the contrary. And to make matters even more complicated, the economies and societies of the entire region are badly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

If this grim picture is compared to the Eastern Partnership’s lofty goals, it is tempting to draw the conclusion that it has failed altogether. It has not. Instead, it is a policy that is ‘underestimated for what it has accomplished but overestimated for what it can achieve’.[1] Despite its initial naiveté and its shortcomings, the EaP remains the EU’s only coherent policy towards its turbulent eastern neighbourhood – and the only format in which it engages with all six countries. The EaP has significantly boosted EU trade and leverage in the region and, through its bilateral track and its AAs, has promoted several key reforms in Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova and linked them more closely to the EU than ever before. It has given Armenia a chance to remain in a relationship of sorts with the EU despite its dependency on Russia, and it has cautiously kept the doors open for engagement with Belarus and Azerbaijan should the currently adverse circumstances change.[2]

This also matters to the Netherlands, a country that is traditionally both supportive and critical of the Eastern Partnership. The Dutch approach to EaP countries has focused on promoting good governance, rule of law, societal transformation and market reforms, while wanting to avoid discussions on eventual EU membership – and steer clear of geopolitical confrontations with the Russian Federation.[3] In September 2020, in a debate on an update to the government’s Russia strategy, the Dutch parliament called on the Minister of Foreign Affairs to also develop an Eastern Europe strategy. In light of both the upcoming EaP Summit and the ongoing strategic review, this report will examine three particular dilemmas of relevance to the Netherlands.

First, it is at present unclear how the EU can invite government representatives from Belarus, considering the sanctions it has imposed on President Lukashenka and his regime. This is yet another illustration of the challenge faced by the EU to balance its geopolitical interests with its values of democratisation and good governance. It is also difficult to see how Armenia and Azerbaijan will participate in the same multilateral format with the EU despite the bitterly fought war of autumn 2020, which raises the question of the added value of the multilateral track in light of the increasingly different situations of the six EaP countries. And finally, even before the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh flared up, concerns were mounting that the security dimension of the EaP is sorely underdeveloped. The EU has been insufficiently able to respond to the challenges of hybrid threats, protracted conflicts and unreformed security sectors, but several EU member states are reluctant to include these sensitive issues in the EaP itself.

After a discussion of these dilemmas, the report will put forward certain recommendations on how the Netherlands could help shape the EaP in a way that supports its own strategy towards Eastern Europe. Finally, the annexes comprise three contributions from external authors, who have each analysed in-depth one of the dilemmas.