The inaugural Round Table of the Jean Monnet Chair took place on 17 January 2014 with a debate on the Eastern Partnership after the Vilnius Summit – The European Union and Eastern Europe in 2014 – What Next?

The past year has seen relations between the EU and its Eastern Neighbours evolve in diverse ways. Whilst the Eastern Partnership Vilnius Summit in 2013 demonstrated that significant progress had been achieved across a number of important spheres, such as trade and visas, especially with such countries as Moldova and Georgia, these advances were to a large degree overshadowed by negative shifts in EU-Ukraine relations. Meanwhile, Russia’s Eurasian Union project is growing in significance and is proving to be too attractive for some Eastern European countries to simply ignore. What will 2014 bring? What is the forecast for Ukraine? Can we anticipate that the positive trend in EU-Georgia and EU-Moldova relations will continue? What about Belarus, should the EU recalibrate its policies towards Europe’s ‘last dictatorship’? Finally, is the EU fit for the job and what priorities should Brussels and the EU member states be pursuing in Eastern Europe, a region which seems to be ever more competitive and differentiated.

Speakers:
His Excellency Eerik Marmei (Ambassador of Estonia to Poland)
Lali Lomsadze (Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of Georgia)
Kerry Longhurst (Jean Monnet Chair, Collegium Civitas)
Anais Marin (The Finnish Institution of International Affairs)
Ievgen Vorobiov (Polish Institute of International Affairs)