From Prague to Warsaw: a Study of Eastern Partnership’s Rhetorics in the Context of EU Membership Perspective from 2009-2011
From Prague to Warsaw: a Study of Eastern Partnership’s Rhetorics in the Context of EU Membership Perspective from 2009-2011

Author(s): Vahur Made
Subject(s): International relations/trade, EU-Approach / EU-Accession / EU-Development
Published by: ECEAP Estonian Center of Eastern Partnership
Keywords: Eastern Partnership;
Summary/Abstract: There is no doubt that the question about the possibility and the perspective of the future EU membership continues to be the key issue for the partner countries of the Eastern Partnership in their relations with the EU. The discussions about wording of the membership perspective in the 2011 Eastern Partnership Warsaw Joint Declaration were intensive. Consequently, the membership perspective was touched upon by many of the heads of states speaking at the EaP Warsaw Summit plenary session - representing both the EU member states as well as the EaP partner countries. This paper argues, firstly, that despite of the often low-profile or even rejective rhetorics the membership perspective is actually rather strongly present in the EU’s thinking and implementation of the Eastern Partnership. In this context giving the EaP partner countries the perspective for the EU membership in the long run is attached to the EU’s wish to purusue normative conditionality in its relations with the EaP ’six’. Subsequently, conditionality is closely linked to the EU’s security concerns. For the EU it is very vital to keep its eastern partners stable and predicitive, not to let them slide into socio-political turmoils.

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