Conferences and Workshops

   

Policy Seminar – “European Neighborhood Policy and Eastern Partnership: forging the European future for Caucasus”

On July 30-31, 2009 the Policy Seminar – “European Neighborhood Policy and Eastern Partnership: forging the European future for Caucasus took place at Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies. David Darchiashvili, Chairman of the European Integration Committee of the Georgian Parliament and Robert Liddell, Chargé d’Affairs of the Delegation of the European Commission and around 20 participants - representatives of Georgian governmental institutions, civil society, experts community including from Armenia and Azerbaijan attended the event.

The first panel of the seminar – “European Neighborhood Policy: Second year of Implementation of Action Plans - Progress, Seatbacks and Lessons” - chaired by Kakha Gogolashvili) was dedicated to the current state of affairs regarding implementation of European Neighborhood Policy Action Plans by three South Caucasus countries. Presenters in their speeches tried to find answers to the following issues: ambitions of South Caucasus states on the way of rapid rapprochement with the Union; what kind of obstacles and other factors make impossible such task to be fully accomplished. The goal of the first panel was to clarify and put light on the mentioned questions. Ketevan Vashakidze (Eurasia Foundation, Georgia) and Misha Mirziashvili (Crisis Management Initiative, Brussels) have provided their comments on presentations.

During the Second Panel (chaired by Badri Kochoradze, Institute for European Studies, Georgia) - Eastern Partnership: enforcing the Europeanization of East Europe; bilateral and multilateral dimensions of rapprochement the issues of cooperation on bilateral and multilateral levels in the scope of the EU initiated policy were discussed. Mentioned policy is meant to strengthen and deepen the relations between the EU and its Eastern ENP - neighbors.  Presenters - Klaudijus Maniokas, (Georgian – European Policy and Legal Advice Center, Lithuania), and Vasili Chkoidze, (Centre for European Integration Studies, Georgia), exposed their considerations on the mechanisms and ways how the Eastern Partnership would stimulate development of the legal and institutional basis for cooperation of South Caucasian states with EU and stimulate implementation of the cooperation projects in concrete fields.

The sessions were followed by open and active discussions.