This year we are celebrating the tenth anniversary of the launch of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership (EaP), whose Poland was one of the co-founders. On that that occasion on January 23, 2019, OSW held a seminar „Ten Years of the Eastern Partnership: maximising the EaP’s effectiveness” aimed at critical assessment of the functioning of the Eastern Partnership policy so far and proposing possible new ideas to reinvigorate the initiative. The seminar gathered distinguished speakers (including official representatives responsible for Eastern Partnerships in French, German and Polish MFAs, representatives of Polish and German think tanks). The event attracted many Polish and foreign guests (ambassadors of Estonia, Georgia and Armenia, senior diplomats, representatives of think-tank community). In general, participants concluded that EaP, although being assessed as successful regional policy, needs more in-depth reflection on its further functioning, including priorities and mechanism of implementation. Regional cooperation and currently operational mechanism like association agreements are crucial for the EaP continuation, but clearer reflection is also needed as to what could be the future EaP to meet both the expectations of the EU MS and partner countries. Among discussed ideas were: focus on the sectoral cooperation, new mechanism to boost transformation of EaP countries, dilemmas related to the political versus technical vision of the EaP development, further operationalisation of “more for more” principle, enhancing visibility and others.
