Economic cooperation in the Eastern Partnership: round table and conference in Minsk

The Eastern Partnership countries (Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan) are very diverse in terms of political and social situation. Having common goals in the EaP initiative of the European Union they mostly focus on cooperation with European institutions, instead of working more on the building deeper dialogue among themselves and building common strategy in frames of EaP.

To enable better understanding of the processes that are taking place in each country mentioned above, Regional Office „Dialogue Eastern Europe“ and partners has launched the EaP Think Bridge Digest with a monthly overviews on the situation in EaP countries. Additionally, a series of conferences and round tables on the relevant to the country topics were started.

On November, 27-28^th in Minsk these three events in frames of the above mentioned initiative took place:

• Round Table: “Twists and turns of economic cooperation in the Eastern Partnership region: partners, competitors or bystanders”
• A Meeting “Eastern Partnership after the Brussels Summit: How is the policy shifting?”
• Conference “Eastern Partnership Policy: between reality and perfection”

During the two days of the intensive discussions on the topic of Economic cooperation in the Eastern Partnership contributors to The Think Bridge digest and the partners of the Regional Office „Dialogue Eastern Europe“ have deliberated and provided answers to such questions as: How interconnected are the integration processes in EU and European Economic Community? How can bilateral trade relations become a stimulus for the development in the Eastern Partnership? Can any third party (e.g. China) influence cooperation in the Eastern Partnership?

Meetings with experts from all Eastern Partnership countries with diplomats, professionals, civil activists and with student from Belarusian State University gave an opportunity to exchange knowledge on the current economic situation in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Moldova, as well as to receive deeper insight on the role of Belarus in the Eastern Partnership.

Except for the above mentioned questions, important part of the discussion was devoted to the recent Eastern Partnership Summit that took place in Brussels on November, 24th.

The meetings in Minsk on November, 27-28 became third edition in the range of The Think Bridge digest. The previous conferences on the topics of “Eastern Europe and South Caucasus facing a new security environment” and “Think Bridge conference: "Bridging the divide: forging cooperation and fostering collaboration” took place in Chisinau, Moldova and in Yerevan, Armenia.

Partners of the event: Foreign Policy Council "Ukrainian Prism", Center for Strategic and Foreign Policy Studies (Belarus), Regional Cooperation Center (Armenia), Foundation "European Initiative, Liberal Academy Tbilisi” (Georgia), Foreign Policy Association (APE) (Moldova), Center for Economic and social development (Azerbaijan).