The Eastern Partnership: From idea to realization
The article analyzes the Eastern Partnership - an eastern dimension of the European Neighborhood Policy. The analysis is carried out on the basis of the official state documents and expert assessments. The Eastern Partnership is more socio-economic rather than political cooperation. The EU Member States and six Eastern European Partners - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine - are involved in this initiative. Main objectives of the Eastern Partnership are to bring together and to deepen cooperation of Eastern European and South Caucasus states with the European Union, to create conditions for political association and further economic integration both between the EU and the Eastern Partnership states, and between the Eastern Partnership states themselves. The work is held according to the formula «28 plus 6», the supreme body is the meeting of heads of state and government (summits), which are held every two years. The first summit was held in Prague in May 2009, the second in September 2011 in Warsaw, the third in November 2013 in Vilnius. The founding document was adopted at the first summit, it was a «Joint Declaration of the Prague Eastern Partnership Summit». The Declaration marked the four priority areas of cooperation, on which work is still being done. From 2014 to 2020, the European Neighborhood Instrument (ENI) is a key financial instrument for cooperation within the Eastern Partnership. Between 2014 and 2017, partner countries benefited from EU funds the sum of 2.8 billion euros. To ensure the implementation of the priorities of the Eastern Partnership policy new comprehensive multi-year assistance frameworks for the period 2017/2018-2020 have been developed. The task of the research is to analyze the dynamics of the development of this cooperation, starting from the moment the idea was conceived, following its realization and up to the present time, analyzing official documents, expert assessments, media data. The main research methods are content analysis, induction and forecasting.