The year 2016 has been important for the development of the European Union’s external relations with the development of the European Global Strategy and the Defense Action Plan along with increasing calls from several Eastern partners suggesting that the EU as such should be more engaged with the security situation in the Eastern neighborhood.The conference is structured in two panels. The first discussed how the EU’s relations with Eastern Europe and the Southern Caucasus fits into the rethought external relations framework of the European Global Strategy. The second panel assesses the realities of the increasing practical prominence of security related cooperation in the EU’s Eastern neighborhood, e.g. through the CSDP, potential missions, further involvement of the EEAS and individual member states in conflict resolution.The panels bring together policy stakeholders and analysts from the EU and Eastern Partnership countries to facilitate debate and exchange of views.
9.00 – 9.30 Registration
9.30 – 9.40 Welcome
9.40 – 10.00 Keynote Speech
Alfredo Conte, Head of Division – Strategic Planning, European External Action Service, Brussel
10.00 - 11.45 Panel I – Resilience and Beyond: What challenges for EU’s Eastern Neighbors?
Chair: Andrey Devyatkov, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Economics at the Russian Academy of Sciences and Foreign Policy and Security Expert, Center for Strategic Analysis, Moscow, Russia
Speakers
Elena Korosteleva, Professor, Global Europe Centre, University of Kent, United Kingdom
Flemming Splidsboel Hansen, Research Coordinator, Senior Researcher, Danish Institute for International Studies
Hrant Kostanyan, Researcher, Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels
Alexander McLachlan, Senior Advisor, Strategic Planning Division, European External Action Service, Brussels
11.45 – 12.15 Coffee break
12.15 – 14.00 Panel II – The Current State of European Defence and the Place of the Eastern Partnership
Chair: Maryna Vorotnyuk, Expert of theForeign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism”, Ukraine and Visiting Fellow at the Center for European Neighborhood Studies, CEU, Budapest
Speakers
Emmet Tuohy, Senior Research Fellow, Estonian Center for Eastern Partnership, Estonia
Matthew Rhodes, Professor of National Security Studies, George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany
David Galbreath, Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences, University of Bath, UK
Kakha Gogolashvili, Senior Fellow and Director of EU Studies Center, Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, Tbilisi, Georgia
Please register with Ms Annamária Kiss at kissa@ceu.edu