Idiosyncrasies and ideologies in the evolution of EU relations with eastern partnership states

Abstract

The Eastern Partnership as part of the European Neighbourhood Policy aims to include states' economic, cultural, and political cooperation. Over a decade, the ambitious objectives of the European Union's Eastern Partnership policies have brought sizeable benefits. Still, the program is not one of the EU's strategic successes, as its founding fathers claim. This research analyses each state of the Eastern Partnership to determine the evolution of their relations with the European Union. As the presence of idiosyncrasies demonstrates the need for a psychological approach to foreign policy decision-making, through a practical analysis, we have sought to identify discursive patterns that would mark the presence of certain types of idiosyncrasies and investigate their association with the undertaken decisions. At the same time, the findings provide empirical arguments regarding the importance of idiosyncrasies in decision-making and political outcomes between six countries from the Eastern Partnership and EU. It is by no means an exhaustive analysis but rather an attempt to outline some of the key issues which have been on the agenda of the EaP over the past decade.

Keywords

• leadership
• eastern partnership
• idiosyncrasies
• cooperation