THE EASTERN PARTNERSHIP – SOFT POWER STRATEGY OR POLICY FAILURE?

Kristian Nielsen () and Maili Vilson ()
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Kristian Nielsen: Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Maili Vilson: University of Tartu, Estonia

A chapter in EURINT Proceedings 2013, 2013, vol. 1, pp 411-425 from Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University

Abstract: When the EU launched the Eastern Partnership (EaP) in May 2009, it did so with much rhetoric about projecting its soft power into Eastern Europe. Yet today, the EU's soft power project seems to have stalled, with developments in the region being less than favourable. By being another bureaucratic process, the EaP essentially replicated the main weakness of the ENP, of offering too little incentive and support to the partners. In such circumstances conditionality was a much less effective tool for milieu shaping, while the soft power appeal was equally reduced. In promoting the EaP as a policy of soft power, the EU has once again forgotten that soft power can never be separated from the 'harder' policies that would meet the expectations of those wishing to align with it. This failure of policy continues to undermine whatever gains could have been hoped for from the EU's actually considerable reservoir of soft power.

Keywords: Eastern Partnership; soft power; European Union (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jes:euri13:411-425

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