Putin’s war against Ukraine catalyzes deeper integration between the region and the EU, suggests the new edition of the Eastern Partnership Index 2023, EU NEIGBOURGEAST reports.
The Eastern Partnership Index, developed by the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (EaP CSF), says civil society remains a force to be reckoned with across the EaP region, despite increasing challenges in Belarus and Azerbaijan, and plays an integral role in the EU enlargement process in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. It also says Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has catalyzed deeper integration between some EaP countries and the EU in transport, energy, and trade.
The EaP Index evaluates the progress made by the six EaP countries under three dimensions: democracy, good governance, and the rule of law; policy convergence with the EU, and sustainable development goals.
The EAP Index goes beyond simply collecting and measuring data. It takes into account different forms of change (reform progress, advancement, retreat from democracy, policy deviations), as well as stagnation and lack of change. It integrates cross-cutting issues across its evaluation, with a keen focus on gender equality and human rights.
Moldova and Ukraine secured the top two places in the 2023 EaP Index, which acknowledges their achievements in meeting EU reform goals and accelerating their alignment with the EU despite very difficult circumstances. The 2023 EaP Index indicates that the two EU candidate countries are steadily making the kinds of systemic changes that Brussels expects them to do to proceed along the accession path.
Moldova’s top spot is attributed to its impressive performance on election-related reforms, political pluralism, the fight against corruption and equal opportunities.
Ukraine’s score was dampened by the war and the limitations on public life imposed by Martial Law since 22 February 2022. At the same time, the war has not eroded Ukraine’s will to reform, says the Index.
However, the EaP Index also says that approximation with the EU is a dynamic process and can easily regress when domestic or external circumstances change or simply if reform fatigue sets in. “Accordingly, Moldova and Ukraine’s rising level of approximation is ‘work in progress’ and crucially, many recent reforms especially to do with elections, anti-corruption and constitutional reforms have yet to be fully road-tested,” says the Index.
Unlike Moldova and Ukraine, the study also attests to a number of problems, including serious ones, in the other Eastern Partnership countries – Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, IPN reports.
