The region east of the European Union, extending from Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova to the Caucasus Republics, has recently met with renewed international attention. The Rose and Orange Revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine and continued struggles with democratic reform across the region, the EU's dependency on the region for oil and gas transits, a stronger and self-assured Russia, several frozen conflicts and not least Russian-Georgian war of August 2008 have sparked debates in Europe, and in Germany in particular, on how to deal with this neighborhood's diverse challenges.

According to Nicu Popescu of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the EU has not to date found an appropriate and effective policy toward its Eastern neighborhood, despite several attempts including the recent European Neighborhood Policy and the current Eastern Partnership initiative. Popescu attributes this failure to two main reasons. Firstly, the EU has been locked into a "psychology of being the only game in town" that has resulted in various "enlargement light" offers none of which, however, lived up to the expectations of its Eastern neighbors. Secondly, there is a tension between the EU's need to co-operate with Russia, and Russia's own neighborhood policy that undermines EU efforts in the region.

In the Eastern neighborhood countries, this leads to a widespread confusion as to what the EU wants, maintains Leila Alieva of the Center for National and International Studies in Azerbaijan. Many see the EU focused largely on securing much-needed energy supplies from and through the Eastern neighborhood, ready to sacrifice democratic reform and support for civil society, and even willing to engage with authoritarian regimes in the region. No less importantly, the EU seriously underestimates the security concerns many of the Eastern neighborhood countries have themselves vis-à-vis Russia.

These complexities, and the frequent disappointments the EU has faced in its Eastern neighborhood, contributed to the bloc turning introvert and refraining from being a more serious player in the region, observes George Tarkhan-Mouravi of the Institute for Policy Studies in Georgia. Absent a clear European willingness and policy to engage in the region, an extremely unpredictable situation has arisen that leaves all sides, the neighborhood countries but no less the EU itself, worse off. The Russia-Georgia war or the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute the latest indications as to how volatile the atmosphere remains to the east of the EU.

Following the introductory remarks by Popescu, Alieva and Tarkhan-Mouravi, the discussion further expanded on these and other issues pertaining to the region, raising as it were more questions than answers. With regard to the EU, the Eastern Partnership is a promising new step but it remains to be seen if it will be more effective in addressing the East's triangle of problems, i.e. democracy, security, and energy. Within EU policy, the membership prospect often demanded by Eastern neighbors is neither likely any time soon, nor will it easily translate into sustained democratic reform, an area where Eastern neighbors have to ask themselves if they have done their utmost.

No less intriguing is the position of Russia vis-à-vis its "near abroad". It may remain debatable whether or not Russia has a clear policy toward its neighborhood, or whether it responds ad-hoc to developments in the region and globally. However, there should be little doubt that it is the countries in between the West and Russia that will first feel the effects of a worsening relationship between their larger neighboors. Not least for this reason should it be imperative, according to the discussants at the workshop, that any Eastern policy is European and transatlantic in nature, and that it includes clear provisions for the West's relationship with Russia.