The EU’s Eastern Partnership as International Governance: What Is the Role of the Civil Society?

Abstract

This article analyzes the civil society dimension and pays particular attention to the role of civil society’s organizations within the EU’s Eastern Partnership’s governance and networking processes. The study is based on the EU’s documents’ analysis and the data of qualitative interviews conducted between 2011-2014 from the respondents of the EU’s institutions (European Commission, EEAS, EP), member states’ representations in Brussels, and the members of the Eastern Partnership civil society forum created in 2009. The study shows that the representatives of civil society organizations are seeking to be involved and are existent in most of the stages and interactional modes of the EU’s relations with the Eastern Partnership countries, and this process predicts the conditions for the emergence of international governance in the Eastern neighbourhood space. On the other hand, the representatives of CSOs are complaining about not being involved enough in the negotiations deciding over the Association or other kind of agreements between the EU and their (EaP) country.