Institut für Europäische Politik IEP – english version

First workshop of the German-American Dialogue: “Assessing the state of European integration and potential for transatlantic cooperation”

• July 11, 2016

From July 5th to July 6th the first workshop of the German-American Dialogue on the post-Soviet space was held in Berlin, under the title: “Assessing the state of European integration and potential for transat­lantic cooper­ation – the case of Moldova”. A compre­hensive country study on the case of Moldova served as basis for the workshop. More than forty experts and practi­tioners in the field from Germany, the United States, Georgia, Latvia, Romania and Moldova came together to discuss the U.S. and EU policies towards the post-Soviet space.

The conference was devoted to the challenges of trans­for­mation in the countries of the EU’s Eastern Neigh­borhood, specif­i­cally in Moldova, and the EU and U.S. interests, policies and instru­ments towards the region. A central question in the discussion was how real trans­for­mation in the countries of the post-Soviet space could be supported. In this context, the use of condi­tion­ality and increased pressure for reform, as well as the prospect of EU membership and the outcomes of the “more for more” policy were discussed. These delib­er­a­tions were connected to the question of ownership and co-ownership of reform processes and the internal challenges to trans­for­mation through vested interests of national elites. Furthermore, a recurring topic of the discussion was Russia’s role in the region and the conse­quences for the target countries as well as the policies of the EU and the U.S..

The workshop was the first of four workshops in the framework of the German-American Dialogue on the post-Soviet space. The project is realized in cooper­ation with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, with support of the Transat­lantik-Programm of the Federal Republic of Germany funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) through means of the European Recovery Program (ERP). The next workshop in the series will be held in the fall of this year in Washington D.C.