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.
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