Two years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the InvigoratEU project was officially launched with the kick-off conference. On this occasion, the InvigoratEU consortium of 18 members from all over Europe met for the first time in Tbilisi.
In Georgia`s capital, the project members explored the interplay between geopolitics, domestic reform, modernization efforts and EU enlargement policy. The exchange on the European future of the country was advanced between civil society actors, Georgian and European politicians, as well as the academic and expert community.
Public Panel Discussion
During the conference’s public sessions, the need to and modalities how to reform the European Neighborhood and Enlargement Policy in order to make Europe more resilient, respond to the challenges of the 21st century and provide the candidate countries with the best possible and realistic support in implementing the European reform agenda were discussed. One approach is the so-called 'differentiated integration', in which candidate countries would gradually gain access to institutional rights and selected policy areas of the Union, linked to their respective reform progress. This would guarantee ontological security and maintain the incentive for implementing reforms towards full membership. At the same time, it was pointed out that the enlargement process would have to focus more on security and geopolitics, for example by expanding the EU conditionality framework to include security sector reforms and cyber resilience.
The panelists provided Georgian, Ukrainian and EU perspectives, as well as a selection of key topics from the InvigoratEU project, such as critical infrastructure, geopolitical influence, security, defense and capacity-building.
The trip to Georgia ended with a public reception hosted by the Georgian President, Salome Zurabishvili. A cultural program was also organized by the Georgian InvigoratEU consortium partners PMC Research Center.
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