The event took place within the framework of the Belarusian Presidency of the CEI, on the run-up to the CEI Summit of Minsk planned on 12 December 2017, and against the backdrop of the Eastern Partnership Summit of 27 November 2017. The Belarus office of Konrad Adenauer Foundation was one of the supporters of the event.

The Forum was devoted to the following topics:

I.Differentiation inside, differentiation outside and regional cooperation: The practice of connecting the EU, its Member States and the Eastern Partners

During the first roundtable session, participants discussed how common and principled can the EaP prove to be as an external policy of the EU, given substantial differences in EU member states’ approaches and how can connectivity be used, beyond infrastructure development, as a pragmatic vehicle of cooperation.

II.Internal challenges, external challenges and regional cooperation: how to enhance resilience in EaP countries?

During this session, experts dealt with the question how can the EaP framework further encourage regional cooperation among EaP countries as a means to increase political, socio-economic and societal resilience and what tools can be used to strengthen the exchange of best practices. Participants explored the EaP possibilities to contribute to strengthening its partners’ economic stability, given the adaptational costs incurred by access to the EU markets. Also speakers shared their insights on the lessons which EaP countries can learn from their respective experiences with the EU.

III.Compatibility across and beyond the Eastern Partnership: advancing pan-European integration through regional cooperation

The third roundtable session covered the following questions: How should the EU address these challenges in its bilateral relations with EaP countries? How to make regional integration schemes more compatible with each other, while not losing sight of EaP countries’ sovereign choices? How to engage with EaP individual countries in co-shaping opportunity structures that do not lead to lose-lose situations and increased instability?

IV. From the EaP countries to the Western Balkans: regional cooperation across EU neighbourhoods

The last discussion centered on what lessons can the EU and EaP countries learn from the EU’s long-standing engagement in the Western Balkans and its Berlin Process experience and how can bridges between Western Balkans and ENP area studies be build.

Dr Wolfgang Sender, Director of Country Office Belarus of Konrad Adenauer Foundation, held a keynote speech on the recent developments in Belarus, on security dialogue and regional cooperation in and with the Eastern Partnership region.

Event was organised and coordinated by

• Austro-French Centre for Rapprochement in Europe (CFA), Vienna

• Minsk Dialogue Track II Initiative (MD), Minsk

• Centre international de formation européenne (CIFE), Nice/Berlin

• French Institute for International Relations (Ifri), Paris/Brussels

• German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), Berlin

• Estonian Center of Eastern Partnership (ECEAP), Tallinn

• Austrian Institute for International Politics (Oiip), Vienna

• Istituto affari internazionali (IAI), Rome

• Slovak Foreign Policy Association (SFPA), Bratislava

• European Institute for Peace (EIP), Brussels

• Central European Initiative (CEI), Trieste

• Programme MOST of the Delegation of the European Union to Belarus, Minsk

• Belarusian Chairmanship of the Central European Initiative, Minsk

• Estonian Presidency of the Council of the European Union

• Foreign Ministries of Austria, France, Germany

• Delegation of the European Union to Belarus, Minsk

• Embassies of Austria, Estonia, France, Switzerland & the United Kingdom to Belarus

• Belarus Office of the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation, Vilnius