RESEARCH

“EU actorness through analytical lens (authority, presence, capability)” Background: Strengthening regional security and bringing about stability across the European continent have been key goals of the European integration project since its very inception. They have also been the main triggers for externalizing and spreading European values, norms and principles in the EU’s near abroad. In post-Soviet Eastern Europe, for the first time since the end of the Cold War the integration strategy based on enlargement has been replaced by a less rewarding one, the European neighbourhood project. Despite carrying lesser transformative impact than enlargement (i.e. the full-fledged EU membership promise is missing), the diffusion of the Western liberal values and norms in the post-Soviet area has held similar goal: broadening the European community of values. However, the current challenges facing the post-Soviet Europe, spearheaded by the Ukrainian debacle, have shown the limits of the community approach. Research focus: Having the aforementioned backdrop, we believe the EU’s ‘transformative power’ is being seriously questioned and tested, particularly at the time being when the EaP region seems torn between two poles of gravity - the Euro-Atlantic community, on the one side, and Russia, on the other. The research activities planned during the EaPpeal’s lifespan will be undertaken alongside with the envisaged events and the deliverables. Likewise, the research will focus on the ‘EU actorness’ in the EaP region and on the EU’s ‘transformative power’.  Our research goals during the EaPpeal will be a natural follow-up to our previous research activities launched so far within CSE-UAIC: Jean Monnet Centre for Excellence for European Studies (2009-2012), “Cross-border educational exchanges for the diminishing of the border effects at the eastern frontier of the EU” (CEDES 2011-2012), Jean Monnet Information and Research Activity “The EU as regional player. Cooperation and integration in Eastern neighbourhood” (EURINT 2012-2013), Ad personam Jean Monnet Chair "EU sustainable development, regional cohesion and European policies/EuReP” (EUReP, 2013-2016). The research activities will be undertaken according to the following plan: 1. First phase (September - December 2015): we will have further opportunities to engage with officials, policy-makers and other experts from the EaP countries during our roundtables in Ukraine and Moldova. Premised on these preliminary discussions, we will work on the book proposal which will be based on the most novel theoretical and empirical findings from the region and which will include a selection of the papers from the May EURINT 2016 conference. 2. Second phase (January-April 2016): whereas the first part of this phase will be dedicated to a thorough selection of the papers submitted for the EURINT 2016 - based on our research topic, in the second part the international conference will be an excellent opportunity for debating new information and research methods. 3. Final stage (May-August 2016) will be concerned with the dissemination and exploitation of our research results meant to ensure an international visibility for our research. Papers will benefit from publication in our own journals (see below) and the envisaged book will be launched. Provided that the feedback on our research results is encouraging, we will consider designing another project which will exclusively focus on the research results from EaPpeal.