Conferences/Workshops
Seminar at GFSIS 31 July 2009
Policy Seminar - ENP and Eastern Partnership: forging the European future for Caucasus
On 30-31 July 2009 at Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (Jean Monnet Project) the Policy Seminar on ENP and Eastern Partnership: forging the European future for Caucasus took place. David Darchiashvili, Chairman, European Integration Committee of the Georgian Parliament and Robert Liddell, Chargé d’Affairs of the Delegation of the European Commission and around 20 participants - representatives of Georgian governmental institutions, civil society, experts community including from Armenia and Azerbaijan attended the event.
The first panel of the seminar - ENP: Second year of Implementation of Action Plans - progress, seatbacks and lessons(chaired by Kakha Gogolashvili) was dedicated to the current state of affairs regarding implementation of ENP Action Plans by three South Caucasus countries. Presenters (Archil Karaulashvili, State Minister's Office for European and Euro- Atlantic Integration, Georgia - Georgia progress on ENP AP Implementation;, Manana Kochladze, Green Alternative, Georgia - NGO community assessment; Tevan Poghosyan, Executive Director of International Center for Human Development (ICHD) Armenia - Armenia progress on ENP AP Implementation and Tabib Huseynov - ICG Azerbaijan - Azerbaijani progress on ENP AP Implementation) in their speeches tried to find answers to the following issues : ambitions of South Caucasus states on the way of rapid rapprochement with the Union; what kind of obstacles and other factors make impossible such task to be fully accomplished. The goal of the first panel was to clarify and put light on the mentioned questions. Ketevan Vashakidze (Eurasia Foundation, Georgia) and Misha Mirziashvili (Crisis Management Initiative, Brussels) have provided their comments on presentations.
During the Second Panel (chaired by Badri Kochoradze, Institute for European Studies, Georgia) - Eastern Partnership: enforcing the Europeanization of East Europe; bilateral and multilateral dimensions of rapprochement the issues of cooperation on bilateral and multilateral levels in the scope of the EU initiated policy were discussed. Mentioned policy is meant to strengthen and deepen the relations between the EU and its Eastern ENP - neighbours. Presenters - Klaudijus Maniokas, (GEPLAC, Lithuania), and Vasili Chkoidze, (Centre for European Integration Studies, Georgia), exposed their considerations on the mechanisms and ways how the Eastern Partnership would stimulate development of the legal and institutional basis for cooperation of South Caucasian states with EU and stimulate implementation of the cooperation projects in concrete fields.
The sessions were followed by open and active discussions.
