ABSTRACT
The European Union relations with the Eastern Partnership countries are developed in a very specific manner. An unstable political and economic situation in these countries has attracted the EU’s attention mostly because its biggest enlargement to the East in 2004. This chapter will analyse the main types of cooperation between the EU and its eastern neighbourhood through the prism of the main approach used to examine the external policy of this organization, namely its normative power. It is the conceptual foundation for the study of external perception of the EU by Eastern Europe countries. Therefore it is necessary to examine how the EU is viewed in the region at the centre of the EU geopolitical interest – the Eastern Partnership countries. The chapter consists of four parts: firstly, the theoretical discussion of the EU role in the world is provided. Secondly, the main forms of previous and current cooperation between the EU and Eastern Europe neighbours and the assessment of its results are discussed. Thirdly, the author offers the presentation of the EU’s external image and expectations articulated in the region. And finally, it examines the perception of the EU by the Eastern Partnership countries and their society.
