ABSTRACT
EU–WB cooperation in the ECA (Europe and Central Asia) region is different from all the other instances of joint EU–WB action: there the Bank very frequently operates within the EU or in the EU immediate neighborhood. 1 With the exception of Russia and the five Central Asian partners, reference has been made to the existence of a ‘triangular relationship’, encompassing the partner country, the Bank and the Union (World Bank ECA 2011, 12). Supporting simultaneous transitions to democracy and market-based systems has confronted the two organizations with exceptional challenges. The balancing of security, energy and development goals in the EU external agenda on the one side, and the restructuring of the WB programs in the new EU MS, 2 on the other, have multiplied the layers of the EU–WB hybrid delegation. Yet they have also created the potential to pool expertise and resources to help accession in candidates and potential candidates, and to support sustainable development throughout the region. Since the end of the Cold War, these challenges have proven to be the catalyzer of what is perhaps the thickest set of EU–WB region-based initiatives to date, including the setup of a joint EU–World Bank office in the aftermath of the Kosovo crisis, active between 1999 and 2008.
