ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the extent to which the European Union (EU) channels its policies at the regional level and interacts with other regional institutions in the post-Soviet space, as well as the degree to which it acts as a driving force for regional cooperation in this area. The post-Soviet area was not a favourable field for the EU's support of regional cooperation in that disintegration dynamics prevailed in the aftermath of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)'s collapse. The empirical analysis conducted in the post-Soviet area has shown that over the past two decades, the EU has adopted a regional approach or launched regional initiatives when its presence in the area concerned was new or weak. The resulting picture is of not only an international actor advancing through dialectics, proposing solutions based upon its own experience and attempting to project its norms abroad in an inside-out dynamic, but of an actor being shaped by outsiders as well.
