ABSTRACT
As shown in Chapter 3 , with the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership, the EU has stepped up its role as a driver for domestic change and a model for reform in post-Soviet countries. However, if anything, the Vilnius Eastern Partnership Summit, which took place in November 2013, blatantly exposed both the diversity of post-Soviet countries’ responses to EU stimuli and the role of Russia as a counteracting power in the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood. While two countries, Azerbaijan and Belarus, remained on the side-lines in terms of negotiating Association Agreements and Deep and Comprehensive Free-Trade Areas, two others, Georgia and Moldova, initialled the AAs in Vilnius. Yet the summit was dominated by the decision of the then-president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, to suspend the signing of the AA; a few weeks after the summit, Yanukovych accepted Russia’s offer of a fi nancial bailout (without accepting membership in the Russia-driven Eurasian Customs Union, though). The Vilnius Summit also raised questions as to how EU-Armenian relations could be taken further, a few weeks after President Sargsyan’s decision to join the ECU despite the completion of negotiations for an AA/DCFTA.
