ABSTRACT
Over the past two decades, the EU has signifi cantly stepped up its presence and infl uence in the post-Soviet space. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the European Community was a newcomer in the region. It had only recently established offi cial links with the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) after thirty years of mutual ignorance, it had signed an economic co-operation agreement with the Soviet Union two years before its demise, and it had just set up a technical assistance programme to support economic transformations in the country. In contrast, the EU is now perceived as an infl uential actor, especially in those areas of the former Soviet Union with which it shares a common border, namely Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus. This is despite the fact that the EU’s infl uence in its eastern neighbourhood has not grown steadily; it has encountered strong limitations, as abundantly illustrated in recent years and acknowledged by the EU in its 2015 ENP review (High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/European Commission 2015).
