Workshop: Connectivity in EU’s Wider Eastern Neighbourhood

29  November 2018    9:30 am CET

Eastern Partnership External Relations

In cooperation with:
 

Venue

Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Otto-Wagner-Platz 3, 1090 Vienna

Description

Better connectivity is a key concept and goal of the EU's Eastern Partnership (EaP). The Eastern Partnership initiative comprises six countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The latter three EaP countries have concluded Association Agreements with the EU which include Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (AA/DCFTA). The other two EaP countries, Armenia and Belarus, together with Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, are members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Both the EU, EaP and EAEU countries are involved in the One Road, One Belt (OBOR) Chinese investment and integration initiative in the Wider Eurasia.

Some EaP countries are internally split and need to find a balanced, sustainable and mutually compatible integration solutions. They want to achieve a stable security environment and an improved economic connectivity that would foster institutional, economic and humen development, maintaining investment and trading links with both with the EU and the EAEU.

This international workshop will explore selected aspects of connectivity and ways how to improve the economic cooperation in the Wider Europe in the context of challenging political and economic relations between the EU, EAEU and other EaP countries.

Agenda

10.00 Welcome and Opening

Thomas M. Buchsbaum, Special Envoy on Eastern Partnership, Austrian Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs
Victor Bojkov, Advisor to the Director, Directorate Neighbourhood East, DG Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, Brussels
Hannes Swoboda, President, Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw)

10.30 Panel I: The development of the EAEU and the EU, and effective multilateralism

The panel will compare the very different stages of institutional and integrational developments of the EAEU and the EU as well as the respective goals and prospects of the two integrations.

Panelists: Dirk Schübel (European External Action Service, Brussels) - Andreas Stadler (Austrian diplomat and political scientist, Vienna) - Andrea Hofer (Austrian Central Bank) - Ekaterina Dyachenko (Court of the Eurasian Economic Union) - Representatives of EAEU (tbc) - Alexandra Dienes (FES ROCPE)

13.00 Panel II: Macro-economic aspects and effects of EU-EAEU cooperation and potential integration

The panel will discuss potential effects of integration, focusing on economic growth, trade and foreign direct investments.

Panelists: Nathaniel Young (EBRD) - Diana Galoyan (Armenian State University of Economics) - Viachaslau Yarashevich (International University “MITSO”) - Amat Adarov (wiiw) - Peter Havlik (wiiw)

15.30 Panel III: Sectoral connectivity, including infrastructure, energy and labor markets issues

The panel will deal with the priority areas transport infrastructure, energy and mobility, as well as issues related to labour market developments.

Panelists: Igor Burakovsky (Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting, Kyiv) - Yuri Shcherbanin (Russian Academy of Sciences) - Hermine Vidovic (wiiw)  - Michael Landesmann (wiiw)

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