The Eastern Partnership under strain – time for a rethink?

The 5th anniversary edition of EURINT will mark an important milestone for our conference series and focus on the latest political, economic and security developments from the Eastern Partnership area and the broader eastern neighbourhood region. The 2016 conference is co-funded by the Erasmus + Programme.

The 2016 EURINT international conference series reaches an important milestone, its 5th edition. In this regard, this anniversary edition aims at drawing some of most relevant scholars, researchers, experts, civil society activists into a constructive exchange of views on the effectiveness of the Eastern Partnership in the light of the events in Ukraine. EURINT 2016 seeks to be one of the most visible and relevant international events in the academic year 2015-2016 dealing with the EaP region.The conceptual framework of EURINT 2016 is centred on the EU ‘actorness’ topic. The ongoing turmoil from Ukraine is seriously testing the EU’s capacity to effectively stand up to these regional challenges. It is perhaps not surprising that in some circles the EU’s approach towards the EaP region is perceived today as being not entirely comprehensive. The EU seems not fully capable of delivering meaningful results which could negatively impact, on the long-run, the EU’s credentials in the region. Concurrently, in post-Soviet Eastern Europe, the EU has still not been able to fully accommodate the large spectrum of expectations stemming from the EaP states, instead vacillating in its discourse between exclusion and inclusion, between limited vs. potential full integration, move which has puzzled many of its observers. Last but not least, the pressing security concerns from the EaP region having the Ukrainian crisis as centrepiece are still unsettled which could damage the EU’s presence in the neighbourhood as an important player for the near future. Hence, we believe time is ripe for a detailed reconsideration of the EU’s neighbourhood instruments (particularly the EaP). In our view, a lack of in-depth inquiry into the factors at play might irreversibly sap the EU’s role in the region. EURINT 2016 ties to fill a visible gap in the current debate and, thus, provide novel answers and raise awareness of the intrinsic and extrinsic challenges the EU faces when conceptualizing its strategy towards the eastern proximity.The conference will be held at the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, Romania, the oldest institution of higher learning in Romania. Iasi, “the city on the seven hills”, “just like Rome”, as an old local poem depicts, it will serve – especially in the month of May – as the perfect background and host for flourishing discussions for the 5th anniversary of EURINT.EURINT 2016 is co-funded by the Erasmus + Programme within the frame of Jean Monnet Project “The Eastern Partnership under strain - time for a rethink?” (EaPpeal). The EaPpeal project aims at assessing the implications of the latest events from the eastern vicinity on the resilience and the viability of the Eastern Partnership. For more details please consider the following link.

EURINT 2016 will be centred on the EU ‘actorness’ topic. The ongoing turmoil from Ukraine is seriously testing the EU’s capacity to effectively stand up to these regional challenges. It is perhaps not surprising that in some circles the EU’s approach towards the EaP region is perceived today as being not entirely comprehensive. The EU seems not fully capable of delivering meaningful results which could negatively impact, on the long-run, the EU’s credentials in the region. Hence, we believe time is ripe for a detailed reconsideration of the EU’s neighbourhood instruments (particularly the EaP).

REGISTRATION
Online registration and submission of abstracts: 29 February 2016. Abstracts should have roughly 500 words and clearly state the research goal(s), research question(s) and the methodological approach. Please fill out the following registration form.
Notification of acceptance or rejection: 7 March 2016. - The decision will be made upon the quality of the abstract (from a theoretical and methodological point of view) and upon the relevance of the abstract to our conference topic.

SUBMISSIONS
Full paper submission: 30 April 2016 (should not exceed 8,000 words). Please send us the complete paper to eurint.conference@gmail.com. Read more about publication

REGISTRATION FEES
Conference fee: 75 EURO per paper. Applicants can only send one paper proposal. The Program will not consider more than one paper proposal from the same applicant.
The fee covers the conference package and meals. Registration is effective after full receipt of payment. The submitter must be (one of) the presenting author(s). All future correspondence will in fact be sent to the submitter.
The final deadline for paying the participation fee is 30 April 2016. Please attach a scanned proof of payment in an e-mail message to: eurint.conference@gmail.com .

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the organising committee at eurint.conference@gmail.com.