08 Apr V/I Budapest Breakfast Event of Eastern European Futures
On Tuesday, 7 April, Visegrad Insight together with CEID hosted the Budapest event of the ‘Scenarios for Eastern Partnership 2030’ and the Easter European Futures series.
In 2009, the European Union and six of its Eastern neighbours launched the Eastern Partnership (EaP) with the stated aims of “building a common area of shared democracy, prosperity, stability and increased cooperation.” As the Eastern Partnership has entered its second decade, challenging questions remain and arise as to the future of Eastern Europe. For this reason, the EU and its partners have undertaken a comprehensive review of this policy framework, with revisions to be announced at an EU-EaP summit later this year.
For the period until 2030, the Eastern European Futures report identifies four possible scenarios that variously evolve around further integration between Eastern Europe and the EU, a return of Russia as a hegemon, an EU-Russian grand bargain and a civic momentum propelling Eastern European developments. The report alsohopes to account for the considerable diversity among the countries of Eastern Europe, one of the principal challenges not least for the Eastern Partnership and the EU. The Eastern European Futures was jointly developed by Visegrad Insight, the German Marshall Fund (GMF) of the United States and through workshops and collaboration with over thirty extraordinary minds – analysts, journalists, policymakers, civic activists, digital community and business leaders – from the six countries of the Eastern Partnership. The report can be downloaded for free after registration on Visegrad Insight’s website.
At the Budapest online Zoom meeting, Wojciech Prybylski, Ediotor-in-Chief of Visegrad Insight and Anton Bendarzsevszkij, journalist at Magyar Nemzet, along with Richard Giragosian from the GMF discussed the findings of the report with the moderation of Daniel Bartha, director of CEID. Naturally, one of the most talked about topics was the COVID-19 pandemic and what its implications might be throughout the Eastern Partnership region politically, economically and socially, while also presenting the four possible different scenarios that might be in store for the partnership and the region. The whole meeting was recorded and the footage will be published here as soon as it is available.
