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Abstract:
This article aims to analyze the limits and the opportunities encountered in the implementation of the EU Non-Recognition and Engagement Policy with Abkhazia and South Ossetia (NREP), launched in December 2009. Part of the EaP toolkit to strengthen EU's relations with its new Eastern Neighborhood, the NREP contributed to numerous legislative and discursive changes towards Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the Georgian politics. However, because the NREP was almost merged with the legislation and approach of Georgia towards its two breakaway republics, Sukhum/i and Tskhinvali mistrusted any engagement actions coming from Brussels and Tbilisi. Their reactions following the adoption of the visa waiver for Georgia are an indication of the depth casted between belligerents that the NREP could not fill in. Therefore, we advocate that a clearer and much more coherent EU agenda towards its Eastern defacto states is very much needed in order to decrease the level of humanitarian isolation that affects the people living in such areas and to increase the EU leverage on conflict transformation and resolution in the EaP framework.
Keywords: Engagement without recognition, de facto states, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, European Eastern Partnership
Amongst the six members of the European Eastern Partnership (EaP) launched in May 2009 at the Prague Summit, five of them are now involved in frozen conflicts, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and more recently, Ukraine.1
Taking into account the level of insecurity in the EaP countries that fear or fuel2 new outbursts of violence in their "occupied territories"/ de facto states, the EaP umbrella policy should have been an opportunity for the EU to engage with patron and parent states on the one hand and defacto entities on the other one. However, since the EaP has been launched in a "shared neighborhood" with Russia, the process has inherently become extremely political. Russia perceived it as an intrusive competitor in its near abroad (dzucKHee oapyooKbc) and, from the very beginning, contributed to the division of the EaP members in two groups. While Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine tried to align with the new EU policies and fulfil the commitments towards a deeper partnership with the EU, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus have made little progress in engaging with Brussels. While the European Commission and the European External Action...