the European Union's neighbourhood? In the spirit of Montesquieu and Monnet, the basic hypothesis of the EU is that closer … prosperity and detente. The EU has a strong motive in this, since conflicts in its neighbourhood spill-over into the EU itself …, strong intraregional trade, and the prospect of accession to the EU. It concludes that the EU's Member States must give …

In a major setback for the EU, only two of four Eastern Partnership countries actually initialed Association Agreements … the EU, the paper shows that the Eastern Partnership countries, including Ukraine, by far the largest in the group, gain … significantly from free trade agreements with the EU, but gain little if anything from free trade agreements with Russia …