VALERY KARBALEVICH

Europe concluded that its previous tactics (democratization demand, sanctions toward Belarus’ authorities, support for the opposition) were inefficient. Poland and Lithuania urged the EU to change its policy towards Minsk. Germany is also interested in development of economic relations with Belarus.

YEVHEN KOPATKO, GRIGORY PEREPELITSA, ANDREY BLINOV

"I believe that Russia has done everything in its power to block Ukraine’s admission to NATO. Moscow regards Ukraine's non-accession to the NATO membership Action Plan as its victory", Grigory Perepelitsa.

SVYATOSLAV POLKHOV

Russia’s attempt to make the parties sign the “Kozak memorandum” again was strongly opposed by the West. Asif Chaudhry, the U.S. ambassador to Moldova, stated on 24 November that it made no sense to return to that document.

ALEXANDER BORISENKO

GEORGETA POURCHOT

Eurasian Home website with a kind permission of the Greenwood Publishing Group Inc., publishes the first chapter "Sovereignity from Within" of the book "Eurasia Rising: Democracy and Independence in the Post-Soviet Space" by the Eurasian Home website contributor Georgeta Pourchot.

FYODOR LUKYANOV

The results of the referendum on the EU Constitution held in France on May 29 testify to the crisis of the European integration. The EU accession countries are the first to face it.

VADIM KARASYOV

The negative results of the referendum on the European Constitution held in France delay the process of creation of the "United States of Europe" on the basis of EU. It is difficult to create a federate or confederate state without the common constitution.

ALEXEI MAKARKIN

The failure of the European Constitution during referenda in France and the Netherlands put in question the future of the European integration.

There is an eerie feeling in Eastern Europe. The color revolutions have faded like a well worn tie-dyed t-shirt that once looked bright but always lacked a clear design. The revolutionary dream of former Soviet satellite states to join Western Europe was always vague if for no other reason than Western Europe’s own lack of identity and purpose. Now, the dreamers are awakening to a new, uncertain and ominously familiar day.

Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, said on March 6, 2009, that a default couldn’t take place in a euro area country and the assumption that the euro area could break up was “nonsense”. The statement is strange if to take into account that mass media said neither about the euro area break-up nor about the default.

In Transcarpathia, near the Ukrainian village of Delovoe, there are three geodetic signs indicating the geographic center of the European subcontinent. The first sign was put up in 1887 under Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. The second one was set up by the members of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The third one was put up in the first years of Ukraine’s independence after the Soviet Union had collapsed.

According to the generally accepted political logic, the arrest of Radovan Karadzic and his bringing to Hague Tribunal are expected to put an end to the Balkan drama of 1990s. But what’s actually happening seems to be quite the reverse. The Serbian society suffered another indignity as Kosovo had declared independence in February of 2008.

The city of Kyiv is planning to expand its Metropolitan, or system of underground and surface trains, before the year 2012, when Ukraine will host the European football championship together with Poland. What a relief for pedestrians and motorists alike! The estimated cost has been set at 3 billion dollars.

The apparent failure of that unique historical project, the European Union, is bad news. It’s bad news for the West, and its bad news for the former Soviet Union, particularly Ukraine and Georgia, but also Russia. We need to fight for this project, to instil it with energy before it becomes mired in fear and inertia.

Minsk regards the failure of the European Constitution as a breach of the diplomatic blockade. Till recently the Belarusian journalists had to speak about the “color revolutions” in the CIS as “political criminality”. President of Belarus Aliaksandr Lukashenka had proposed that definition.

In the aftermath of the Slovenian Presidency, we have seen some progress and good will of regional leaders in the Balkans to go the European way.

"NATO has always taken Russia into account when considering the modalities of enlargement, the timing of it and the likely consequences of it. But it has never granted Russia a veto over this process or a role to play in it," James Sherr. 

EU must ask itself what it wants in Ukraine, the South Caucasus and the Caspian, and it must ask itself what it will contribute in order to get it.

After eight post-communist nations joined the European Union in May 2004 and several more were identified as prospective members, a new curtain separated their post-USSR neighbors Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus from Europe – this time it was a “paper” one.

The European Union has suspended the ratification of the European Constitution and prolonged the term of its passing to at least a year. The leaders of many European countries have realized that due to the failure of the Constitution the integration process in Europe may come to nothing.

Eurasian Home with a kind permission of The Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies (BISS) publishes a study “What Eastern Partnership should bring to Belarus”, in which BISS analyzes possibilities of the Eastern Partnership initiative and its potential to transform Belarusian political regime.