The Experts for Security and Global Affairs Association (Romania), and its partners, Promo-LEX Association (Republic of Moldova), European Initiative Liberal Academy Tbilisi (Georgia), and Ukrainian Institute for International Politics (Ukraine), has the honour to announce the launch of the project, “The unresolved conflicts from Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. A common EaP and EU vision for reconciliation and confidence-building across the region”.
Project goal
The project aims at developing best practices and policy advice for reconciliation and confidence-building among countries, communities and civil societies divided by conflicts in the EaP region.
Together with our partners, Promo-LEX (Republic of Moldova), EI LAT (Georgia), UIIP (Ukraine), we aim to make a substantial contribution to the creation and consolidation of a body of experts to objectively analyze conflicts and unresolved territories in the Republic of Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine. Furthermore, representatives of civil society from Armenia and Azerbaijan will participate, as observers, so that the project’s final results will contribute to the expansion of conflict resolution studies.
The platform thus created will bring together an international network of researchers and CSO activists from Eastern Partnership and European Union countries, which will cooperate in addressing topics that will cover various aspects of these conflicts, aiming to develop best practices and policy advice for reconciliation and confidence-building across the region.
Our project aims to analyze the territorial conflicts in the Republic of Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine, highlighting how these affect the whole regional security.
The project partners are aware that the conflicts in Transnistria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia and Eastern Ukraine and the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula have a multidimensional impact on the Eastern Partnership countries and beyond, with social, economic and security issues becoming acute for the full range of actors involved in the conflict and in solving them.
The Russian Federation (as a relevant regional and international actor) has exploited the conflicts as part of Russia’s foreign and security policy to maintain its spheres of influence, with the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia as buffer states in the ideological and political clash between East and West. As the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia have clearly stated their attachment to Euro-Atlantic values, being determined to continue the European path, the EU and NATO must combat any forms of threats that may arise from cooperation with the EaP region.
In this regard, both as an EU and NATO member state, Romania pointed out that the Black Sea Region countries perceive the non-resolution of conflicts in the region as a considerable threat to state security. More than that, the frozen conflicts in the Black Sea area are a severe threat and vulnerability not only for the region but also for the Western cohesion regarding the security issues.
Thus, we aim to focus on constructing theoretical and practical models for removing barriers that stand in the way of dialogue and progress towards the peaceful settlement of disputes. In addition to this, the public and political agendas in the targeted countries are sensible to populist approaches and do not include the findings and recommendations based on experts reviews. So, our project proposes a new method for confidence-building and policy advice for reconciliation among countries, communities and civil societies divided by the conflicts.
Outcomes of the project
The project’s main objective is to develop a methodological toolkit for unresolved conflict from Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, aiming to identify the methods relevant to the investigation of the respective conflicts, which promotes a critical, multi-disciplinary vision on frozen and active conflicts in the Black Sea Region.
In particular, ESGA and its partners aim to ensure a multidimensional advocacy company, aiming at intensifying the dialogue between experts and foreign policy/defence policymakers in the field of conflict resolution.
The project implementation period is December 2021 – September 2022.
“The project benefits from support through the EaP Civil Society Forum Re-granting Scheme (FSTP)to Members and is funded by the European Union as part of its support to civil society in the region. Within its Re-granting Scheme, the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (EaP CSF) supports projects of its members that contribute to achieving the mission and objectives of the Forum.
Grants are available for CSOs from the Eastern Partnership and EU countries. Key areas of support are democracy and human rights, economic integration, environment and energy, contacts between people, social and labour policies.”