| The Eastern Partnership Program is a strategic plan launched by the European Union in 2009 to promote security,prosperity and good governance in its eastern border areas,including Georgia,Ukraine,Moldova,Belarus,Azerbaijan and Armenia.The European Union plans to use the Associated Country Agreement to export Western democratic values to the eastern partner countries,and to achieve economic integration through an in-depth and comprehensive free trade area agreement,so as to bring the six eastern countries into the EU’s norms.The plan pointed out that the EU and partner countries have great expectations and enthusiasm,but as the implementation process unfolds,the plan is gradually getting into trouble.Subsequently,the EU upholds the principle of "differentiation" to amend the Eastern Partnership Program,and it is clear that it will "tailor-tail" partnership policies for neighboring countries to enhance the resilience of these countries,but the program is still progressing slowly.With the Ukrainian crisis,the political turmoil in Belarus,and the conflict in the Caucasus,the Eastern Partnership Project has fallen into a greater predicament.The current dilemma facing the Eastern Partnership cannot be explained from the traditional single EU perspective,and it is also difficult to understand only from the series of "accidental" and sudden crisis events that have occurred in the partner countries themselves.The Eastern Partnership Program is essentially a major peripheral security program implemented after the expansion of the EU reaches its limit and the eastern border is fixed.These partner countries are all former Soviet republics,which became the "buffer zone" between Russia and the European Union and NATO after independence.This geopolitical,historical and cultural complexity also determines that the Eastern Partnership Plan involves complex multiple participation.The effectiveness of the strategic plan for the relationship between the subject and the interest fundamentally depends on the multi-party strategic interaction and interest game,as well as the resulting compromises and conflicts between the parties.The current dilemma of the Eastern Partnership can only be reasonably explained in the context of the multiple perspectives of the participating parties,major stakeholders,and EU members and their complex interactions with each other.From the perspective of multiple interactions,the participating entities involved in the Eastern Partnership include the European Union and its major member states,the six Eastern Partners,Russia,and the United States/NATO.The interest considerations,policy practices and interactions of the EU and its partner countries are the core variables.The interaction between Russia and the EU and the six eastern partners are fundamental external factors.The strategic intentions of the United States/NATO and its relationship with Russia and the EU The relationship between the eastern and eastern partner countries also plays an important role of external variables.The EU’s strategic intentions,in addition to governing eastern partner countries and incorporating them into the scope of EU values,norms,and geopolitics,are also trying to meet their own multi-faceted strategic interests through the plan.However,the EU’s internal member states are in the east.The interests in the partnership are not consistent,and its internal differences and crises have also had a great negative impact on the implementation of the Eastern Partnership Program.The eastern partner countries have different national conditions and are quite different from the EU in terms of economics,politics,and social culture.They have the same attitudes and policies towards the plan.In particular,the implementation process of the plan is constantly accompanied by political,social turbulence and internal turbulence in the partner countries.The major international crisis has greatly reduced people’s expectations for the plan.Russia has great worries about the EU’s plan to "cannibalize" its original geopolitical "sphere of influence".The plan itself has also caused the gradual loss of the "buffer zone" between Europe and Russia,and the chance of a direct collision between Europe and Russia.And the intensity is also rising day by day.The development trend of European-Russian relations since the Ukrainian crisis has proved this point.Russia’s strategic response to the initiative of the EU,especially related partner countries,will also continue to improve,which will be a major challenge for the EU to implement the plan.The U.S./NATO mainly uses the EU as the main body to implement the plan as part of its new geopolitical plan to contain Russia,providing the EU with military guarantees and means to advance the plan,but it also objectively limits the EU’s implementation of the plan.Ability and "autonomy",the EU must rely on NATO/U.S.at a critical moment.This is an extremely obvious system in the Ukrainian conflict.The certainty of the rules and conditions of the Eastern Partnership Program,the size of the returns,the credibility of the rules and conditions,and the cost of implementation are all determined by the interaction of these entities.Disagreements within the EU and differences in intentions and ideas between the EU and its eastern partner countries have affected the legitimacy of the plan’s rules and the recognition of the plan by the eastern partner countries,leading to widening differences between the two sides;the lack of security guarantees in the plan and the EU The interaction between the United States/NATO and Russia has affected the strategic environment for the implementation of the Eastern Partnership Program.The low effectiveness,the expansion of the differences between the parties in the implementation of the plan,and the deterioration of the implementation environment have made it difficult for the Eastern Partnership to advance.At present,it is almost only maintained by policy inertia. |