 Thank you very much. It's a great honour and a great pleasure to be here today. My presentation today is part of a research project I'm conducting to explore the European Union's influence in the Eastern neighbourhood. And I will start by saying a few words on this project, which is co-funded by the French and British research agencies and conducted jointly with the University of Birmingham. So to explore the European Union's influence in the Eastern neighbourhood, we have selected four countries for an in-depth analysis, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia, and we look specifically at four sectors to analyse convergence with the UNORMS, energy, competition, food safety and visa facilitation liberalisation. So we try to assess the extent to which the European Union has been effective in promoting policy change in these countries. So I will first say a few words about the European Union's policy framework under the Eastern Partnership and then move to the domestic and regional context in which UNORMS are transplanted. So what does the European Union offer under the Eastern Partnership? First I should say that the European Union's offer is far more substantial under the Eastern Partnership as compared to the European neighbourhood policy. Under the European neighbourhood policy which was launched in 2004, the European Union proposed a stake in the internal market to Eastern neighbours. So a very long-term benefit without any detailed benchmarks or timetable. So the vagueness of EU incentives provided under the neighbourhood policy and also the lack of any tangible benefits were identified by the European Commission as early as 2006, so only two years after the creation of the policy as major weaknesses for the neighbourhood policy. And this prompted Poland and Sweden to push forward a new offer for Eastern neighbours, the Eastern Partnership which was launched in 2009, and under the Eastern Partnership the EU's offer is based on four pillars. First, upgrading of the contractual framework with Eastern neighbours which currently is framed by the Partnership and Cooperation Agreements which were signed in the 1990s and these agreements will be replaced by association agreements, meaning a sustained political dialogue with Eastern neighbours and also increased foreign and security policy cooperation. Then the second pillar of the EU's offer is about deep and comprehensive free trade areas, meaning encompassing not only tariffs but also non-tariff barriers and also new sectors of the economy. The third pillar is visa liberalisation, meaning lifting Schengen visas for short-term stays for citizens of the six Eastern Partnership countries. And then finally, sectoral cooperation, especially on energy and transport. So this is a more substantial offer and also under the Eastern Partnership the European Union provides detailed guidance for reform based upon the export of its own rules, norms and policy templates. So under the Eastern Partnership partner countries are indeed expected to approximate their legal frameworks with EU in key sectors. For instance, competition, food safety, intellectual property rights, technical barriers to trade and they are also expected to share the European Union's political values, respect for human rights and the rule of law, democracy. So to support the adoption by partner countries of these norms and templates, the European Union relies primarily on three different mechanisms. First of course, conditionality, which was already a pillar of the European Union's policy in the 1990s during the accession process. So under the Eastern Partnership conditionality applies first and foremost to trade a key, meaning that the European Union issues key recommendations on specific legal and institutional gaps that have to be fulfilled before negotiations for a DCFTA can be launched. There is also of course political conditionality, which has not been consistently applied since the neighborhood policy was launched. For instance, the European Union has been very tough on Belarus, but not very tough on Azerbaijan for obvious geo-strategic reasons. And this may actually change with the new approach which has been promoted since 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring, and which is called the more for more approach. The second mechanism upon which the European Union relies is assistance, meaning increased assistance to Eastern neighbors under the Eastern Partnership with specific tools, especially for strengthening administrative capacities. There is a new tool called comprehensive institution building programs designed to support partner countries, public administrations, admitting the conditions stemming from association agreements and DCFTAs. And EU assistance is also increasingly connected to political conditionality as part of the more for more approach. Finally, under the Eastern Partnership, the European Union also relies upon socialization, meaning networking. And this is done under the multilateral track of the Eastern Partnership because for the first time the European Union and its 27 member states together with the six Eastern partners are gathered under different institutional formats with the view to sharing experiences and also developing links between partner countries. And finally, with the view for the European Union to explaining the Aki. So the Eastern Partnership offers a much more dense policy framework and stronger incentives as compared to the neighborhood policy. At the same time, it is still very much in the making. And it is also an open ended policy lacking a clear finality or angle. So the European Union has indicated on a number of occasions that the Eastern Partnership was distinct from accession. But then why should partner countries comply with the EU Aki and in particular, why should they adopt two thirds of the EU trade Aki and comply with political conditionality. So the European Union's assumption here is that the adoption of EU norms and templates will contribute to increasing prosperity and stability in the region. However, again, this is very much a long term perspective, while massive efforts are required from partner countries in the short term, especially to comply with trade under the DCFTA negotiations. So since the Eastern Partnership is different, is distinct from accession, then the whole process of approximation and of strengthening relations with the European Union is voluntary. And this means that partner countries do contribute also to shaping the policy, the Eastern Partnership. And therefore, at the end of the day, the Eastern Partnership is also what partner countries make out of it. And for this reason, it's very important to look into the domestic context and into the regional context, into partner countries' preferences, their expectations, their structures, and their capacities. And that's what I will be doing right now for the fourth country we are covering under our project, so starting with Moldova. Moldova, over the past three years, has emerged as the front runner in the Eastern Partnership. The Alliance for European Integration, ruling the country, is fully committed to EU integration. There is also a very close interaction with the European Union in the field. Moldova is ready to accept all the EU requirements. And of course, the country has very strong membership aspirations. And actually, the country has made substantial progress in cooperating with the European Union over the past three years. For instance, negotiations for deep and comprehensive free trade area were opened in January this year, in 2012. And Moldova is progressing very quickly. The country has also emerged as a front runner in the visa liberalization process. In June 2012, the European Commission recommended to move forward to the second phase of the visa liberalization action plan, which is actually the last stage before the European Parliament and the Council decide to lift the Schengen visas. At the same time, European integration is very closely connected to the fate of the governing alliance for European integration. It's very important that the government delivers before the next elections, which will take place in 2014. However, most of the benefits offered by the European Union are not immediately visible, and therefore, the whole process remains unpredictable. Another issue is the role played by Russia. There are in Moldova strong societal preferences for maintaining close links with Russia. And the country is also very much dependent on the Russian and CIS markets, especially so for energy, for energy imports. And recently, gas bomb has exerted very strong pressure on the Moldovan government to abandon the EU third energy package in exchange for lower gas tariffs. So far, the country has resisted Russian pressure, and actually Russian pressure has pushed Moldova toward the European Union. At the same time, Europeanization depends very much on the political context in the country, and also on the ability of the European Union to deliver on its own promises, especially when it comes to the visa free regime. So now a few words about Ukraine. Ukraine was previously the front runner in the neighborhood policy, and the country has, of course, longstanding membership aspirations. Some reforms on European integration were already initiated under the Kutma presidency in the 1990s. And, of course, the Orange Revolution in 2004 was a major shift with massive expectations, both on the EU side and on the Ukrainian side. And actually, the new authorities after the Orange Revolution took your urbanization very seriously and not as foreign policy, but rather as domestic homework. And so Ukraine was very quickly in 2005-2006 presented as a success story by EU institutions for the neighborhood policy. But then with the slowing down of reforms in Ukraine in 2007-2008, the relations with the European Union cooled down, and frustration developed both in the European Union and in Ukraine, with Ukraine being disappointed by the Eastern partnership, because this is nothing new for Ukraine. Ukraine already started negotiations for an association agreement in 2007. With the election of Viktor Yanukovych to presidency in 2010, there was again a new shift. Integration with the European Union is still very much desired, but at the same time the country has moved toward a cost-benefit analysis in its relations with the European Union. And this is also because of the intertwining between political and business interests in the country, with vested interests playing a very strong role, being a strong obstacle to the European Union's influence. And, of course, also in Ukraine, like in Moldova, Russia, is there and has exerted over the past two months a strong pressure on Ukraine to join the customs union. Now a very different example with Georgia, with Georgia, which is also presented as a good pupil under the European neighborhood policy, under the Eastern partnership, especially so as compared to Armenia and to Azerbaijan, and it is also the only South Caucasus country whose authorities have expressed their membership aspirations. However, at least until 2008 and until the conflict with Russia, the European Union was a second choice for Georgia, meaning that Georgia's security concerns were salient for the country and the European Union was not considered a credible partner, a credible security provider for Georgia. And actually, the conflict with Russia in August 2008 turned the European Union from a secondary ally into a necessary partner for Georgia. So this conflict with Russia together with the European Union's enhanced offer under the Eastern partnership gave a new impact to urbanization in Georgia. However, to what extent are EU norms really embedded into the reform process in Georgia? There are very important tensions here in Georgia, and the first one is linked to what I would call reversed temporalities in the reform process, because in the Eastern neighborhood, the neighborhood policy is quite often presented as a major impetus for reform in the post-soviet transformation. While in Georgia, it works the other way around. Actually, Georgia started a far-reaching reform process before it was included in the neighborhood policy in 2006, so later than Ukraine and Moldova. And actually, this extensive reform process was patterned after a liberal model, quite different from the one promoted by the European Union. So there is some degree of resistance in Georgia to the adoption of EU norms, and EU norms still have a low resonance in Georgia because they introduce additional regulations. For instance, to launch DCFTA negotiations, the European Union required the creation of a body of inspectors to control food safety, and these Georgia authorities were very much reluctant to create such new bodies. And the same goes for migration policy, because Georgia has an open-door policy, a visa for regime with many countries, including Turkey, Iran, even recently with Russia. And so additional regulation requested by the European Union, for instance, additional visa categories or residence permits, is resisted in the country. So for Georgia, it's kind of a mind-blowing Europeanization process, and no doubt that recent elections will lead to a new shift in the relations with the European Union. Finally, Armenia, which is a very interesting case study, Armenia is quite often perceived as a laggard in the implementation of the neighborhood policy. The approximation process started formally at the end of the 1990s and at the beginning of the last decade, but it was very much constrained by the lack of a political will to engage into wide-ranging reforms. And the second reason why Armenia is considered a laggard is that Russia is a very close, well, it is considered Russia's closest ally in the region, and this is a feature which for many seems to discard the possibility of Armenia's actual converging with EU norms. Well, actually the picture which emerges from our fieldwork is quite different. There has been a shift in Armenian attitudes towards the European Union and Armenia's commitment to converging with EU norms increased with the launch of the Eastern Partnership in 2009. And why is it so? This is primarily because the country's security environment has sharply deteriorated over the past three years with the conflict in Georgia, also with the failed rapprochement with Turkey, and the economic crisis finally only made Armenia's situation more fertile. So Armenia sees closer ties with the European Union as a means to overcome its vulnerability. And this vulnerability prompted the country to engage finally into reforms for modernization, and it's interesting to see that the European Union is considered the major partner in this process, the European Union and not Russia. So this is very interesting. At the same time, Armenian authorities have never expressed any membership aspirations, so Armenia is a kind of ideal neighbor taking the European Union's offer for what it is, I mean a template for modernization. At the same time, this is very much silent Europeanization. So to conclude, to what extent has the European Union contributed to shaping partner countries legal framework and policy environment in the Eastern neighborhood? The European Union has been influential over the past decade with the Aki becoming a kind of benchmark referential for reforms in the Eastern neighborhood. But the European Union has not been influential to the same extent in all countries and in all sectors. This is a kind of patchy inference, patchwork, urbanization with different levels of compliance and also different explanations accounting for the degree of convergence. So the main conclusion is that the European Union's push for reform is very much filtered by domestic preferences and domestic factors are salient to explain patterns of convergence or lack thereof. Regional interactions and especially the role of Russia are another critical factor hindering or favoring the influence of the European Union and the convergence with EU norms. Finally, in the post-Soviet area, Europeanization processes are not linear or straightforward. They remain rather hectic and tortuous and very much unpredictable. Thank you very much for your attention.