Civic Emancipation

The emancipatory power of civil society to define, defend and demand changes in society becomes a key future of the Eastern Partnership region. It follows a global rise of popular protest movements with a discernible impact on the political process across the world. People in the streets or ‘people power’ is what drives an agenda of greater prosperity, access to education and expanded economic opportunity. Although this is based on a domestic, bottom-up driver of activism, to some degree independent from foreign actors and external variables, this trajectory is characterised by a stagnant and distracted West and an ineffective or disengaged EU.

Developments in recent years have led to a constructive and realistic reassessment of past failures, a recognition of the need to change the fundamentals of prior approaches and the recognition of the limited inherent capacity to drive change in the region from the outside. This coincides with a declining Russia,…