ABSTRACT
Relations with Eastern Europe constitute one of the European Union’s (EU) top foreign policy priorities. If for the most part of the 1990s the EU was inattentive and largely indifferent to developments in the far eastern part of the European continent, the bloc’s expansion in the direction of Central and Eastern Europe pushed relations with countries further east to the top of its external relations agenda. The 2004 and 2007 enlargements gave a boost to commercial, diplomatic and other exchanges between the EU and the post-Soviet states of Eastern Europe, and heightened interest in developments across the institutional divide that had sprung up with enlargement. As the new decade progressed, the level of contacts intensified and quickly out-grew the framework of relations provided by the Partnership and Cooperation Agreements signed with the newly independent states in the 1990s. Ranging from increasing flows of investment and trade to cultural and scientific exchanges, to opportunities for political and institutional dialogue, the new ties forged with the region created an impulse for external action aimed to safeguard EU interests and priorities. The immediate effect of geographical proximity brought about by enlargement was a flurry of EU foreign policy activity directed at the new neighbours to the east.
