New Eastern Europe 4/2013 Searching for Success

Why Europe's integration with the East can still be achieved and what it will take?

In the lead up to this November’s Vilnius Summit, the fall 2013 issue of New Eastern Europe has a strong focus on the developments within the Eastern Partnership (EaP) and the search for success since its launch in 2009.

The issue opens with exclusive op-eds written for New Eastern Europe by two foreign ministers: Carl Bildt of Sweden and Radosław Sikorski of Poland, both representing the states which initiated the EaP and still believe in its success. Success is possible, write foreign policy experts, Jana Kobzova, Rafał Sadowski and Adam Balcer, provided more work is done and new strategies are made. Essays by Vitaly Portnikov, Pawel Kowal and Kakha Gogolashvili give the reader deeper insight into the specific issues facing the countries of the EaP and what will come after Vilnius.

This issue also presents the results of an exclusive New Eastern Europe scorecard, in which ten European experts grade the EaP’s progress and break down the successes and remaining challenges to the initiative.

The Fall 2013 issue includes a special section on the role of new media in Eastern Europe and brings to light many issues related to freedom of speech online. Mykola Kniazhystksy, a Ukrainian journalist and member of Ukraine’s parliament, argues that private media in Ukraine is basically a toy for the super-rich, while Igor Lyubashenko points to the growing role of internet usage as a new shift in Ukrainian society. Likewise, Sergey Utkin discusses how the internet is not only a space for free media in Russia; it is also a space for the authorities who are becoming savvier online. Eryk Mistewicz’s article on Poland shows that in this new media environment there is no more need for journalists.