Taking Stock of EU Member States Democracy Action towards the Eastern Neighbourhood

This working paper sheds light on the democracy support actions of key EU Member States and reflects on the way they developed bilateral relations with the countries of the eastern neighbourhood. It offers a detailed overview and analysis of these actions, carefully selecting seven countries that have been heavily involved in the region in terms of democracy assistance: Germany, Poland, Sweden, Romania, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The paper finds that while the EU developed its common strategy towards the eastern neighbourhood, not all Member States nurtured deeper relations with the region. Instead, these key Member States prominently directed aid to support the emergence, development and sustainability of democracy. Nonetheless, their focus did not always cover the whole region but rather focused on specific countries depending on their prior context, existing strong bilateral relations due to proximity to the region, or ethnic, linguistic and historical ties. The paper highlights for each EU donor selected their overall strategy during 2010-2021, offering a comparative view. In the analysis, the paper concludes that while significant amounts of aid were channelled towards the eastern neighbours, the distribution is not even towards these countries or across priority projects, and topics, usually coupled with changing priorities over time in the EU donors and political developments in the beneficiary countries. Country data are pulled from EU Aid Explorer and each Member State is assessed on their policy and objectives regarding democracy promotion, human rights, economic development and poverty reduction, which may be perceived by the donor countries with varying degree as key drivers for kickstarting, sustaining or consolidating democratisation processes in the beneficiary countries. Each Member State case presents the geographical focus, aid spending structure and distribution patterns and discusses their strategic interests (including political, economic and security interests) for further nuance. Each case also assesses the focus of the Member States on specific democracy models (as developed in Freyburg et al 2024) linked to their democracy promotion actions and how these actions have been implemented (bilaterally or multilaterally) within the wider EU framework for democracy support and alongside local stakeholders. The seven Member States present a wide variety of approaches based on a customised strategy reflecting their relative strengths and comparative advantages, domestically and internationally, showcasing a fundamental difference between a one-size-fits-all EU strategy and their own perceptions of their role in the region and within the EU.