Project Final Study
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Sharing the Experiences of Visegrad Cooperation in the Western Balkans and the Eastern Neighbourhood Countries Project Final Study Edited by Sándor Köles ICDT 2011. This publication was financed by the Norwegian-EEA Financial Mechanism. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily express the official view of the Donor. © International Centre for Democratic Transition 2011 Árvácska u. 12, 1022 Budapest, Hungary | Phone: +36 (1) 438 0820 | Fax: +36 (1) 438 0821 E-mail: [email protected] | www.icdt.hu | www.interregional.icdt.hu Contents Foreword. 5 Introduction. 7 What.are.the.main.factors.of.regions.and.regionalization?.. 9 Intergovernmental Framework for Regional Cooperation. .13 The.Visegrad.Group.(V4). .13 Forms.and.motivations.for.continued.Visegrad.Co-operation.. 25 Does.the.Visegrad.Co-operation.Have.a.Future?. 40 GUAM.Organization.for.Democracy.and.Economic.Development. 46 Regional.Co-operation.Council.(RCC). 54 Intergovernmental Cooperation and Regional security. 65 Introduction . 65 The.historical.background.of.the.Visegrad.Cooperation.in.the.field.of.security. 66 Towards.Eastern.Partnership.countries . 73 Towards.candidate.and.accession.countries.in.the.Western.Balkans . 81 Visegrad.Cooperation.and.global.security.challenges. 91 GUAM.countries.and.global.security.challenges. 96 The.Western.Balkan.countries.and.global.security.challenges . 106 Regional.security.projects. 111 Regional.security.and.confidence.building.in.the.EU’s.Eastern.Neighbourhood.. 116 Regional.security.and.confidence-building.in.the.Western.Balkans. 120 Identifying.cross-regional.opportunities.. .133 Conclusions.and.relevance.of.the.V4.know-how. .135 Recommendation.for.deepening.regional.cooperation. 138 Trust-building.in.foreign,.security.and.defence.policy . 138 Supporting.Euro-Atlantic.integration.efforts. 142 Cooperation.in.science.and.education. 144 Energy.security. 145 the Role of economy in Regional Cooperation. 149 Introduction . 149 Economic.aspects.of.Regional.Cooperation.–.theoretical.and.Practical.Approaches. .151 The.Visegrad.Cooperation.as.an.Economic.Coordinating.Mechanism . 154 Impact.of.the.EU.on.the.Economic.Relations.of.Visegrad.Countries.. during.the.Nineties. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 163 Experiences.with.Economic.Development.since.EU-Accession. 170 Economic.perspective.of.the.Visegrad.Group . .174 Conclusions. .177 Defining.key.issues.regarding.economic.cooperation.in.the.EP.Countries. 187 Cross-regional.Aspects.of.Key.Issues.and.Best.Practices,.Recommendations. 198 the Role of Cross-border Cooperation in Regional Cooperation . 201 Introduction . 201 Regions.and.regionalisation.in.Europe.. 205 European.Cross-border.cooperation. 209 Cross-border.cooperation.in.the.EU.context. .215 Cross-border.cooperation.for.the.V4.Countries.beyond.the.Visegrad.Cooperation. .217 Cross-border.cooperation.in.the.EU’s.Eastern.Neighbourhood. 227 Case:.the.Dniester/Nistru.Euroregion.as.an.opportunity.for.confidence.building. 231 Cross-border.Cooperation.in.the.Western.Balkans. 238 Lessons.learned.from.the.process. 245 Summary.and.conclusions. 245 the Role of Civil society in Regional Cooperation . 251 Introduction . 251 Main.challenges.and.good.practices.in.the.Visegrad.countries. 255 Main.challenges.and.good.practices.of.civil.society.of.the.Western.Balkans . 273 Civil.society.of.the.EU’s.Eastern.Neighbourhood. 281 Recommendations:.areas.in.need.of.development. 287 Conclusions. 290 general summary of the Project. 293 FoRewoRd The general goal of this two-year project running November 2008–April 2011 was to contribute to strengthening the basis of democracy, partnership and regional cooperation in the partner regions. The specific objective was to share the politi- cal and sectoral experiences of the Visegrad cooperation in the Western Balkans and the Eastern Partnership – among them GUAM – countries in order to sup- port and advance cooperation in and among these regions by forging new links and projects that facilitate the resolution of common problems and the attain- ment of common objectives. Core activities of the project were organized around four regional workshops in the partner regions (two each in the Eastern Neighbourhood and the Western Balkans) where representatives of relevant regional stakeholders from both target regions (such as GUAM Organization in case of the Eastern Neighbourhood and the Regional Cooperation Council in case of the Western Balkans and specialized regional institutions as applicable) participate, along with government and civil society experts and representatives of the EU and other relevant international organizations. Workshops were built around key topics, such as regional security and intergovernmental cooperation, economic cooperation, cooperation among civil societies and cross-border cooperation, with the applicable Visegrad experi- ences and lessons learned and European standards as cross-cutting themes. The outcome of the workshops was presented in thematic assessments that contain the summary of proceedings and lessons learned during the workshops, with spe- cial regard to the initiatives proposed to strengthen regional cooperation. The impact of the project was summarized at a final conference. Finally, a web page linked to the project has been developed and launched under http://interregion- al.icdt.hu to publish and disseminate all relevant information based on the actual implementation of the project. We hereby wish to thank our partners and those who contributed their pre- cious time and expertise to implement this project: Victor Chirila, Sergiy Gera- symchuk, Csaba Lőrinczi, Wojciech Paczynski, Jiri Schneider, Tomas Strazay, Marianna Török, Žarko Petrović, Gia Nikolaishvili, Ferenc Kalmár, and Katerina Ivanova. Last but not least, our heartfelt thanks goes to the donor of the project, the Norwegian-EEA Financial Mechanism for making this publication possible. The EEA and Norway Grants are the contribution from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway for the reduction of social and economic disparities within the Europe- 5 an Economic Area (EEA). In the period 2004-2009, €1.23 billion in support was awarded to 1,250 individual projects, program funds run by central and local gov- ernments, research and academic institutions, non-governmental organizations and businesses in the 12 new EU member states, as well as Greece, Portugal and Spain. Norway provides around 97 percent of the total funding. The contribu- tions of our donor has helped achieve • Solidarity - reduce social and economic disparities in Europe; • Opportunity - support the new EU countries integrate into the European Eco- nomic Area; • Cooperation - strengthen political and economic ties between Iceland, Liech- tenstein and Norway and the 15 beneficiary states. IntRoduCtIon This publication is the result of a series of workshops organized by the Interna- tional Center for Democratic Transition (ICDT) in the frame of its program “Shar- ing the Experiences of Visegrad Cooperation (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) to the Western Balkans and the Eastern Partnership countries with special focus on the GUAM countries (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldo- va), which addressed some of the main aspects and ingredients of regional coop- eration and summarizes the lessons and relevant experiences that the Visegrad Group has accumulated in the last twenty years since its formation in 1991. The main objective of the two-year program was to share the political and sectoral experiences of the Visegrad Group in order to support deepening re- gional cooperation in and among the Western Balkans and the Eastern Partner- ship countries emphasizing the role of inter-regional cooperation in promoting stability and European integration. The goals and applied methodology was to convene the main actors and stakeholders who play key role in inter-regional (or with other word transnational) cooperation such as governments, civil society organizations, think-tanks and businesses from these three European regions and create a forum discussing the main challenges, aspects and elements of inter- regional cooperation, sharing experiences and lesson learnt, and best practices as well innovations in this field. The workshops were organized around four different but interconnected top- ics and for each workshop a food-for-thought were prepared by ICDT’s expert team and during each workshop participants discussed in two groups the regional dimension and relevance of the discussed topic and, by the end of each workshop the participants discussed recommendations related to the topic of the particu- lar workshop. The first workshop was organized in Kiev, Ukraine on the role of regional cooperation in strengthening regional security and confidence building among neighboring countries. The main topic of the second workshop organized in Tbilisi, Georgia was the role of economy and trade in inter-regional cooperation focused on the experiences learned from Visegrad economic cooperation in the context of EU integration and especially membership and applicability of these experiences in light of current economic challenges and opportunities in the Western Balkans and the GUAM countries in selected policy areas, for instance international trade, investment flows and energy co-operation. The third work- shop was held in Chisinau and focused on the role of cross-border cooperation as a multifunctional instrument overcoming natural and political/administrative 7 borders between