Against the backdrop of the violent clashes in Ukraine following the government’s decision to stop its preparations to sign an Association Agreement with the EU, the EU’s eastern neighbourhood policy has grabbed the centre of academic and diplomatic attention. The European Policy Centre in cooperation with Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) and the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the EU organised a conference with the participation of numerous diplomats, experts and EU actors in order to take stock of the conflicts in the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood. The aim was to review the achievements of the different peace-making processes and remaining challenges, best practice towards conflict resolution and prospects for peace, ten years after European Neighbourhood Policy was conceived and seven years after the launch of the Eastern Partnership initiative.

The EU’s Eastern neighbourhood is home to a number of protracted conflicts which emerged during the break-up of the former Soviet Union and which continue to represent a serious obstacle to regional security, stability and prosperity. More than twenty years on, the Transdniestrian conflict, the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh and Georgia’s breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia remain unresolved.