The Eastern Partnership initiative: challenges of assessing performance and new geopolitical realities

The article discusses the theoretical and empirical challenges of assessing performance of the EU’s Eastern Partnership policy with a special focus on the future of the policy amidst Russia’s war against Ukraine. Based on the contributions to the respective Special Issue the concluding article discusses contemporary developments at the crossroads between EU Studies and the studies of performance, the multi- and interdisciplinary approaches to performance assessment in European Studies, as well as state-of-the-art of the EU’s performance in six Eastern Partnership countries. It also dedicates much attention to the implications the policy’s performance so far and available evidence about it will have for the reinvention of the Eastern Partnership in the new geopolitical constellations, shaped by Russia’s war against Ukraine and the EU’s response thereto.