E-mail: bogdana.depo@coleurope.eu
Tel: 0049 (0) 221 470 8623
Address:
Prof. W. Wessels Jean Monnet Lehrstuhl
Gottfried-Keller-Str. 6,
50931 Köln, Germany
Dana Depo is a young scholar with rich experience of involvement with the civil society in Ukraine, in the region to the east of the European Union, and, since recently, at the all-European level. She has worked for one of the leading think tanks in Ukraine as an expert on EU-Ukraine relations and institutional reform in CEE countries. She was also engaged with the Kyiv office of the European Association of Ukrainians.
As regards her academic background, Dana has graduated with both a Master and Bachelor Degree in International Public Law from the Kyiv National University Institute of International Relations, and with a Master Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from the College of Europe (Natolin). She was also a finalist of the US Department of State Educational Programme which granted her the possibility to study for one year of high school in the USA, during 2002-2003.
Dana has served for three years as Secretary International of the all-Ukrainian youth NGOs “Foundation of Regional Initiatives” in Ukraine, which is an elective voluntary position. This year, she was elected as Vice-President of the International Youth NGO “Youth for Exchange and Understanding”.
| October 2010 – February 2011 | University of Cologne |
| March 2011 – October 2011 | European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA), Maastricht |
| November 2011 – March 2012 | The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels |
| April 2012 – September 2013 | University of Cologne |
Title of research project: The Eastern Partnership: is it a strategy of pre-pre accession or a special buffer zone?
Supervisor: Professor Wolfgang Wessels (University of Cologne)
Co-Supervisor: Professor Lenka Rovná (Charles University Prague)
According to the Lisbon Treaty, “the Union shall seek to develop relations and build partnerships with third countries” (Art. 21 TEU), “aiming to establish an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness” (Art. 8 TUE). One of the recent responses of the EU to its immediate neighbours to the East was the Eastern Partnership (EaP) proposal. The EaP aims towards security, stability and consecutive integration of the Eastern European and Southern Caucasus countries. The new policy brings the Eastern European and the Southern Caucasus countries closer to the EU. The Partnership is a result of a gradual evolution of the European Neighbourhood Policy. The EaP sets mutual goals but foresees partial accommodation of the individual interests of the partner states; it contains multilateral cooperation of all the parties but also emphasizes the bilateral cooperation with the EU; it brings additional value to the existing cooperation, but at the same time raises the partner states to a new level of interrelation with the European Union. The open question for all the actors is how close the cooperation should be and where the limits for this cooperation are: how close may the EaP bring the partner countries to the EU through its instruments?
Research question: the Eastern Partnership: is it the strategy of pre-pre accession or a special buffer zone?
The paper mentioned above was published at:
1. Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum
2. Eastern Partnership Community
3. International Consortium ”EUROBELARUS”
4. Translated and published by the Ukrainian News Portal on European Affairs
