EU Eastern Neighbourhood: Economic Potential and Future Development [ENEPO]

Structure and Methodology of the Project

The proposed research effort is divided into 14 work-packages, covering five thematic areas corresponding to research objectives:

Thematic area A (development gap between CIS and EU): WP1 and WP2
Thematic area B (free movement of goods and services): WP3, WP4 and WP5
Thematic area C (free movement of capital): WP6
Thematic area D (free movement of people): WP7, WP8 and WP9
Thematic area E (institutional harmonization): WP10, WP11, WP12, WP 13

In addition, WP14 deals with the coordination of research work and broad public dissemination of its results.

The list below provides the name of every workpackage and the person coordinating it:

WP1. Development gap between the CIS and EU countries

(Irina Sinitsina, CASE)

WP2. Spatial patterns of income and convergence across Europe

(Per Botolf Maurseth, NUPI)

WP3. Analysis of EU-CIS trade flows

(Arne Melchior, NUPI)

WP4. Analysis of the economic and institutional consequences of WTO accession and of future EU-CIS free trade agreements

(Dean Spinanger, IfW)

WP5. Cooperation in the sphere energy supply

(Vladimer Papava, CASE-Transcaucasus)

WP6. Free movement of capital/investment climate

(Alina Kudina, CASE Ukraine)

WP7. Labour migration - macroeconomic and demographic outlook for Europe and neighbourhood regions

(Vladimir Borgy, CEPII)

WP8. The analysis of outward migration in selected CIS countries

 (Matthias Lücke, IfW)

WP9. Cooperation in the area of Justice, Freedom and Security

(Thierry Balzacq and Sergio Carrera, CEPS)

WP10. The priority areas of institutional harmonization and the 'institutional gap'

(Rainer Schweickert, IfW)

WP11. The costs and benefits of institutional harmonization

(Anna Kolesnichenko, CASE Ukraine)

WP12. Technical assistance to CIS countries

(Roman Mogilevsky, CASE-Kyrgyzstan)

WP13. Political economy of the Eastern neighbourhood

(Wojciech Paczynski, CASE)

WP14: Co-ordination of research work and dissemination of its results

(Marek Dabrowski and Maryla Maliszewska)

While the dominant analytical approach and methodology of this project proposal is that offered by the economic sciences (macroeconomics, trade theory, economic geography, demography, institutional economics, microeconomics and political economy) some work-packages involve a political science analysis (WP9, WP12 and WP13), legal analysis (WP9) and sociological analysis (WP13). The project proposal has mostly an applied, policy-oriented character, which implies a great deal of empirical analyses (both macro and micro) and macroeconomic projections. The latter will use (and adjust) available modern projection tools, such as various variants of computable general equilibrium (CGE)-based model (for projections of both trade and labour flows - WP4 and WP8) and the INGENUE model (for projecting cross-regional migration flows - WP7). Some of the microeconomic analyzes and projections will be based on the results of various surveys, for example in relation to investment climate (WP6), outward labour migration from CIS countries (WP8) and attitude to perspectives of European integration (WP13). Others (WP10 and WP11) will use already existing sets of institutional indicators (offered by various international organizations and databases) in order to estimate the size of the institutional gap and the cost of overcoming it.