Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 12/2012

No settlement without a proactive policy: The European Union and the secessionist conflicts in the post-Soviet space

Barbara Gaweda, Marco Siddi

May 2012

Kolleg-Forschergruppe "The Transformative Power of Europe"

Abstract

Twenty-one years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the international community has not yet managed to solve the four separatist conflicts that broke out in the wake of the USSR’s demise. With the help of their patron states (Russia and, in the case of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia), the selfproclaimed Republics of Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh have become de facto states with separate political institutions and economic structures.