New Eastern Europe Magazine 4(IX)-2013 Vorige editie

This issue explores of New Eastern Europe provides in-depth coverage of the upcoming Vilnius Summit of the Eastern Partnership (EaP). We open this issue with texts written by two foreign ministers: Carl Bildt of Sweden and Radosław Sikorski of Poland, both representing the states which initiated the EaP and still believe in its success. Success is possible, write foreign policy experts, Jana Kobzova and Rafał Sadowski, provided more work is done and new strategies are made. Their opinions do not seem far-fetched, especially when the results of the scorecard in which ten European experts graded the EaP’s progress as being between fair and poor are taken into consideration.

This issue also includes a special section on the role of new media in Eastern Europe and brings to light many issues related to freedom of speech online. Our authors show that greater access to the internet does not necessarily lead to greater democratisation with respect to countries such as Belarus, Azerbaijan and Russia.

Finally, in the history section, Yaroslav Hrytsak discusses the Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation process and explains why in 2013 we are further away from 1989 than we were in 2003; while former prime minister of Estonia Mart Laar reminds us of the struggles against totalitarianism in the aftermath of the Second World War.