European integration in a political-geographical context: comparison of the Baltic States and the South Caucasus

ENAfter almost three decades of their independence a clear evidence of the positive outcome of the European integration is revealed by the immense difference between those post-Soviet countries which succeeded and became the EU member states and those which remain outside of the EU. Successful accomplishment of the EU integration process is largely dependent on the political will of the ruling elites and the readiness of the population of a concrete state as well as on several geopolitical factors, including the political-geographical location of that very state. An important factor for the successful European integration process is the geopolitical interest of the core members of the EU and coincidence of the foreign policy vectors of a candidate country and its immediate neighbours. In this article the Baltic and the South Caucasus regions are compared from the abovementioned perspectives. Baltic states which do not have any ethno-territorial claims or border problems with each other, thanks to the consolidated efforts of their political elites, managed to overcome all obstacles as a single region to become the EU member states. In the South Caucasus, which is political-geographically very fragmented and where all the three states of the region have different foreign policy vectors, full-fledged regional cooperation still remains a utopia, which in its turn develops hurdles to the EU integration process.