Joint research by the New Europe Center and Institute of the European Politics (Berlin) on expectations by Ukrainian and German decisionmakers from each other. Please find the PDF-version of the paper here.

Alyona Getmanchuk, New Europe Center Director, and Sergiy Solodkyy, First deputy director, presented key results of the research during the Second Germany Debate in Kyiv, the closed-door online event held on June, 17. Among the participants of the event were the representatives of the government, parliament, Office of the President of Ukraine, as well as leading Ukrainian and German think-tanks.

“What is the state of cooperation between Germany and Ukraine following the first year of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidency? What has been the impact on bilateral relations of the shifts in the Ukrainian political landscape, which resulted in not only a new president but also a radically different parliament and two new governments? What are the current expectations and challenges for these relations and to what extent is the groundwork for future sustainable cooperation between Germany and Ukraine being created? 

In order to answer all these questions the authors of this analysis conducted interviews with German and Ukrainian political stakeholders during February and March 2020. (…) Based on the interviews, the cooperation priorities, challenges and expectations on the part of both Ukraine and Germany were analysed. Since the interviews allowed for an inductive approach, it was possible to identify aspects of the relationship that were assessed differently by the two sides.”

This publication has been developed with the support of the Open Society Initiative for Europe in the framework of the “Europeanisation beyond Process” initiative jointly implemented by the New Europe Center and the Institut für Europäische Politik. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the New Europe Center, the Institut für Europäische Politik, or the Open Society Foundations.