European Union and Post-Soviet Countries: New Trends in Development Assistance

Abstract

The article analyzes the policy in the field of international development assistance implemented by the EU in the post-Soviet space. It is shown that in the second half of the 2010s – early 2020s the largest European donor countries perceived this region as peripheral. The main part of the funds was allocated by the supranational authorities of the EU. Geographically, most official development assistance (ODA) was provided to Eastern European countries and the South Caucasus, while development assistance to Central Asia was financed on a residual basis. After the crisis in Ukraine escalated in 2022, the EU’s collective ODA increased sharply, and the country itself became the main recipient of European assistance. However, the bulk of aid is expenditure on refugees in donor countries, which is statistically recorded as ODA. Financing of projects on the territory of Ukraine itself is not so significant. In the context of the degradation of relations between Russia and the West, the EU countries are interested not so much in the reconstruction of the Ukrainian economy, but in using the anti-Russian potential of Ukraine. In this regard, not economic, but military assistance is of paramount importance.