Green Transition in the Eastern Partnership Under the framework of European Green Deal and the lessons from the Western Balkans.

The urgency for a Green Transition (GT) has become a global imperative. Europe, recognizing this importance, adopted the European Green Deal (EGD) with an ultimate goal to reach climate-neutrality. However, given the ambitious and the scale of the initiative, independent efforts are insufficient, thus, engaging partners becomes crucial. Academic and scientific discourse have investigated the GT across the EU and neighboring countries, yet, the knowledge and potential of the EaP (Eastern Partnership) in this process remains relatively underexplored. The research aim is to investigate how the EaP can exchange knowledge, resources, and practices to support the transition, as well as to identify key drivers and barriers that impact the process. For this, EaP need to prepare themselves to address climate issues as part of a wider partnership of shared responsibilities. In light of this, the thesis explores the WB experience of GT, which although not EU members, have initiated their own Agenda and possess a similar contextual history to EaP. The study primarily relies on a mix of desk research, semi-structured interviews, quantitative analysis and comparative frameworks. However, there are complexities that could impede the region’s transition. Among them, the highest risks are associated with diverse political alignments regarding EU integration, tensions with neighboring states, weak institutional capacities and governance models, outdated infrastructure, dependency on traditional industries, data scarcity, weak monitoring, and financial constraints. In order to eliminate those factors, the thesis aims to design a generalized GT roadmap and incorporate tailored points for the EaP context. Research concludes that the framework's applicability must be adjusted to the unique regional specificities of EaP, it should have a flexible nature that will reflect the distinct political aspirations of member states; Moreover, it’s important to design a group for regional cooperation, create unified databases for improving data quality and consistency for monitoring processes, identify policy gaps, integrate cross-sectoral fields, establish partnerships and twinning programs with local and international organizations for receiving technical and capacity support, diversify financial investment plans, build local capacities, promote co-ownership initiatives for gaining public trust and, reinforce monitoring systems. This adaptive approach will enable the EaP countries to overcome the complexities of their regional dynamics and achieve tangible progress towards their GT goals.