On April 10–11, the Georgian Institute of Politics (GIP) participated in the high-level workshop “Ukraine and the EU in the Black Sea – Hard and Soft Security Challenges” in Paris.
Prof. Kornely Kakachia, Director of the Georgian Institute of Politics, was an invited speaker at the event. In his remarks, he reflected on the state of European security three years into the war in Ukraine, emphasizing the ongoing challenges facing the Black Sea region. He discussed the strategic importance of Ukraine in the evolving European security architecture, as well as the pressing issues related to both hard and soft security on the EU’s eastern flank.
The event brought together experts and policymakers to exchange views on defense, diplomacy, and the future of European foreign policy.
The initiative, organised by the Austro-French Center for Rapprochement in Europe (ÖFZ) with the support of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (Regional office in Vienna), the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri – Institut français des relations internationales) is part of a track-2 initiative hashtag#Pezinok Group on strategic autonomy, named after the castle in Slovakia in which the group first met in March 2022. The group consists of 20-25 experts and MFA policy planners from interested European states. Its goal is to foster convergence and unity in European foreign policy while exploring the national facets of European strategic autonomy and their translation into the EU’s approach(es) towards Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans and EU sectoral policies.
