Carl Bildt, the author and then Swedish foreign minister, who together with his Polish counterpart Radosław Sikorski, were the architects of this "Eastern Partnership" launched in 2009, which aimed "to respond to the desire of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine for some of the instruments of integration." But it was also seen by opponents as a mechanism to counter Russia's influence in its backyard, by steering these countries away from Moscow. It's true that the EU had invested heavily in a good relationship with Russia under the presidency of Dmitri Medvedev. Moscow was invited to join the partnership, which didn't seem "to raise no concerns in the Kremlin."

The EU is still keen on "staying the course in Europe's East," and committing to a partnership with the six above-mentioned countries, which may want more trade with the EU than with Russia. But Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine have long borders with Russia. In recent years enthusiasm seemed to have waned in Azerbaijan, Belarus and Armenia. The Azeri president Ilham Aliyev didn't even turn up in Riga, sending a signal to Brussels that the EU should have kept quiet about his human rights record, if it wanted the Azeri energy supplies. Belarus and Armenia have become members of Putin’s Eurasian Union, ruling out deeper ties with the EU. Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova are still keen on EU integration and eventual membership.

But EU leaders, being divided over further enlargement and wary of provoking Putin, are trying to slow things down. They have seen that with "short-term hardball geopolitics," Russia has fueled volatility in the region. Even if it may not have a long-term impact on Europe's stability, it certainly has changed Ukraine's map. The "long-term geo-economics", that the EU pursues, relies not only on the development in Eastern Ukraine, but also in Britain, Greece and other parts of the world. After all we live in a world of interdependence.