Paper Titles & Abstracts

Following the obligations assumed through the EU accession treaties, the Central and Eastern European states that joined the organisation in 2004 and 2007 have gradually transformed from aid recipients into international development aid donors. Although none of the countries managed to achieve the financial targets convened by this status within EU, at national level all have dully established strategies and institutions dedicated to international cooperation for development, while internationally they are present on the aid donors' market through bilateral and multilateral instruments, as well as through both governmental and nongovernmental projects. The CEE governments should harmonize their international development policies with the EU international development policy but, like all other EU members, they still have a large control over their national priorities, most significantly when setting geographical targets. Based on first hand data, including interviews with stakeholders from CEE states, this study explores to what extent classic foreign policy motivations rather than international aid concerns influence the CEE governments' choice of geographical priorities for targeting their official development assistance (ODA). For this purpose, it investigates whether the EU members at the eastern border of the organisation are more likely to choose post-Soviet countries as geographical priorities for their international cooperation for development policies, and which are the factors that make CEE states choose post-Soviet countries as geographical priorities for such policies.