Brussels's idea of a wider Europe implies that Europeanisation is not limited to EU member
states. The EU can so it claims also exert impact beyond its borders. One of the channels of
external EU influence is cooperation between Europarties and parties outside the Union. Through
mutual visits and joint activities non-EU parties become internationally socialised i.e. are
exposed to the Europarties' norms as well as values and experience the rules as well as
practices that shape European party-building. What are the incentives for Europarties and
non-EU parties to cooperate with each other? What kind of and how much impact did cooperation
have on party development in post-Soviet Georgia Moldova and Ukraine? Based on eighty
interviews with party officials international donors and academics Maria Shagina outlines the
set of motivations that trigger cooperation between Europarties and non-EU parties analyses
the impact of cooperation on party ideology organisational structure and inter-party
behaviour in Georgia Moldova and Ukraine and explores the implications of this cooperation
on the standardisation consolidation and democratisation of the non-EU party systems. Her
findings shed light on how prestige and domestic factors impede the penetration of EU norms and
values in the non-EU party structures and point to the failures of Europarties to adequately
address problems of party-development in Eastern Europe. The book reveals the ways in which
cooperation with Europarties has paradoxically contributed to the ossification of the status
quo and impaired the development as well as the consolidation of democracy in the three Eastern
Partnership states.
