Recent weeks have seen the celebration of 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall: a milestone in the story of freedom, of Europe being finally reunited and of economic growth. Plenty of column inches have been dedicated to the success of economic reform in Poland, Hungary and the Czech and Slovak Republics, even though the political story is more mixed. But smart investors should pay attention to the next kids on the bloc, a little further to the east.
On November 22 in London, the EBRD will host six heads of state or government from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine for an investment summit focusing on countries of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiative.
The EaP is a decade-old format of co-operation between the EU and the six countries of eastern Europe and the Caucasus. The EU turned its attention to its new neighbourhood after its “big bang” enlargement in 2004, when the central European reformers joined the club. The EaP was born in 2009, with different ambitions and under different circumstances. But it tells the same big story.