This paper examines different patterns of political and economic integration that have emerged between the European Union (EU) and its eastern neighbouring countries, and the prospects and limitations these pose for the promotion of labour standards in the region. Long-sought efforts of the EU to promote labour standards through its foreign policy acquired additional intensity in the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy. Notwithstanding a common formulation at its outset in 2004, differentiation in EU strategy, on one hand, and variations across neighbouring countries, on the other, led to significant heterogeneity in the EU’s political and market-based labour governance approaches in the eastern neighbourhood. While the EU signed Association Agreements with Georgia, Moldova and the Ukraine in 2014 that mandates approximation with EU labour directives, its relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan are still based on Partnership and Cooperation Agreements (PCAs) that contain much weaker provisions in this regard. Beyond this political level, there is also significant variation in the exposures of individual neighbouring countries to market-based pressures by EU lead firms and consumers to adhere to international labour standards. While Azerbaijan, Moldova and Ukraine export primarily to the EU and rely on trade in consumer-products where sustainability pressures are prominent, trade relations of Armenia and Georgia are much less dependent on the EU and Belarus trades predominantly with other Commonwealth of Independent (CIS) States. Upon a closer examination of these political and economic divergences, implications on labour standards will be explored through comparative analysis of the fundamental labour rights and some aspects of working conditions in the six eastern neighbouring countries.

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Eurasia,European Neighbourhood Policy,regional integration,labour standards