The paper aims to provide an explanation of the implementation performance of the European Eastern Partnership in neighbouring countries. It will show the reasons and patterns in implementation deficit by analysing a lack of strong leverage between the EU and third countries. By means of the institutional theoretical framework, it will be discussed that the opportunities of integrating the EaP countries into the EU regulatory structure depends on the stronger leverage from other international actors due to historical ties, then respect of European values, domestic preferences, plus exclusive modes of policy-making and credible conditionality. The analysis is based on historical institutional perspective and implementation theory. Out of six EaP countries Ukraine and Georgia have been chosen for the case studies analysis. The implementation of the EaP will be compared in two countries. The paper will contribute to the broader understanding of the fact that the region of the study has always been known as a playground field of geopolitical competition, where strong international actors are trying to strengthen their own leverage, providing the region with different standards of governance, state of economy and civil liberties.
