Multilateralism and the Complexity of Shelter: The Effectiveness of the Eastern Partnership in Moldova, Armenia and Georgia

Affecting the systemic environment, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has sparked a new Era for small states’ security, evidencing the necessity to find stability and protection in wider states or organisations. The repercussions of the war over the normative dimension of shelter have pushed international organisations to re-affirm the legitimisation of multilateralism. Among the geopolitical players that have been directly affected by this crisis, the European Union (EU) has been trying to react in a cohesive and coherent way according to its multilateral principles to protect the states under former Soviet Influence. Drawing on the literature that explores the concept of Shelter Theory, this analyses the political shelter offered by the EU through Europe’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) in three small states: Moldova, Georgia and Armenia. Shelter theory assumes that a greater power or organisation offers political, military and economic protection to smaller states that recognise the inability to literally guarantee their full independence in foreign policy. Following this theoretical framework, the paper conducts a qualitative analysis of the EaP’s political shelter towards the three small states, from 2022 to 2025. Within this periodisation, the paper analyses how the political shelter of the EaP has functioned according to the multilateral principles of political protection. The paper concludes that the effects of the EU multilateral shelter depend on the civil society of the small states, the impact of security perceptions coming from external pressures and the coherency of the EU institutions. While in Moldova the EU has successfully implemented a form of political protection from Russian interferences, towards Armenia Brussels has obtained mixed results whereas in Georgia it has failed to provide the necessary guarantees