About the lecturer: Alexander Sergunin is Professor of International Relations in the St. Petersburg State University, Russia. Currently, he is a guest researcher at the CENS implementing a project on the EU-Russia relations on the Eastern Partnership. His most recent book-length publications include Laboratories of European Integration: City-Twinning in Northern Europe (Tartu, 2012) (with Pertti Joenniemi) and The EU-Russia Common Space on External Security: Prospects for Cooperation (Nizhny Novgorod, 2011).

 About the lecture: The lecturer will focus on the following questions: (1) Why was (and is) Russia so skeptical about and unfriendly to the EaP? (2) What are the major Russian concerns about the EaP? (3) How is the EaP perceived by the Russian foreign policy schools and practitioners? (4) What should be done to make the EaP a venue for the EU-Russia cooperation rather than a bone of contention?