The Kaliningrad Challenge

The Kaliningradskaya Oblast, Russia's Baltic exclave which soon will turn into an island amid the enlarged EU and NATO, constitutes a twofold challenge to European politics: Due to its economic, social, historical, geographical, strategic and cultural peculiarities the detached region may become a source of instability. However, due to the same peculiarities the region also bears the potential to serve as a pilot-region for an EU-Russian partnership. To meet the latter perspective all actors concerned need to engage in a dialogue-based, co-ordinated, and problem-solving approach.

The book provides recommendations to a wide range of actors on how to approach the Kaliningrad challenge in a proactive manner. It starts by presenting a policy paper which was drafted by a group of Kaliningrad experts from eight countries. The Paper is then complemented by 14 issue-oriented chapters which provide in-depthreasoning on the suggestions made by the group.