Over the past decade, new trade agreements between the EU and Eastern Partnership countries have come into force, with food standards playing a central role in both negotiations and implementation. Compliance with EU food safety regulations, particularly under Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements (DCFTAs), is a prerequisite for achieving equivalence, facilitating the export of domestic products to the EU market. However, even for countries without a DCFTA, the EU remains a key trade partner, influencing food safety policies and regulatory practices. This paper examines domestic perspectives on evolving trade relations with the EU, focusing on how food safety standards are understood and implemented by domestic elites, producers, and consumers. We begin by outlining the EU’s expectations and the diffusion of sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures in Eastern Partnership countries. Drawing on interviews conducted between 2011 and 2025 as part of multiple international research projects, we then analyze how the EU food safety system has been received in Armenia and Georgia—two neighboring countries with differing contractual frameworks with the EU. Adopting an actor-centered approach, we argue that shifting trade relations with the EU have led to new actor constellations and coalitions in the food sector in both countries.