‘Conditionality-lite’: The European Neighbourhood Policy and the EU’s Eastern Neighbours

Abstract

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has been an attempt to formulate a coherent EU-wide approach to the Union’s neighbouring countries. It expresses three related concerns of the member states and the EU as a whole: a concern for political stability on the EU’s borders, the wish to counter perceived or real negative implications of the recent round of eastward enlargement for the ‘outsiders’ to the east, and an attempt to define the endpoint of enlargement by devising an alternative to membership. Already in the early stages of policy formulation the focus of the ENP was widened rather than deepened to include ‘the ring of friendly countries’ around the EU. The ENP provides a good case study of the EU’s external relations and the aspiration to a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). As a policy package the ENP is still in the making, and its future seems uncertain. The first ENP countries have already declared EU membership their strategic objective, a powerful illustration of the fact that the EU has become a victim of its own success: enlargement has effectively reduced the incentives the EU can offer as part of its external relations.