FROM “TERRA INCOGNITA” TO STRATEGIC NEIGHBORHOOD: THE EU’S LONG ROAD TO A COHERENT SOUTH CAUCASUS POLICY

Territorial Conflict, Domestic Crisis, and the Covid-19 Pandemic in the South Caucasus. Explaining Variegated EU Responses.

1. Introduction, Meliha Benli Altunisik and Oktay F. Tanrisever Part I: The South Caucasus as a Region 2. The European Union's Region Building in the South Caucasus: The Making and Un-Making of a Region, Meliha Benli Altunisik 3. The South Caucasus as a Cusp Region: Dynamics of Regionalism in the European Borderlands, Oktay F. Tanrisever Part II: Foreign Policy 4. Georgia: Identity, Foreign Policy, and the Politics of Kornely Kakachia 5. Foreign Policy Orientations and Priorities of Armenia, Armen Grigoryan 6. Foreign Policy Postures and Priorities of Azerbaijan, Farhad Mammadov Part III: Europeanization 7. The South Caucasus and European Security, Richard Sakwa 8. The European Union and Ethno-territorial Conflicts in the South Caucasus, Gulshan Pashayeva 9. Regional Powers and Security in the Caucasus, S. Neil MacFarlane 10. Regional Cooperation Initiatives in South Caucasus, Reshad Karimov Part: IV: Energy 11. Pipeline Politics: The South Caucasus and European Energy Security, Tracey German 12. Regional Energy Cooperation along Europe's Southern Energy Corridor, John Roberts 13. The Energy Charter as a Framework for Intergovernmental Cooperation in the Energy Markets of the South Caucasus States, Marat Terterov Part V: Security 14. Russia and the South Caucasus, Peter J.S. Duncan 15. The United States, the South Caucasus, and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Cory Welt 16. European Neighbourhood Policy and the South Caucasus Challenge, Carlo Frappi

Oddly enough, much of what is happening in the South Caucasus today resembles the turmoil of the pre-Soviet era and the inter-war period of the early twentieth century. As was the case then, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are again facing the daunting task of safeguarding their state sovereignty and protecting national security. The region's unique geostrategic position is now of crucial significance for the evolution of the twenty-first century world order. While competition for energy resources is a highly geopolitical issue, the rivalry over control and influence in the South Caucasus has become an ideological factor and acquired greater strategic importance for Russia and the EU.The South Caucasus nations face the momentous choice between repeating the events of the early 1920s, when the Soviet Union was created, or those of the late 1940s, when the Marshall Plan was proposed. The return to past geopolitical models* 1 has raised interesting, yet sensitive questions. Will the current and future circumstances of competition be like those of 1917-1920 or 1947-1949, merely with new content? Are Russia, the EU and the South Caucasus going to cooperate internationally in ventures that unite them in the reconstruction of a larger Europe, or will they fail that test?What follows below is a detailed discussion analyzing the complex nature of EURussian policies towards their shared neighborhood as well as an examination of their impact on the current geopolitical landscape of the South Caucasus. It will also look mto possible ways in which the EU, Russia and partner countries could devise new approaches to mutually beneficial cooperation by recognizing the mterests of all parties involved.Changed Geopolitics of the EU-Russia Shared NeighborhoodClearly, the waves of eastern EU enlargements in 2004 and 2007, in addition to the expansion of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) and the 2009 Eastern Partnership program, have induced the EU to formulate explicit interests in the the Former Soviet Union (FSU) area. In particular, with the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the EU in 2007, the same time in which the European Commission proposed the Black Sea Synergy initiative, the South Caucasus actually became a region of direct concern to the EU's security strategy.In essence, the EU realized the importance of new incentives for closer economic and political relations with partner countries and their gradual integration into the EU economy. By offering a privileged relationship based on mutual commitment to common values, the EU opened a new chapter with an ambitious plan to broaden cooperation with its eastern neighbors. While trying to assume a greater regional role, increasing its strategic importance for the neighborhood,2 the EU's integration policies are aimed at promoting regional interests driven by various aspects. Among the most important ones are good governance, rule of law, protracted social conflicts, energy security and the fight against orgamzed crime.In practice, through action plans and association agreements, the EU has expanded its power eastwards and sought to persuade the FSU neighbors to adopt reform measures that contribute towards fostering the stability and security of their countries, and hence the well-being of the EU itself.3 As a result, the expansive logic of EU integration with the purpose of acquiring reliable partners has produced the need to spread and promote European norms and values beyond the political borders of the Union.4 In doing so, Brussels does not promise its South Caucasian neighbors eventual membership but rather tries to make the region more predictable and controllable by creating a secure geopolitical buffer for itself.There is, however, potential for tension with Russia in the eastern neighborhood. Right from the outset, Russia agreed to have a special status with the EU-Russia Common Spaces instead of participating in the ENP. However, Moscow accused Brussels of trying to carve out a new sphere of influence and on several occasions Russia has voiced concerns over the Eastern Partnership, seeing it as another attempt to extend the EU's power in the quest for energy resources. …

Abstract. This article examines the EU’s most prominent policy tool (short of further enlargement) intended to help stabilize and secure relations with its bordering states: the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). Dealing with the problem of regional stabilization has been a central rationale of the ENP and in what follows we consider how the ENP’s concern with this problem has been pursued through the framework of political dialogue with partners, focusing particularly on cooperation in external relations. There are undoubted benefits which the ENP brings to this policy domain, however the initiative is also saddled with three sets of problems. The first relates to the question of local relevance and ‘value-added’, and is a concern largely for the ENP partners. The second is the challenge of policy coherence and is played out at the EU level and among EU Member States. The third is how the ENP relates to important regional actors (principally the USA and Russia) who have the potential to both facilitate and frustrate the initiative. These three challenges frame the context for two brief regional snapshots of the ENP in action, looking at EU security relations with the South Caucasus (and Georgia more specifically) and the Middle East.

This article analyses the European Union's European Neighbourhood Policy in the context of the European Union as an actor employing normative power in international politics. The European Neighbourhood Policy can be seen as a substitute for the Union's enlargement that has previously been the main vehicle for the Union's normative power in Europe. By relinquishing enlargement, the EU is in danger of losing its capacity for effectively stabilising its nearest neighbours as well as losing its legitimacy and justification in their eyes. The article discusses whether the European Neighbourhood Policy can be seen as a fruitful way out of the Union's present conundrum. It concludes that at least in its present form the Neighbourhood Policy is far from a panacea. It suffers from a lack of legitimacy as a result of its inability to answer the neighbours' calls for full political and institutional belonging in Europe.

This chapter assesses the utility of the 'Normative Power Europe' (NPE) framework in explaining European Union (EU) external action in a troubled region of the 'new neighbourhood': the South Caucasus states of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The most pressing foreign policy challenges in these former Soviet countries include the establishment of political and economic stability and the settlement of the unresolved ethno-territorial disputes in Azerbaijan (Nagorno Karabakh) and Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia). The EU's policy towards the region falls mainly under the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), specifically the bi-lateral ENP action plans agreed in November 2006 with all three countries. Enlargement to the South Caucasus seems unlikely in the foreseeable future, but the region is situated across the Black Sea from Bulgaria and Romania, and is strategically important in oil and gas production and transit. ENP objectives emphasize the EU's goal to create a 'zone of prosperity and a friendly neighbourhood' (European Commission 2003b), and include statements on contributing to conflict resolution. However, EU policy in the region is complicated by the constellation of powerful state actors that circle the South Caucasus region: the Russian Federation, Iran and Turkey. The EU's incoherent policy towards Russia in particular impacts negatively on the EU's role in the region, particularly as EU norms compete directly with Russian norms in the de facto states established in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh, and to a certain extent in Armenia and Azerbaijan. Russian influence in the Georgian separatist territories has been consolidated since the renewal of hostilities between Georgian and South Ossetian forces in August 2008, further weakening EU normative influence in these regions.

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is inherently political in nature. The rationalistic considerations underpinning its launch and subsequent elaboration have necessarily influenced the choice of the legal framework. At the same time, the rules regulating the conduct of EU foreign policy had a reciprocal impact on policy choices made. The legislative and political developments following the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and the regional split in the policy arguably injected new dynamics into the interaction between the political and legal aspects of the ENP.The chapter traces the relationship between the political objectives and the legal framework of the ENP through three phases of its existence, with a focus on the eastern neighbourhood, comprising Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and the South Caucasus, as the addressee of the exclusionary rationale of the policy. First, the formulation and the elaboration of the initiative is revisited as the first phase of the existence of the policy. The second phase concerns the ‘Eastern Partnership’ initiative established as a result of the regional split within the policy. The third phase refers to the law and political objectives of the ENP as translated into Article 8 TEU.

The article analyzes the so-called European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) and on its basis revealed some models of EU integration. The urgency and the main reason for the emergence of the ENP were dictated by the large-scale EU expansion, the circumstances surrounding the new EU border, the challenges and threats that have arisen in the modern world. In addition, new conflicts have arisen around the EU border, including international ones, which had to be resolved, which was a relatively new area in EU policy. The development of the ENP has given new impetus to the efforts of European institutions aimed at managing or resolving conflicts, including in the territory of the former USSR states. However, as practice has shown, by 2009 the existing ENP, primarily in the field of security, was not designed to resolve these issues, either institutionally, or financially. Gradually, the importance of resolving conflicts within the ENP began to increase, and there was a need to develop it in all areas on new platforms and in new conditions. Later the Eastern Dimension of the ENP was supplemented by the so-called Eastern Partnership policy. After the financial and economic crisis, the military Georgian-Russian conflict and the escalation of conflicts in other regions, the European Union sought to comprehensively intensify relations with neighboring countries that underwent systemic changes and by the middle of 2010 the EU began a strategic review of the ENP. The turbulent events of the “Arab Spring” and subsequent events in Ukraine have confirmed the relevance and timeliness of such a review of the ENP. The European Union thus sought to intensify cooperation with neighboring and more distant countries in all areas. The European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) after 2010 is a new approach of the European Union to neighboring countries with the aim of strengthening relations, cooperation to create a security and welfare zone, formation a “ring of friendly countries” on their borders. The ENP is also intended to provide the EU neighboring countries with an opportunity for closer cooperation in the field of politics, security, economy and culture on new norms and standards. Therefore, we need the research of scientists and specialists in the direction of systematization of knowledge about the ENP.

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is modelled on the institutional and procedural experience of the EU's eastward enlargement, although it explicitly excludes a membership perspective. It thus aims to define an alternative incentive for domestic reform in neighbouring countries, referred to as ‘a stake in the internal market’. This article suggests that the ENP amounts to a form of ‘conditionality-lite’ for non-candidate countries. Within the ENP the key defining elements of conditionality—clear incentive and enforcement structures—are vague for both the EU and its neighbouring countries. Thus, the ENP is conceptually and empirically weak when measured against a simple, rationalist conditionality model. In line with the alternative understanding of conditionality as a process rather than a clear-cut variable, the main function of the ENP is twofold: it provides an external reference point which domestic political actors in the ENP countries can choose to utilise when it fits their agenda (both pro-EU or anti-EU); and a loose framework for socialisation. This process of socialisation involves both the EU and the ENP countries. Through an analysis of the ENP process in Ukraine and Moldova it concludes that while the ENP tries to prevent a repeat of the EU's ‘rhetorical entrapment’ in further eastward enlargement, it paradoxically paves the way for a ‘procedural entrapment’ in ENP countries that harbour membership aspirations and provides a momentum, though not a guarantee, for conflict resolution.

The promotion of regional cooperation has been a central feature of the European Union (EU)'s external relations. Forms of sub-regional cooperation are deemed to be essential confidence-building measures, as a means of consolidating a shared community of values, practices and interests. This article looks at region-building processes in the EU's relations with the South Caucasus, as the interface between the existing approaches and the ensuing practices. It argues that the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership (EaP) in particular have some critical limitations for effective region-building in the South Caucasus, mainly pertaining to the endorsement of artificial regional labels, limited ability to balance multilateral and bilateral approaches, and poor local ownership of identity-building processes. At the same time, the EaP offers some interesting possibilities for the development of a variable-geometry regional approach, in which these states could be included.

The paper examines the policy of the European Un-ion in the South Caucasus as part of the EU com-mon political framework. The policy in the region is analyzed through the example of its main compo-nents, namely the European Neighborhood Policy and partnership. The research also draws attention to the factors influencing the development of rela-tions between the South Caucasus and the EU. Spe-cial consideration is given to the development of the Caucasus with regard to domestic and external policy. It is concluded that, despite the fairly active policy in the region, the European Union can hardly involve the South Caucasus states in its sphere of influence. Moreover, it is noted that today the EU continues its struggle for strategic influence in the region under consideration. In spite of this, the South Caucasus needs European integration which can ensure growth and stable development. In this regard it is necessary to build effective national and regional mechanisms which will help to achieve mu-tual understanding and trust relationships between the nations.

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) seeks to answer difficult questions of EU foreign policy after the Eastern enlargement: how to deal with the next ring of diverse EU neighbours bonded only by their proximity to the EU. The ENP attempts to do so through a methodology successfully tested during enlargement: political conditionality. In the case of enlargement, it is about a system of unilateral commitments of partner countries to EU political values in exchange for delayed EU benefits, in particular, a membership perspective. However, the ENP offers no membership perspective, but only access to EU instruments already available to partner countries. It is argued that this difference undermines ENP effectiveness. In a case study of EU–Ukraine relations in 2004–2007, this paper demonstrates that the mechanical transfer of political conditionality to the ENP without an EU membership perspective makes the methodology futile as it loses legitimacy in the eyes of the partner countries. At the same time, available ENP instruments cannot provide a reliable substitute as they favour vested EU interests and depend on cooperation with partner countries, and therefore do little to achieve ENP political objectives.

The Economics of the 'European Neighbourhood Policy': An Initial Assessment

Focusing on Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus, this chapter analyzes how the model of integration proposed by the European Union (EU) to neighbouring countries has played out since the early 2000s, when the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) was launched. It starts by reviewing the ENP against other models of integration offered to third countries. The chapter then scrutinizes the leverage used by the EU to induce domestic change in its neighbourhood in the absence of a membership perspective. Finally, it analyzes how far ENP countries have come in adopting and applying EU norms and templates. The chapter argues that the Eastern Partnership (EaP, designed as the umbrella framework for EU–eastern neighbours relations) can no longer be regarded as a single model of relations with the EU. Its relevance and sustainability are undermined by the extreme differentiation in neighbours’ modes and levels of integration with the EU, which results from partner countries’ miscellaneous aspirations and preferences in their relations with the EU.

Fifteen years have passed since the European Union launched the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). Despite the EU’s attempts to reload the ENP, first in 2011 and later in 2015, in response to challenges in the neighbourhood, the ENP continues to suffer from a credibility-expectations gap. This article argues that understanding neighbour perceptions of the ENP offers useful insights about the ENP. Supported by twenty-five interviews with Georgian and Ukrainian public officials, the article unveils the EU’s credibility challenge in the Eastern neighbourhood caused by a gap between the EU’s own perception of its role and the role expectations held by the ENP partners, as well as a gap between partners’ expectations and the EU’s performance on the ground. The lack of coherence, legitimacy and consistency has undermined the credibility of the ENP in the eyes of its Eastern partners. The latest review of the ENP does not seem to address the credibility challenge.