Regionalisation as a Driving Force of EU Widening: Recovering from the EU ‘Carrot Crisis’ in the ‘East’

Abstract

This article focuses on the ‘globalisation-cum-regionalisation’ process in the European Union that has led to the emergence of functional macro-regions. It provides first a classification of regionalisation, and describes the organisational and mental barriers of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). The second part traces the shift of the ENP from the South to the East that has also activated the EU's pre-accession policy in the West Balkan region and the Eastern Partnership programme. Finally, it argues that the Baltic Strategy and the Danube Strategy as functional macro-regions are the main instruments to overcome the weaknesses of the incentive-based approach in the EU's conditionality (or, as it is described here, its ‘carrot crisis’).