Region-building in the eastern neighbourhood: assessing EU regional policies in the South Caucasus

Abstract

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.