Revising the EU’s European Neighborhood Policy: The Eastern Partnership and Russia

Abstract

As is well known, the European Union (EU) initially intended to include Russia in its European Neighborhood Policy (ENP). Russia’s rejection of this approach and insistence on a more equal “strategic partnership” set the EU’s eastern policy on a two-track mode.1 In other words, through the ENP one set of policies and priorities was established for non-member countries constituting the western (i.e., non-Central Asian) Soviet successor states, along with countries in the Mediterranean region and North Africa. In parallel, the EU continued to develop its relationship with Russia based on the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), which went into effect in December 1997, augmented by the Four Common Spaces (Economic Space, Space of Freedom, Security and Justice, Space of External Security, Space of Research and Education) and the associated Roadmaps (see Commission, 2010). Since its initiation in 2004 ENP has undergone some revisions, particularly based on an assessment in late 2006, but most recently with the launch of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) policy in May 2009, directed at six of the European ENP countries (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine). At the same time, in the face of fits, delays, and starts, the EU-Russia relationship has continued on a different track, now at the stage of negotiating a new EU-Russia agreement to replace the 1997 PCA.