The European Union’s Policy towards its Eastern Neighbours: The Crisis in Ukraine

The European Union’s neighbourhood is complex and still far from being stable. In Ukraine, significant progress has occurred in many areas of transition; however, much work remains to be done, especially in the field of regional development and governance where many legacies of the Soviet model remain. At the crossroads between East and West, Ukraine presents an interesting case of policy development as an expression of European Union (EU) external governance. This paper asks the question: why was the relationship between the EU and Ukraine fairly unsuccessful at promoting stability in the region and in Ukraine? What was missing in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in Ukraine that rendered the EU unable to prevent a conflict on the ground? By identifying security, territorial, and institutional challenges and opportunities the EU has faced in Ukraine, this paper underlines the most important factors accounting for the performance of its external governance and crisis management in Ukraine.
 
 Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v12i2.1310

The role of bounded rationality in explaining the European Neighbourhood Policy: the Eastern dimension

ABSTRACTThe Ukraine crisis presented a severe geopolitical challenge to European Union (EU) policies in the neighbourhood. This is because during the course of the crisis, Russia openly challenged the EU’s economic and political integration initiatives in the region using economic, informational and eventually military means. As such, the crisis and its escalation has had ramifications across the EU in the fields of security, trade, energy security and regional cooperation. In the wake of the crisis, a clear rhetorical break with previous EU policy was announced by various key actors to respond to these challenges. Yet both the rhetoric and declared ambition for reform in response to the events is not matched by a major revision of actual policy objectives or policy tools. The question at the core of this article is how to explain the changes made to the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) following the Ukraine crisis. In order to provide an answer this article will build on historical institutionalism, exploring how two key historical institutionalist insights improve our understanding of the policy changes made to the ENP after the Ukraine crisis: (i) the institutional ‘effects’ and plasticity of the ENP institutions and (ii) temporal contingency. In doing so, this article takes issue with two tendencies in the current literature on policy change in the ENP. First, the lack of analytical engagement with the very notion of policy change, which throughout the literature is rarely defined or conceptualized. Second, the prevailing assumption that one should not be surprised that in the case of ENP reform after the Ukraine crisis there has been little change, due to the prevalence of policy inertia. It is argued that this oversimplifies both policy continuity and policy change. By paying particular attention to the decision-making process preceding change, this article thus aims to shed new light on the issue of EU foreign policy change.

The European Union (EU) seeks to promote democratic values in third countries, and in the case of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) as an aspect of the EU external governance it aims to contribute to their approximation to the European norms and rules. This chapter offers a review of the EU’s democracy promotion in countries in its eastern and southern neighborhood through the ENP, its models and mechanisms, as well as the two approaches to democracy promotion: the transfer of the institutional democratic framework and of the principles of accountability, transparency and active citizen participation. Conditionality and differentiation as tools of democracy promotion in the neighboring countries, as well as intervening factors as countries’ aspirations and interests and EU’s coherence in the cooperation are assessed.

This article examines the economic aspects of European Union (EU) policy toward its eastern neighbors in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). This region was long considered less important for the EU in comparison with Central and Eastern Europe, which was the subject of farreaching economic and political integration during the two EU eastern enlargements (2004, 2007). However, moving the EU's geographical frontier further to the east and southeast increased the importance of the CIS region as a potential partner of the enlarged EU. In 2004, East European and Caucasus countries were invited to participate in the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) a new EU external framework that also addressed the southern Mediterranean countries. Russia has been attempting to build a strategic political and economic partnership with the EU outside the ENP framework but the content of this relationship is, in fact, very similar to the ENP. A general weakness of the ENP is that there is a lack of balance between far-reaching expectations with respect to neighbors' policies and reforms, and limited and distant rewards that can potentially be offered. Thus, making this cooperation framework more effective requires a serious enhancement of the rewards using, to the extent possible, the positive experience of previous EU enlargements. The nature of contemporary economic relations in the globalized world calls for taking a more complex package-type approach to economic integration rather than limiting cooperation to some narrow fields.

Fostering peace and stability has been a key aim of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), but its effective impact on conflicts has been marginal. This article analyses the ENP’s security dimension through the conceptual prism of coherence. As a policy cutting across functional domains and governance levels the ENP faces horizontal and vertical coherence challenges. The empirical analysis focuses on two cases lying at the intersection of the ENP and comprehensive European Union (EU) crisis management: the EU’s responses to the Syrian and Libyan conflicts between 2011 and 2016. The analysis shows that the EU has gradually redirected ENP funds to short-term security- and migration-related goals. However, the EU has failed to ensure vertical coherence in the field of high politics. The externalities of the Libyan and Syrian conflicts might foster national preference convergence and thereby increase vertical coherence. While this should strengthen the ENP’s security dimension, the risk is that the policy’s distinct character as a tool for structural conflict prevention is diluted within an ever broadening comprehensive approach that focuses on conflict symptoms rather than root causes.

The European Union (EU), following its 2004 big bang enlargement toward the central and eastern European countries Cyprus and Malta found itself facing a new group of neighboring countries (i.e., new borders). In response, the EU devised a new policy, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), adopted in 2004, which encompasses two different geographical regions for the EU’s 16 neighbors: Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Belarus in the East and Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, and Tunisia in the South Mediterranean. The ENP aimed to promote political and economic transformation in the EU’s periphery and stabilize the European borders with its key instruments. To do so, Association Agreements together with Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements, Action Plans, Partnership Priorities, and Single Support Frameworks were adopted. The ENP was revised twice, in 2011 and in 2015, to respond to the ongoing challenges that the EU and its neighboring countries face. The ENP’s evolution included multicountry, regional plans, the Union for the Mediterranean and the Eastern Partnership, adopted in 2008 and 2009, respectively. The ENP’s effectiveness could be assessed in terms of its ability to stabilize the EU’s neighbouring countries, as well as in promoting political, economic, and governance-related reforms. The ENP’s revisions with the “more for more/less for principle” in 2011 and a stronger EU presence in the region in 2015 with the emphasis on building “resilience” rather than diffusion of European norms and rules were all adopted to enable the realization of its main objectives. However, the variation among the partner countries, the domestic scope conditions, and scope conditions such as the EU’s vertical and horizontal policy incoherence, coupled with the presence of other international actors, constrained the ENP’s effectiveness. The ENP as an attempt to create a “ring of friends” around the EU failed to realize its objectives, and instead the EU is surrounded now with a “ring of fire.”

Black Sea Region has been extensively on the agenda of the European Union (EU) since Romania and Bulgaria’s membership in 2007. In 2008 the EU created “Black Sea Synergy” as a regional initiative in order to develop cooperation in the region in certain areas such as energy, transport and environment. Countries that take part in the Black Sea Synergy, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine are also part of “Eastern Partnership” which is another initiative simultaneously established with “Black Sea Synergy” as a part of the wider policy “European Neighbourhood Policy” (ENP). Besides some EU member states, Turkey, an official candidate country to the EU since 1999, and Russia, a so-called strategic partner of the EU are significant actors in the “Black Sea Synergy” initiative although they are not included in ENP. The initiative comprises various common practices with similar initiatives of the EU, such as providing financial assistance, supporting economic development and stability as well as encouraging economic and democratic reforms. Although the EU attempts to take initiative in solving the conflicts and increase security in the region, it has significant deficiencies in conducting these policies as the literature indicates. This article aims to analyse the “Black Sea Synergy” in light of the recent developments regarding Turkey’s deteriorating relations with the EU and Russia’s annexation of Crimea and destabilization of Eastern Ukraine. The article attempts to answer “to what extent do these developments affect “Black Sea Synergy”? and argues that, although the “Black Sea Synergy” is an initiative mainly comprising technical projects in some key sectors, the crisis in Ukraine and the relations between Turkey and the EU have exacerbated the “challenge” confronted by the EU in terms of implementing the objectives of the initiative. Obviously the political development of the “Black Sea Synergy” continues to be dependent on reciprocal relations between the EU, Russia and Turkey in light of the current events. However the technical character of the Black Sea Synergy has the potential to maintain the contacts between the partners despite the political disagreements among them. All in all, a cooperative environment with Turkey and Russia will provide a common ground for achieving the EU’s general objectives in the Black Sea region despite the prevalence of structural deficiencies of the EU as a foreign policy actor.

As we have witnessed in the first few weeks of 2011, the Tunisian and the Egyptian people have promoted a fundamental change in government and leadership within their countries. In the case of Egypt, the direction and likeliness of a deep societal democratization process are still unclear. The role and ability of foreign actors such as the European Union (EU) and its member states to support this process have so far not been shaped into a new political strategy of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). Before the Arab revolutions of 2011, the foreign policy of the EU towards the Mediterranean countries was often characterized by the dilemma between the EU's stability and democratization goals. The change from the EMP to the ENP was assumed to imply a reorientation of EU foreign policy goals from a normative long-term oriented democratization to a strategic short-term stabilization of authoritarian systems on the Southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. This ambivalence of EU foreign policy is due to the environment of authoritarian rule and restrictions it has had to act within during the last few decades. The article will first give an empirical overview of the ENP policy towards Egypt. The empirical results show a multilayer policy of the EU, containing different goals and working with a combination of interest-based and normatively oriented tools. In this respect, the ENP towards Egypt mirrors the ambivalent objectives and ideas of the EU's role in the Southern Mediterranean. Secondly, the article will survey the first EU initiatives and actions after the revolution in Egypt. It will analyse the short-, medium- and long-term steps of the EU to support the starting process of democratic and economic transition and compare them with the existing ENP policies in order to identify commonalities and changes in the EU approach. The normative questions on the democratic power of the EU will be discussed in this context.

1. IntroductionThe European Union (EU) seeks to strengthen the integration capacity of new members, current and potential candidates as well as its Eastern neighbors by helping them to make their domestic institutions and policies conform to the EU's norms and values and by building their capacity to provide collective goods and services. Modes of economic integration aim at mitigating competitive asymmetries and fostering the sustainability of EU market rules. Modes of political integration, in turn, aim to promote democratization and democratic consolidation, and to strengthen governance capacities of new and non-members.EU membership has been considered the key factor in strengthening the integration capacity of post-communist countries in the context of Eastern enlargement. Accordingly, the ineffectiveness of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in bringing about the domestic change that conforms to the EU's expectations tends to be blamed on the lack of this golden carrot. Likewise, the stalling of domestic reforms in current and potential candidates (Albania, Turkey, Bosnia Herzegovina, and Macedonia) as well as the potential back-sliding of some of the new member states (Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Latvia, cf. Borzel 2014) are explained by the carrot already being eaten up or not being juicy enough (any more). At the same time, however, we do find that Eastern Neighbourhood Countries (ENC) engage in domestic reforms the EU has been promoting, mostly at the policy level (Langbein/ Borzel 2013) but in some cases also with regard to political institutions (Borzel/van Hullen 2014b).This paper reviews the literature regarding the modes of political integration the EU has developed and applied to shape state-building, democracy and rule of law in the new member states, in the current and potential candidates of the Western Balkans, and in the ENC. The first part develops an analytical framework of modes of political integration that combines two concepts: the mechanisms the EU uses to induce political change and the actors targeted by the EU with these mechanisms in its attempt to shape their preferences and build their reform capacities. Particular attention is paid to more indirect mechanisms, such as competition and emulation, which the Europeanization literature with its focus on conditionality and assistance has overlooked so far. The second part uses this framework to make an inventory of the EU's modes of political integration systematically tracing their evolution over time. The analysis draws on a comprehensive review of the general literature complemented by the findings of four separate case studies on the EU's attempts at promoting and protecting rule of law as well as strengthening the governance capacities in past candidates and new members (Dimitrova 2015), current and potential candidates (Fagan 2015; Mufteler- Bac 2015 a), and the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries (Borzel/Lebanidze 2015). I show that the EU's political modes of integration developed through an incremental process of learning by doing rather than through a great master plan by the EU to strengthen the integration capacities of new and non-members. These political modes initially emerged in the development cooperation of the EU with the so-called African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States (ACP), then travelled to the Eastern enlargement process and to the ENP and finally also spilled over into the domestic politics of the EU vis-a-vis its new member states.This might suggest that the EU has pursued a one size fits all approach. The analysis indeed reveals some interesting similarities of the modes used by the EU to promote the integration of new member states, candidates, and neighborhood countries. These similarities have been propelled by the lessons the EU has learned over time. While conditionality continues to play a prominent role, it has become more differentiated, both with regard to the rewards offered and the benchmark set to obtain them. …

In early 2014, a series of dramatic crises in Ukraine generated headlines around the world. Most scholarly attention was placed on the tensions between the West and Russia, and the emergence of a new Cold War, especially following Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula and its military incursion in eastern Ukraine. The relations between Ukraine and the European Union (EU) have often been reduced to debates on whether the EU was to blame for the conflict, having “sleepwalked” into the Ukraine crisis by focusing on technical trade issues and failing to recognize the delicate geopolitical context. Other analysts pointed to the EU’s pursuit of regional hegemony, which has failed to recognize Russia’s legitimate geopolitical and economic interests in Ukraine. In practice, Ukraine‒EU relations have been more complex and nuanced, certainly when considering that Ukraine already declared its ambition to “return to Europe” and to seek EU membership with its proclamation of independence, in 1991. Ukraine-EU relations are perhaps best understood along four levels of inquiry. The first is domestic dynamics in Ukraine. Since the end of the Cold War, all Ukrainian governments have underlined the “Europeanness” of Ukraine and have also by and large followed a pro-EU course in their foreign policies, including the government under pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. However, Ukraine’s European choice has often been limited to foreign-policy declarations. Even the pro-European and reform-oriented governments that led Ukraine after the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2014 Maidan Square protests struggled to introduce far-reaching reforms because of the power of the “iron triangle” of oligarchic rule, corruption, and financial instability. The second line of inquiry concerns Ukraine-Russia relations. Since gaining independence, Ukraine’s strategy has been one of limited participation in Russia’s post-Soviet regional integration initiatives in order to safeguard its independence. However, Russia always used “sticks and carrots” vis-à-vis Ukraine to further its own policy objectives, ranging from offering gas-price discounts to cutting off gas supplies, imposing import bans on Ukrainian produce, and, since 2014, threatening and using the military to force Ukraine to acquiesce to its demands. A third line of inquiry is the EU’s policy toward Ukraine, based on bilateral relations and cooperation through the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership. The EU has approached Ukraine as one among several neighbors in its attempt to build a ring of well-governed countries along its borders. Although the EU’s enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe generated more interest in Ukraine, member states have consistently ruled out EU membership for Ukraine. A fourth theme of inquiry is that of EU-Russia relations in the wider international context. Throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s, the EU clearly prioritized good political and economic relations with Russia over its relationship with its neighbors in the East, including Ukraine. Even when Russia annexed Crimea and when evidence of the role of Russian forces in eastern Ukraine had become impossible to ignore, the EU struggled to find a common stance on Russia.

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.

The European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) seeks, among other things, to promote human rights in the EU's closest eastern and southern neighbors. The European Union (EU) was formed in 1993. The ENP, on the other hand, was first outlined by the European Commission in 2003. Respecting human rights is considered to be one of the most basic criteria that Europe’s neighboring countries must meet, in order to join the ENP. This article examines the impact of the ENP on the human right situation in one of the EU’s neighbors in the south, Tunisia. It also assesses the extent to which Tunisia has been committed under relevant UN human rights conventions. This article argues that the EU has not been successful in distributing and promoting norms such as respect for human rights in Tunisia. It clarifies how the EU has failed to meet its main objectives with regard to the human rights situation in this country.

This article analyses the role of narratives in European Union (EU) external relations in the revised European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and systematically explores how they operate in practice in the context of the EU's border management practices vis-à-vis the “southern borderlands”, in particular with respect to their inclusionary and exclusionary potential. Key EU documents and statements by EU agents, released throughout the first three years of Arab uprisings and pertaining to the revised ENP, will be subjected to a thorough examination which highlights four observations: first, in spite of the fact that the revised ENP is rooted in several narratives, some nevertheless dominate over others; second, the simultaneous presence of and recourse to different narratives contribute to an increase, rather than a decrease, of uncertainty in the EU's southern borderlands; third, despite a multitude of narratives which serve to legitimize EU action in the framework of the revised ENP, the latter perpetuates the logics of its predecessor by generating benefits mainly for the EU itself; fourth, that the first three years of the revised ENP have in practice demonstrated that an imbalance exists between on the one hand the original acceptance of the narratives by EU stakeholders and on the other hand their willingness to abide by them and fill them with life.

ABSTRACTThe article seeks to advance the understanding of the shifting European Union (EU)-Russia interaction in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus by exploring both the EU’s policies and responses to Russia’s initiatives in the region. Drawing on different strands of literature (regionalism, international relations and EU foreign policy analysis), it identifies three scope conditions under which to expect EU policies to influence the interaction with Russia in the shared neighbourhood: the degree of integration offered to post-Soviet countries as part of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)/Eastern Partnership (EaP); the extent to which the EU seeks to link Russia with the ENP/EaP; and the degree of internal coherence on the EU’s interaction with Russia. The article argues that all three conditions have contributed to shaping interaction with Russia, albeit to different degrees. It is primarily the EU’s new role of a region-builder as part of the EaP that triggered Russia’s counter-actions, thereby resulting in a growing competition for influence in what has become a contested neighbourhood.