Abstracts Osteuropa 2-3/2007

Georg Vobruba
Expansion without enlargement. The EU Neighbourhood Policy in the dynamic of Europe

The European Union developed the European Neighbourhood Policy as an alternative to the enlargement policy. It offers a modified political trade-off. The European Union is no longer holding out the prospect of membership to neighbours, but instead a special relationship in exchange for them maintaining stability on the periphery. This policy feeds on the expansionary dynamic of the EU. However, it has reached its limit. In the ENP, the EU also understands itself as an exporter of values. How successful it is depends on the periphery’s readiness to cooperate. The calculus behind cooperation and the neighbours’ alternatives need to be considered more than has so far been the case.

Arkadi Moshes
In search of priorities. The EU, Russia, and their common neighbours

The European Union maintains a strategic partnership with Russia and seeks to maintain privileged relations with its neighbours in the east. Increasingly, Russian and EU interests are colliding in this neighbourhood. Moscow assesses the Neighbourhood Policy as an attempt to displace Russia from the region and has an allergic reaction to democratization. But it would be wrong for the EU to reduce its engagement in this realm. Brussels must be prepared to assume more responsibility. Democracy and market economics, not the region’s geo-political reorientation, should have priority. In this way, the neighbouring countries could keep their ties with Russia. And Russia would no longer suspect the EU of pursuing a policy according to the rules of a zero-sum game.

Egbert Jahn
Stretching and overstretching. On the integration contest between Brussels and Moscow as Europe reaches the end of its ability to integrate

In the 1990s, Russia lost more and more of its potential as an alternative centre of integration to the European Union and NATO. The competition in integration between Brussels and Moscow was reduced to a competition for membership in the EU and for privileged relations with Brussels, the only dynamic centre which promised prosperity, security, political stability, liberty, and democratization. At the same time, the EU’s integrating force is limited. Economically and institutionally, the EU may not be overextended by admitting its eastern European neighbours. Politically, however, this cannot be pushed through at present. The bilateral policy of democratization, which is driven by vague promises of accession, should be replaced by a clear policy of regionalization which promotes democracy, rule of law, and market economics in regional associations on the EU’s external border.

Iris Kempe
Between aspirations and reality. The European Neighbourhood Policy

In the European Neighbourhood Policy, the European Union is pursuing a lofty aim. It wants to create a ring of friendly states from the Barents Sea to the Mediterranean and thus guarantee security and stability beyond the EU’s external borders. The new offers of cooperation embrace numerous fields of policy, but exclude accession to the European Union. The ENP is therefore marginally suitable to create security and stability in bordering states.

Barbara Lippert
Participation instead of membership? The EU and the neighbours in the East

The European Neighbourhood Policy lacks momentum and persuasiveness. Unlike the enlargement policy, the ENP does not have European Union membership as a goal. The course of development and the room for manoeuvring are correspondingly different. Renegotiation of the “expanded agreements” with the eastern neighbours provides the starting point for boosting the ENP in terms of substance. The ENP could be better understood as a Europeanization strategy for modernizing the countries in question and guaranteeing stability. An all-European confederation of tasks should be formed with the EU’s neighbours.

Clara M. O’Donnell, Richard G. Whitman
The phantom carrot. A flaw in the ENP’s construction

The European Union seeks to spread stability, democracy, rule of law, and market economics to the states along its external borders. To encourage the neighbouring states to reform, the EU is offering a number of incentives via the European Neighbourhood Policy. These, however, are far from enough. The only leverage for reform which could work would be the prospect of EU membership. The EU, however, has so far been unable to make this decision. Thus Ukraine, for example, is chasing a phantom.

Elsa Tulmets
Old wine in new programmes. From EU enlargement to ENP

The instruments of the European Neighbourhood Policy were derived from the European Union’s eastern enlargement policy. What were once accession criteria are now “common values”. Although accession is not on offer to the EU’s neighbours and the ENP bases relations with the EU on the principles of partnership, differentiation, and ownership, the ENP states are being subjected de facto to conditionality. That the ENP encourages rivalry between the EU’s neighbours for best and quickest compliance with the acquis communautaire and undermines regional cooperation also poses problems. Finally, some of the instruments from the eastern enlargement policy are not so easily transferred to the ENP states, and several member states are thwarting the opening of EU programmes for neighbouring states by means of a restrictive visa policy.

Sebastian Lentz, Frank Meyer, Judith Miggelbrink, Christoph Waack
Regionalization. The dimension of space in EU policy

“Region” has become a key concept in the European Union. The concept embraces various dimensions of spatial and political order. Regions are operating units in the multi-level system of European governance, instruments for addressing border problems, players and recipients in structural policy, functional constructions, or associations of states.

Gerold Janssen
Cross-border regional cooperation. European associations for territorial cooperation

Cross-border cooperation plays an important role in European integration due to the strategic position and function of border regions. The European Union has harmonized its numerous developmental instruments for cooperation in internal and external EU borders. In addition, it created the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) for the European Neighbourhood Policy. Moreover, the amended cohesion policy for EU territory allows for the establishment of the cross-border European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC). The ENPI can be linked with the EGTC so that transnational infrastructure projects and environmental projects can be carried out on the EU’s external border.

Steffi Franke
The border which doesn’t want to be. Exclusion and inclusion on the eastern border

People from the borderlands are warning that new barriers are being established on the European Union’s eastern border. Cross-border cooperation is important in countering this. Borders do not necessarily have to mean exclusion. Developments on the Polish sector of the EU’s new external border show this. The contradictions of this border concept are reflected in the neighbourhood programme. The simultaneity of apparently incompatible practices, which in turn give rise to new room for manoeuvring, is typical.

Wilfried Görmar
Baltic sea cooperation. A blueprint for transnational development and cooperation between the EU and its neighbours?

Nowhere in Europe is cross-border cooperation so close as in the Baltic Sea area. In the last decade and a half, a dense network of cooperation has come into being which not only crosses state borders within the European Union, but goes beyond the EU’s new borders. This can be traced back to unique historical and geographical conditions. Nonetheless, experience gained in coordinating strategic transnational development projects in other large European areas on the EU’s external borders can be used.

Olga Shumylo
The land outside. The ENP from Ukraine’s point of view

For those Ukrainians who would like to see their country in the European Union, the European Neighbourhood Policy is a poor substitute. Hopes that the ENP would promote democratization and economic reforms have also gone unfulfilled. EU plans for ENP reform are fuelling these hopes anew. Despite its many deficits, the new concept contains several points which – should they be implemented – could mean stronger integration of Ukraine in the EU short of full membership. More explicit priorities, clearer incentives, more technical and financial support by the EU, and, above all, an expansion of economic and trade relations by means of “enhanced” free trade would be the best guarantee for producing an economic upswing and anchoring Ukraine in Europe.

Lior Herman, Evgeny Finkel
Application of a dual standard? ENP Action Plans: Israel und Ukraine

From the perspective of the European Union, Ukraine and Israel play a key role in their respective regions. However, this special status is expressed differently in the EU’s Action Plans for these two countries. While the EU offers Israel closer bilateral relations and makes certain concessions regarding its security interests, the Action Plan for Ukraine is less the certificate of a community of values between partners with equal rights than a one-sided catalogue of instructions aimed at Ukraine without giving the country the prospect of EU accession. The comparison exposes a partial discrepancy between the European Neighbourhood Policy’s stated goals and its realization in the Action Plans as well as the difficulty of applying mechanisms from the EU enlargement process to different non-candidate countries.

Azer Babayev
Strategy and democracy. Azerbaijan and the European Neighbourhood Policy

In November 2006, Azerbaijan took two important steps towards integration into Europe. Baku and Brussels signed a memorandum on energy partnership as well as an Action Plan as part of the European Neighbourhood Policy. President Aliev’s regime in Baku pledged itself to democracy and rule of law. There is much to suggest that this was lip service. The European Union’s energy policy and security policy interests in a partnership with Azerbaijan are far too big to place at risk because of Azerbaijan’s domestic policy. Moreover, Baku has an alternative cooperation partner in Russia, which is even less interested in civil and human rights.

Sigrid Faath
The ENP in Northern Africa and the Middle East. Perceptions, expectations, and problems

The countries of Northern Africa and the Middle East have been integrated in the multi-lateral Euro-Mediterranean partnership with the European Union since 1995. The Arab states reacted to the European Neighbourhood Policy with scepticism. Nevertheless, the EU concluded agreements with Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority. The resulting Action Plans define fields of cooperation and reform goals. But there are numerous domestic and foreign policy factors which stand in the way of improved cooperation between the EU and North African and Middle Eastern ENP states. The opportunities in economics and development look best; by contrast, guidelines in politics and social affairs were interpreted as interference in domestic affairs and rejected.

Valentina Chaplinskaya
Local (co)operation. EU projects in Russia’s northwest

Russia is not an addressee of the EU Neighbourhood Policy. But it can make use of funding from the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument. Brussels has been supporting trans-border cooperation in Russia’s northwest since 1991. The TACIS-CBS-Programme alone has promoted 400 projects in local economic development and in the fields of energy and environment. The concepts of regional policy ideas are increasingly parting ways. While the European Union is betting on decentralization, Moscow is aiming for control and recentralization. Towns and communities have little room to manoeuvre for their own projects. Legal and technical circumstances make cooperation difficult. Despite this, Russia’s regions have developed from passive recipients of subsidies to competent and responsible partners.

Alexei Sekarev
Neighbourhood in the province. Enquiries in western Ukraine

The European Neighbourhood Policy has special implications for borderlands of neighbouring countries. In the example of Ukraine, it has been shown that, in addition to the central government, regional and communal administrations, chambers of industry and commerce, and non-governmental organizations must prove themselves capable of reforming, so as to boost competitiveness and make themselves fit for a sector-by-sector integration into the European Union’s internal market and for the adaptation of EU norms and standards. This policy offers a chance to modernize western Ukraine’s economy and administration.

Kirsten Westphal
Liberalized, monopolized, and fixed. Antinomies of the European energy market

The European Union defines cooperation in energy policy as a key issue in the Neighbourhood Policy. Since 2006, the EU has tried to promote supply security, sustainability, and competition as principles of energy policy in neighbouring countries. With that, the EU has taken a new direction in both energy policy and geo-strategy. However, competition in the energy sector has already run up against claims of national sovereignty within the EU. The expansion of the EU energy policy in the broader region is a difficult but important element in the institutionalization of international energy relations.

Wilhelm Knelangen
Neighbours in freedom, security, and law? Judicial and home affairs policy: Ambivalences of the ENP

The European Union is dependent on cooperation with its neighbours to create a “space of freedom, security, and rule of law”. Therefore, topics of domestic and judicial policy – asylum and immigration, domestic security, the fight against terrorism – are of the utmost importance for the success of the European Neighbourhood Policy. Furthermore, home affairs policy and judicial policy are inseparable from democracy and rule of law, the key issues in the ENP as a whole. However, it is questionable whether conditionality is effective as leverage for transformation. Furthermore, conflicting aims exist between cooperation in security policy and reform guidelines in the rule of law. The results are therefore modest so far.

Anita Szymborska
Friendly EU border. Claims and reality of EU visa policy

The European Union is always quick to appear on the scene with avowals of sympathy for democracy movements in eastern Europe. The friendship stops with visa policy, however. Monitoring carried out by the Warsaw-based Stefan Batory Foundation shows that, despite relaxations on paper, visa policy is being used to place enormous hurdles in the way of the citizens of Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and Russia when it comes to visas for the Schengen area. The new EU member states, first and foremost Poland, see themselves forced to adjust their liberal visa policy vis-à-vis eastern neighbours, so as to conform with the more restrictive Schengen legislation. Even a new agreement between the EU and Ukraine on relaxing visa regulations brings only questionable progress.

Annegret Bendiek
Building border regimes. Migration in the Neighbourhood Policy

The European Neighbourhood Policy, which is directed at its 16 neighbouring countries, is a very recent European foreign policy initiative. The western Balkans and Turkey are covered by other EU programmes and are therefore not ENP partners. In the fields of Justice and Home affairs as well as migration, the European Union intends to use the ENP to establish a border regime based on three pillars: a) foreign policy, b) securing borders, and c) maintaining standards of basic and human rights. Building a border regime requires that the EU and the ENP states, acting in a sense of joint ownership, regularly re-negotiate and adjust the balance between cornerstones.

Lili Di Puppo
Good governance or security? EU anti-corruption policy in the southern Caucasus

European Neighbourhood Policy aims to spread democracy and rule of law to the European Union’s neighbours. Simultaneously, it responds to external security threats along EU borders. With that, the ENP combines the normative instruments of enlargement policy with a strategic foreign policy agenda. This is revealed in EU anti-corruption policy as well. In the process, the EU runs the risk that its security policy goals will run counter to the goals of the ENP states. In addition, the ENP’s approach, which is tailored to the states of the 2004 round of enlargement, misses the mark when it comes to the problems of countries such as Georgia, which find themselves in the state-building phase.

Natascha Wessel
Cooperation in non-proliferation. European-Ukrainian export controls to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction

The European Union sees the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction as a major security threat. To contain proliferation, it is trying to strengthen export control agencies in other countries. Commissioned by the EU, the Federal Office for Economic and Export Controls is examining the external economic law in Ukraine, giving advice on how to meet European standards and international non-proliferation regimes and schooling civil servants and entrepreneurs.

Irina Albrecht, Claudia Topp
Cooperation in export control. European-Russian cooperation to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction

The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction poses a threat to world peace and international security. The European Union has dedicated itself to the struggle against proliferation. To that end, it is trying to strengthen export control agencies in other countries. Russia, which since the early 1990s has exported large amounts of sensitive goods, is an important partner in this effort. Therefore, the Federal Office for Economic and Export Controls has been working together with Russian agencies to improve communications, and bring Russian regulations in line with European standards.

André Müller
Communication across borders. Cooperation in spatial and regional development

In times of international networking, cross-border cooperation between the regions and towns in the field of land and regional development is growing in importance as well. The spectrum of activities extends from the regeneration of large residential settlements via energy efficient settlement development to the creation of a pan-European network of innovative regions. Clear political framework conditions and transparent communication in such projects are a precondition for tapping the full potential of cross-border cooperation.

Susanne Thau
The opening of the internal market? The opportunities and risks of the EU Neighbourhood Policy

A key instrument in the European Neighbourhood Policy is the opening up of the EU internal market. With this incentive, neighbouring countries could be moved to enact economic and political reforms. However, since a simplification of the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital would abolish the EU’s most important protective barriers, harmonization in these fields must be examined very carefully, and concessions must be limited to individual cases. The ENP states initially have to make certain adjustments such as the adaptation of legal provisions and the creation of an administrative apparatus. In the process, they could be supported by twinning partnerships.