Formulating Proposals for a More Effective Engagement with Neighbourhood Regions

Kataryna Wolczuk, Tamar Gamkrelidze, Andriy Tyushka & Thomas de Waal

This briefing paper draws from research done as part of ENGAGE Work Package 8 ‘Engaging with the EU’s Neighbourhoods’, which analyses how the EU has engaged with the neighbouring countries in the context of the European Neighbourhood Policy (the ENP).

Launched in 2003 to increase the prosperity, stability and security of countries in the EU’s neighbourhood and to support their political, economic and institutional reforms, we find that the ENP proved to be a rather technocratic, de-securitised policy, hindered by it being separate rather than an integral part of EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). We find that the lack of consensus amongst the European Union Member States about the aims of the ENP in general and the European Union’s role in security in particular was at the root of its mis-conceptualisation. The policy was further hampered by the fact that while the EU adopted a more securitised narrative vis-à-vis the neighbourhood countries, it conspicuously failed to develop into a fully-fledged security actor within the remits of the ENP, most notably by failing to shore up the security of neighbouring countries up to 2022.

In turn this weakness has led to disillusionment with the EU and diminished perception of it as a ‘transformative power’ especially in the southern neighbourhood countries. We conclude that the EU has two options for addressing this mismatch. Either it can reduce its geopolitical ambitions and refrain from making proclamations which are not backed by deeds; or, it can take actions which are compatible with its narrative, and thereby begin to realise its ambitions to be a fully transformative power.