The European Neighborhood Policy (ENP)
The European Union Sometimes Ignores Social Realities
Apr 14, 2009
The recent enlargements (2004, 2007) have constituted important challenges for the European Union, both geographically and politically. It also led to profound transformations in which the EU interacts with the world and its close neighbourhood. In the words of the European Commission, the European Neighbourhood Policy is important because:
Since the 2004 enlargement, relations with our neighbors have become the EU’s main external priority. Through the European Neighborhood Policy, we aim to avoid new dividing lines between the enlarged EU and our neighbors to the East and on the Southern and Eastern shores of the Mediterranean.
The Lack of Integration Perspective
The ENP was conceived to find the best solutions for the countries included and to draft and implement the suitable analyses and Action Plans. However, the main problem concerning the European Union’s relation with the countries included in the ENP is the lack of integration perspective. The shortcomings of the Action plans are rooted in the same problem. Countries such as Moldova, Ukraine, the South Caucus region, tend to be frustrated by the fact that they lack the membership perspective and that they are put in the same category with countries such as Marocco, Israel or Lebanon. For them, the process is more one of exclusion, of negating their European rights, than of inclusion.
The Case of Ukraine and the ENP
The Action Plan was adopted in December 2004, at the same time with the key political changes that took place with the Orange Revolution. The political change was initiated by the democratic opposition in Ukraine and the civil society’s actions. The domestic political activism was the one that fulfilled the major part of the ENP Action Plan, whose priorities were largely referring to democratic values, free and fair election, free media and strong civil society. After the Orange Revolution actually fulfilled the key elements of the Action Plan, the ENP was not able to produce further courses for action in maintaining the democratic transition further than the first crucial step of free and fair elections. The main cause for this blockage was the lack of prospects for EU membership; without this way of encouragement, the European Commission is unable to offer a good plan that would further shape the transition process.
The Limitations of the ENP
The absence of conditionality comes together with the lack of membership perspective. This leads to a real impasse in the shaping of the EU’s external relations. EU suffers from integration crises, especially after the failure of the Constitutional Treaty, and it seems neither interested nor willing to use the enlargement process, independently of the domestic transformations that take place in the ENP countries. As illustrated by the case of Ukraine, the ENP remains limited in its influence to shape the transition process, as long as the Commission will not adopt a conditionality approach, that will act as an incentive for the countries to act at the domestic level.
The lack of the membership provision from ENP is also causing problems at the institutional level of the European Union, leading to inconsistencies. The Commission decided that the responsibility for the ENP is going to be undertaken by the DG External Relations and not by the Directorate-General Enlargement, as before. Also, the Council has some competencies within the ENP framework. This unclear division of competencies shows a clear problem within the ENP regarding the way in which the instruments of enlargement can be used without offering the prospect for membership to the ENP countries that geographically belong to Europe.
Political Costs of Conditionality
Even when a membership perspective is granted, like in the case of the Western Balkans, the high domestic political power costs of adaptation to EU conditions have blocked compliance. Since ENP countries are without a membership perspective and generally governed by authoritarian regimes for which the political power costs of complying with democratic and human rights rules are high, these findings strongly suggest that ENP will not have a significant impact on democracy and human rights in the ENP countries.
