The Eastern Partnership Initiative: A New Opportunity for Neighbours?

Abstract

The EU's relationship with its neighbours to the east has long been founded on the aspiration to build a kind of partnership that does not automatically offer the prospect of membership to former Soviet republics apart from the Baltic States. The mechanism for this was initially the European Neighbourhood Policy, embracing a wider range of countries, which has been further buttressed by the Eastern Partnership initiative (EaP) in an effort to revitalize the partnership-building process in the east. Although more differentiated and versatile, the EaP has nevertheless inherited the Neighbourhood Policy's original conceptual limitations, especially concerning the ill-defined nature of partnership. Practical limitations, on the other hand, include the policy's lack of coherence and management, as well as its low visibility and public appreciation on the ground across the board. The East European response to the EU's initiative reveals further tensions and contradictions, especially pertaining to partner countries' geopolitics and cultural and civilization differences. It is clear that the EU's ‘politics of inclusion’ needs further conceptualization in order to shift the balance away from the EU towards the partner countries themselves. Only in these circumstances of de-centring can the notion of partnership become true and effective.

Acknowledgments

I wish to record my gratitude to the ESRC for the financial support given to the project, and to thank Giles Polglase, Tanya Radchuk and the journal editors for their helpful comments on an earlier version of the present article. Our special thanks to all the project's participants for their insightful contributions and hard work.

Notes

Commission of the European Communities, ‘Wider Europe – Neighbourhood: A New Framework for Relations with our Eastern and Southern Neighbours’, Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament, COM (2003) 104 final, Brussels, 11 March 2003, p.4.

Romano Prodi, ‘A Wider Europe – a Proximity Policy as the Key to Stability’, speech (SPEECH/02/619), delivered at the 6th ECSA–World conference, Brussels, 5–6 Dec. 2002, p.3.

Council of the European Union, ‘A Secure Europe in a Better World’, European Security Strategy, Brussels, 12 Dec. 2003, available at <http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf>, accessed 5 July 2010.

Article 7a of the Treaty on the European Union (as introduced by Article 1, Para. 10 of the Lisbon Treaty) states the following: ‘1. the Union shall develop a special relationship with neighbouring countries, aiming to establish an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness, founded on the values of the Union and characterized by close and peaceful relations based on co-operation’: cited from Dimitar Bechev and Kalypso Nicolaidis, ‘From Policy to Polity: Can the EU's Special Relations with its “Neighbourhood” be Decentred?’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol.48, No.3 (2010), pp.475–500 (p.477, n.1).

See Radoslaw Sikorski's statement differentiating between the ‘neighbours of Europe’ to the south and the ‘European neighbours’ to the east, in Renata Goldirova, ‘Eastern Partnership Could Lead to Enlargement’, EU Observer, 27 May 2008, available at <http://euobserver.com/9/26211>, accessed 6 July 2010.

And also to respond to the competitive French efforts of policy regionalization in the Mediterranean, available at <http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1611&format=HTML&age>, accessed 6 July 2010.

Council of the European Union, Joint Declaration of the Prague Eastern Partnership Summit, Brussels, 7 May 2009, 8435/09 (Presse 78), p.6, available at <http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/er/107589.pdf>, accessed 21 June 2010; emphasis added.

Ibid., p.5; emphasis added.

The Eastern Partnership – An Ambitious New Chapter in the EU's relations with its Eastern Neighbours, press release, IP/08/1858, Brussels, 3 Dec. 2008, p.2.

Stefan Füle, ‘Strong Civil Society Pillar – Major Objective of the EU Eastern Partnership Policy’, speech (SPEECH/10/78) offered to the 4th meeting of the Executive Committee of the Pan-European Regional Council, Brussels, 8 March 2010.

For more information see Commission's press release, ‘Key Investment Projects in the European Neighbourhood Get €85 Million Boost’, IP/10/880, Brussels, 2 July 2010, available at <http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/880&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en>, accessed 5 July 2010; also the 2009 annual Operational Report of the Neighbourhood Investment Facilities (NIF), available at <http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/where/neighbourhood/regional-co-operation/irc/documents/vi_operational_annual_report_2009_nif_en.pdf>, accessed 6 July 2010.

For more information regarding the project see its websites: <www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/minisites/widereurope/index.html> or <http://www.aber.ac.uk/interpol/en/research/EKPproject/index.htm>, accessed 6 July 2010.

Although Russia is not a participant of the ENP/EaP, it was nevertheless included in the project, as a greater geopolitical neighbour affecting decision-making and policy implementation in the region.

For technical description of research methods visit <http://www.aber.ac.uk/interpol/en/research/EKPproject/Research%20Findings.htm>, accessed 6 July 2010.

Research results have been disseminated and were discussed in detail with members of the cabinet of Commissioner Stefan Füle, and heads of units and other relevant officials of DG RELEX, in Brussels on 25 June 2010.

An excellent analysis of the ENP, and the issues of its credibility and limited leverage, is provide in Richard Whitman and Stefan Wolff (eds.), The European Neighbourhood Policy in Perspective: Context, Implementation and Impact (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

This sub-title captures an enduring discussion of the compatibility of new ideas pursued in the neighbourhood with the traditional means of conditionality deployed by the EU, first powerfully presented by Judith Kelly in her article ‘New Wine in Old Wineskins: Promoting Political Reforms through the New European Neighbourhood Policy’, published in the Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol.44, No.1 (2006), pp.29–55.

Michael A. Smith, ‘The European Union and a Changing Europe: Establishing the Boundaries of Order’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol.35, No.1 (1996), pp.5–28.

Ibid., p.23.

Ibid., p.20.

Ibid., p.21.

Ian Manners, ‘Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol.40, No.2 (June 2002), pp.235–58 (p.239).

Ibid., pp.23–4.

Ibid., p.25.

Prodi, ‘A Wider Europe’, p.3.

Ibid., p.5.

Commission of the European Communities, European Neighbourhood Policy: Strategy Paper, COM(2004) 373 final, Brussels, 15 May 2004, p.8.

Whitman and Wolff (eds.), The European Neighbourhood Policy in Perspective; Michael Smith, Katja Weber and Michael Baun (eds.), Governing Europe's Neighbourhood: Partners or Periphery? (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007); Dieter Mahncke and Sieglinde Gstohl (eds.), Europe's Near Abroad: Promises and Prospects of the EU's Neighbourhood Policy (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2008).

Bechev and Nicolaidis, ‘From Policy to Polity’, pp.479–81.

For more discussion of the topic of partnership see Elena Korosteleva, ‘Change or Continuity: Is the Eastern Partnership an Adequate Tool for the European Neighbourhood?’, International Relations (forthcoming, March 2011).

Interview with a senior official, RELEX DDG2 E2, Brussels, 6 Oct. 2009.

A pre-set agenda of EU priorities, inclusive of conditionality, was sought to be avoided in the earlier ENP documents: see the definition of ‘joint ownership’ in the ENP Strategy Paper (2004), p.8.

These findings are based on a series of interviews undertaken with the officials of the European Commission, members of the European Parliament and Member States' permanent representations in Brussels and Strasburg during Sept.–Oct. 2009 (11 interviews) and June 2010 (10 interviews), and with members of EU Delegations and EU Member States' representations in Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova during Oct. 2009 (17 interviews in total). Analysis of public perceptions of the ENP is based on the published survey data of Special Eurobarometer, entitled ‘The EU's Relations with Neighbours’ (285, wave 76.3, Brussels 2007).

For more discussion see Michael E. Smith and Mark Weber, ‘Political Dialogue and Security in the European Neighbourhood: The Virtues and Limits of “New Partnership Perspective”’, European Foreign Affairs Review, Vol.13, No.2 (2008), pp.73–95; also Smith et al. (eds.), Governing Europe's Neighbourhood; Whitman and Wolff (eds.), The ENP in Perspective.

Interview with a senior official, DG RELEX DDG2 Task Force ‘Eastern Partnership’, Brussels, 28 Oct. 2010.

Interview with MEP, Strasburg, 2 Oct. 2009.

This particularly related to interviews with EU delegation officials in Kyiv and Chişinău.

See Ken Booth and Nicholas J. Wheeler, ‘Introduction: What is the Security Dilemma?’, in Ken Booth and Nick Wheeler (eds.), The Security Dilemma: Fear, Co-operation and Trust in World Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

Eurobarometer, 285, wave 76.3 (2007).

For an interesting discussion on the perception of the ‘other’ see Thomas Diez, ‘Constructing the Self and Changing Others: Reconsidering “Normative Power Europe”’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol.33, No.3 (2005), pp.613–36.

For a more detailed account, see Tanya Radchuk's article entitled ‘Contested Neighbourhood or How to Reconcile the Differences’ in this volume, and also individual contributions by national teams of scholars.

Alexander Lukashenko, State of the Nation Address, 23 April 2009, (p.27), available at <http://www.president.gov.by/press84268.html>, accessed 12 Oct. 2010.

For more discussion of this issue see Federica Bicchi, ‘“Our Size Fits All”: Normative Power Europe and the Mediterranean’, Journal of European Public Policy, Vol.13, No.2 (2006), pp.286–303.

Ibid., p.287; original italics.

Ibid.

Commission of the European Communities, A Strong Neighbourhood Policy, Communication from the Commission, COM (2007) 774 final (Brussels, 5 Dec. 2007).

Ibid., p.289.

Interview with the chairman of the foreign affairs committee (FAC), House of Representatives, Minsk, Belarus, 22 Sept. 2009.

Interview with a senior government official, ministry of foreign affairs (MFA), Minsk, Belarus, 21 Sept. 2009.

Interviews with Commission officials conducted in Brussels in Sept.–Oct. 2009.

See David Rotman and Natalia Veremeeva's article in this volume.

Interview with an official, European Division, MFA, Minsk, Belarus, 21 Sept. 2009.

Interview with a deputy chairman, FAC, Rada [Parliament], Kyiv, Ukraine, 29 Sept. 2009.

Ibid.

Interviews with various members from the department for European integration, MFA, and Rada, Kyiv, 29 Sept. 2009.

Interview with deputy minister, department for European integration, MFA, Chişinău, Moldova, 1 Oct. 2009.

Interview with chairman, FAC and European integration, Parliament, Chişinău, Moldova, 1 Oct. 2009.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Interview with a senior government official, MFA, Minsk, Belarus, 21 Sept. 2009.

Interview with chairman of the FAC, House of Representatives, Belarus, 22 Sept. 2009.

Interview with a deputy chairman, FAC, Rada, Ukraine, 29 Sept. 2009.

Interview with chairman, FAC and European integration, Parliament, Chişinău, Moldova, 1 Oct. 2009.

Interview with a former deputy minister of foreign affairs, MFA, Chişinău, Moldova, 2 Oct. 2009.

For more discussions of the ‘de-centring approach’, see Bechev and Nicolaidis, ‘From Policy to Polity’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elena Korosteleva

Elena Korosteleva is Senior Lecturer in European Politics at Aberystwyth University. She has co-edited a number of books and journal issues, with the focus on democratization and EU foreign policy. She is the Principal Investigator of the ESRC-funded project ‘Europeanising or Securitising the Outsiders? Assessing the EU's partnership-building approach with Eastern Europe’ (RES-061-25-0001), which formed the basis of the present collection. The study was based on extensive empirical fieldwork conducted in Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and Russia during 2008–9, which included (i) nationwide surveys; (ii) expert interviews; (iii) a study of school essays; and (iv) work with focus groups. For more information, see the project's websites: <http://www.aber.ac.uk/interpol/en/research/EKPproject/index.htm> and <http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/minisites/widereurope/index.html>.