The “Sovereign Neighbourhood”: Weak Statehood Strategies in Eastern Europe

Abstract

The launch of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) marks the most significant change to the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) since it was launched in 2004. In the wake of the Georgia war in August 2008 and yet another gas crisis in January 2009, the EU clearly needs a more constructive policy towards Eastern Europe. But both the ENP and EaP are based on a contradiction. They offer only the remotest possibility of eventual accession to the EU, but are still based on “accession-light” assumptions, applying the conditionality model of the 1990s to weak states that are a long way from meeting the Copenhagen criteria. The priority in the eastern neighbourhood is not building potential members states but strengthening sovereignty, in the face of an increasingly assertive Russian neighbourhood policy. The game is playing the west off against Russia for geopolitical reward.

Notes

¹Involving Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria, Tunisia and Ukraine.

²Proposed on 26 May 2008, the initiative is meant to complement the Northern Dimension and the Union for the Mediterranean by providing an institutionalised forum for discussing visa agreements, free trade deals and strategic partnership agreements with the EU's eastern neighbours (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine). Belarus will only participate at a technical level, while Russia will be invited to participate in some local initiatives.

³The authors thank Elena Gnedina for suggesting this idea. For more details see Gnedina, “Ukraine's Pipeline Politics”.

⁴See, inter alia, the interview with Dmitri Medvedev on the TV channels “Russia”, “Pervyi” and NTV, 31 August 2008, http://kremlin.ru/appears/2008/08/31/1917_type63374type63379_205991.shtml; and the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, 12 July 2008.

⁵Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics.

⁶A. Vysotskaya Guedes Vieira, and L. Simão, “The European Neighbourhood Policy viewed from Belarus and Georgia”. CFSP Forum 6, no. 6, November 2008, 1–6. http://www.fornet.info/documents/CFSP%20Forum%20vol%206%20no%206.pdf

⁷Playing off east and west to reap the benefits of being “non-aligned”, like post-war Yugoslavia. European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) interview with Modest Kolerov, 20 October 2008, Moscow.

⁸ECFR interview with Gleb Pavlovsky, 20 October 2008, Moscow.

⁹Pieklo, Donald Tusk's Government Policy Towards Ukraine.

¹⁰See http://www.fornet.info/documents/CFSP%20Forum%20vol%206%20no%206.pdf

¹¹Mekhtiev, Na puti k demokratii: razmyshlyaya o nasledii, 741.