News from an expanding Europe

The European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) puts new life into the relationship between Europe and its neighbors by sharing the benefits of the EU’s 2004 enlargement. The novelty of this initiative resides in a simple idea: give the opportunity for each partner to choose his own path.

The European Union expanded on the first of May 2004 to include 10 new members. Until then, it had two types of neighbors: those located on the other side of the Mediterranean in the South, and the former satellites of the Soviet Union in the East. It organized its relationships with the first group by signing association agreements in the frame of the Euro- Mediterranean process launched in Barcelona in 1995. The latter were considered and thus treated as potential future members in the EU. By pushing out the European boundaries, the enlargement process has led to the necessity of rethinking relations with neighbors. The European Neighborhood Policy is indeed the outcome of this re-evaluation that offers a new framework for relations with the Mediterranean partners, as well as new neighbors, such as Ukraine, located farther to the East.

What are the objectives of the ENP?
This new policy aims at anchoring the new neighbors of the European Union, by sharing stability, prosperity, and security. To these neighbors of expanding Europe, Brussels offers "all but the institutions", meaning everything offered to East European countries, except membership to the Union. New neighbors are encouraged to adapt to the "European community acquis", that's sharing the political principles of the Union in terms of democracy and human rights, as well as the regulations and legislations meant to facilitate the integration of various markets in a common economic space. The ENP applies to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova. In the Mediterranean, it concerns all the countries participating to the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.

Policy and instruments
The implementation of the ENP is based on a new instrument: an action plan "à la carte" which is the outcome of negotiations between Brussels and each neighbor country. This bilateral document contains the priorities of each neighbor of the European Union in politics, security and economy. Thus, the EU is offering an opportunity for those wishing to make faster progress than the rest. The bilateral tool is completed by policies of regional cooperation in some key sectors, like transport and energy. It helps each partner to get closer to the European market by integrating all or part of the “Community acquis” (a pack of 1600 directives), while the process of Barcelona has been essentially working on the elimination of tariff barriers. However, this does not happen without any risk. While the main objective is to gather all partners under one umbrella, some countries are choosing ways of integration different from others. This is contributing to the enlargement of the gap between both sides.

Sibylle Rizk
Journalist
(Excerpts from Cahiers Euromed, 2005)