EU Policies in the Eastern Neighbourhood

The practices perspective

Elena Korosteleva, Michal Natorski, Licínia Simão

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780415720571
• eBook ISBN: 9781317744191
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The EU continuously searches for more effective policy towards its eastern neighbourhood, which is reflected in the on-going adaptation of its existing approaches, discourses and policy strategies to the new challenges of its external environment. In order to understand the complexity and limitations of the EU framework under the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the Eastern Partnership Initiative (EaP) – that is, to consider the interface between policy instruments, institutional structures, and multiple agents – one needs to adopt an original analytical perspective of practices to comprehensively assess the policies' outcomes.

This volume therefore offers an examination of social practices as implemented through the use of policy instruments and subsequently embedded into the existing/emergent social structures which shape and determine the EU-neighbours' relations. To gauge success of the ENP in the eastern region, the manuscript pulls together a rich collection of geographical and thematic case-studies, joined by the overarching conceptual framework of practices. This study's principal aims are to discern patterns of social practices which guide agents' interactions in different policy areas; to explore the origin and effect of these practices (the role of dominant discourses, logistical imbalances, deliberate strategies, etc.); and to explicate the nature of the emerging social structures being established in the eastern region. This approach is distinctive from other constructivist undertakings as it allows to synergise the meanings of social actions (through the focus on agents and instruments), and their structural extensions (through the focus on emergent structures) across geo- and bio-political localities of the EU and its eastern neighbourhood.

This book was published a sa special issue of East European Politics.

The eastern dimension of the European neighbourhood policy: practices, instruments and social structures

Elena A. Korosteleva^a, Michal Natorski^b and Licínia Simaão^c,d

^a School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK; ^b European Neighbourhood Chair, College of Europe, Natolin Campus, Warsaw, Poland; ^c Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; ^d Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

The European Union (EU) continuingly searches for more effective policy towards its eastern neighbours, which is reflected in the ongoing adaptation of its existing approaches, discourses and policy strategies to the new challenges of its external environment. In order to understand the complexity and limitations of the EU framework under the European neighbourhood policy and the eastern partnership initiative – that is, to consider the interface between policy instruments, institutional structures and multiple agents – one needs to adopt an original analytical perspective of practices to comprehensively assess the policies’ outcomes. With this in mind, this issue sets to discern patterns of social practices between the EU and its eastern neighbours, and examine how these relations guide agents’ interactions in various policy areas. This introduction outlines the theoretical framework synergising the three fundamental concepts – of practices, policy instruments and social structures – that have predicated research for this issue. It also outlines the structure and main arguments of the individual case-studies which inform the issue’s conceptual framework.

Introduction

We have moved forward in political association, in economic integration, in visa liberalisation, we start sectoral cooperation and we are strengthening the support for the civil society … But nothing from our efforts and policies towards the Neighbourhood can replace the reforms [needed in] the Eastern [region]. (Füle 2012, emphasis added)

The eastern partnership initiative (EaP) has come a long way in a short time. Proposed by the Polish and Swedish governments in 2008 (Eastern Partnership 2008), it sought to become “a specific Eastern dimension of the European Neighbourhood Policy” (Council of the European Union 2009, 6; Polish-Swedish Initiative 2008) to allow for regional focus, and further policy differentiation. It was officially launched at the Prague Summit a year later, having enjoyed full ceremonial endorsement of all the partner countries and European Union (EU) member states.

More specifically, the EaP was devised to pursue a novel two-track approach of bi- and multilateral relations with EU’s eastern neighbours – through new contractual agreements, joint policy platforms, flagship initiatives and a variety of supportive technical and financial instruments – to ensure the partner countries’ closer approximation towards the EU and to “offer the maximum possible … [by] bringing visible benefits for the citizens of each country” (Commission of the European Communities 2008, 2–3).

Despite the complex apparatus of expanded resources and instruments, the year 2010, however, proved rather challenging for the implementation of the European neighbourhood policy (ENP) and its eastern dimension in particular. Not only did it coincide with the global financial crisis, but also with the EU post-Lisbon restructuring (including the launch of the External Action Service) and the increasing instability on the EU’s southern periphery. More notably, it failed to register any reinvigorated sense of commitment on the partners’ side (European Commission 2010), instead often witnessing their increasing oscillation towards Russia. The policy seemed to have needed further evaluation in order to offer a more coherent and robust approach to save its dwindling credibility in the region (Whitman and Wolff 2010; Korosteleva 2011).

A more reflexive iteration of the ENP strategy, inclusive of the eastern region, was communicated by the Commission in May 2011 (European Commission 2011). The revised version comprised an extensive set of documents encompassing countries’ progress reports, a sectoral and regional progress overview, and the ENP’s updated medium-term programme. A New Response from the EU clearly envisaged a structural shift towards more partnership, to make the relationship more mutually beneficial, and premised on a “much higher level of differentiation allowing each partner country to develop its links with the EU as far as its own aspirations, needs and capacities allow” (European Commission 2011, 1–2). The new approach also pledged “to provide mechanisms and instruments fit to deliver these objectives” (European Commission 2011, 2), and reiterated the importance of a more for more principle, to be consummated in daily practices and emergent social structures of the partner states.

Indeed, a new and multilevel governance structure of the EaP has now become apparent. The ENP’s eastern dimension currently operates through a complex configuration of bi- and multilateral policy instruments, articulated by and reflected in the existing or emergent social structures.

In particular, the EaP’s bilateral track now hosts two new initiatives – comprehensive institution building (CIB) and pilot regional development programmes (PRDPs), being contractually premised on association agreements (AAs, now broken down into annual agendas) and deep and comprehensive free trade agreements (DCFTAs). The EaP’s multilateral track is constantly evolving to accommodate four thematic platforms – of democracy and good governance, economic integration and convergence, energy security and contact between people – and to correlate them with five flagship initiatives.¹ This is advanced by individually tailored roadmaps and further supplemented by a range of regional activities, including the Black Sea Synergy initiative, Interstate Oil and Gas Transport to Europe (INOGATE) (energy initiative) and Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA) (transport initiative). Technical and financial instruments also abound, often co-opting international stakeholders to ensure success, legitimacy and credibility of the EU’s engagement with the eastern region. These policy instruments are duly realised through existing or emergent social structures ranging from regular political summits to mobilising “all strands of society” (European Commission 2011, 2) – the EURONEST Parliamentary Assembly, the civil society forum (CSF), the conference of regional and local authorities (CORLEAP), and the Sopot Business Forum.

Nevertheless, as the article’s opening statement by Commissioner Füle explicitly suggests, the EU efforts alone, now involving an elaborate agency and expanded capabilities, are not sufficient if they are not mutually reciprocated through the respective discourses, actions and structures – the practices – to gauge the policy’s success on both sides. A far more complex and integrative investigation is needed, of practices – from conceptual and empirical perspectives – as performed by social agents – to ascertain whether the burgeoning policy instruments adequately address the needs of relevant stakeholders, and to examine what kind of new patterned behaviours and social order emerge as a result of these daily intertwining practices.

The task of this special issue is not to proliferate case-specific or issue-focused theories, but rather to offer a synergising perspective on EU’s practices in the neighbourhood as an integrative and dynamic continuum of perceptions and actions across the field. Hence, this issue will offer an examination of the set of practices, as implemented through the use of policy instruments and subsequently embedded into the existing/emergent social structures that frame the EU-neighbours’ relations. To gauge the success of the policy’s implementation this collection of geographical and thematic case studies, joined by the overarching concept of practices, puts forward a structured reflection on the discourses, processes and their meanings, which occur daily between the EU and its eastern neighbourhood. This study’s principal aims are to discern patterns of social practices which guide the agents’ interactions in different policy areas; to explore the origin and effect of these practices (the role of dominant discourses, logistical imbalances, deliberate strategies, etc.); and to explicate the nature of the emerging social structures being established in the eastern region. Drawing on the earlier works of the “practices turn” in International Relations (Neumann 2002; Adler and Pouliot 2011) this approach is distinctive from other constructivist undertakings as it allows to synergise the meanings of social actions (through the focus on agents and instruments), and their structural extensions (through the focus on emergent structures) across geoand bio-political localities of the EU and the neighbourhood.

In particular, building upon the existing scholarship, the contributions to this special issue place the practices of EU vis-à-vis its neighbours relations in a broader context of binaries – including contradictions and dilemmas of inclusiveness/exclusiveness, cooperation/conflict, hierarchy/network and governance/partnership – to offer an overview of the existing and emerging dynamics of interplay between the ENP/EaP’s agency and its multiple agents. This introductory chapter, thus, will first outline the theoretical framework synergising the three fundamental concepts of practices, policy instruments and social structures. It will then discuss the arrangement and the main arguments of the individual case-studies which inform the conceptual framework of this issue.

The framework: the practices perspective on EU relations with neighbours

This special issue embraces practices performed in connection to policy instruments and social structures which organise relations between the EU and its east European countries. What follows below is a brief outline of the three basic analytical concepts that inform the analysis of EU-eastern neighbours’ relations hereon: practices, policy instruments and structures. In brief, our approach draws on international relations (IR), political sociology and public administration literature that conceives of policy instruments as a particular set of practices which shape the existing and emergent social structures of the EU-eastern neighbours’ relations at different levels of analysis. This approach thus allows the disentanglement of EU practices (as initiated through policy instruments) from those of the neighbours (as embedded in their social structures) to offer a comparative overview of the effectiveness of EU governance in the eastern region.

After a brief discussion of the concept of practices, we then outline a taxonomy of ENP/EaP policy instruments and highlight some general patterns of the emergent social structures, which could be observed as a part of the daily dynamics in the EU-neighbours’ relations.

Practices as a set of policy instruments and emergent structures

This special issue focuses on the practices of the EU foreign policy vis-à-vis the eastern neigh-bours. The practices perspective adopted in this issue considers “social actions” (Neumann 2002, 637), “competent performances” (Adler and Pouliot 2011, 4) and “routinized type of behaviour” (Reckwitz 2002, 249), emphasising the action of the agents involved in relations between the EU and its eastern neighbours. In particular, practices are defined as “socially meaningful patterns of action which, in being performed more or less competently, simultaneously embody, act out, and possibly reify background knowledge and discourse in and on the material world” (Adler and Pouliot 2011, 4).² The concept of international practices as competent performance has two crucial aspects, central to the approach adopted in this issue: actions and their interpretation. The performative aspect of practices (action) relates to the process of “doing”, which are seen as regular occurrences over time and space, and which therefore repeat and reproduce certain behaviours and associated meanings. In order to perform practices competently, actors require certain practical skills premised upon their background knowledge and prior experience, which would “make what is done ‘self-evident’ or commonsensical” (Pouliot 2008, 258).³ To be competent, practices should follow some common and generalised standards or rules of procedure (Navari 2011). Therefore, practices are also interpretative acts, which connect performances (actions) with their respective meanings, socially recognised as competent.

Recent research in the IR field noted a revived scholarly interest in the daily practices of international actors articulated by their structured and competent performances as part of their “doing” of international politics. Inspired by the general “social turn to practices” (Schatzki, Cetina, and von Savigny 2001), scholars working in this field are concerned with the question of “how world politics actually works”,⁴ and treat such phenomena as war, balancing, deterrence, human rights protection or diplomacy as examples of international practices (Adler and Pouliot 2011). There are different conceptual and methodological approaches to understanding international practices. Some even argue that the latter neither offer a unique theoretical paradigm, nor signal any privileged methodological approach (Adler and Pouliot 2011). Rather, practices form “an entry point to the study of world politics”, a gateway to understanding actors’ performances and associated meanings, since they are equitable objects of analysis which could be rendered through various theoretical and methodological perspectives.

Despite the diversity of intellectual traditions and specific theories addressing international practices, they all converge on the point that international practices sustain world politics by way of reflecting dynamic processes of everyday “doing” in the sphere of human activity, and of ordering material and ideational references into continuous and stable social structures. In particular, this dimension of embedded or emergent patterns as a result of agents’ action and interaction is often overlooked in the study of international practices (Neumann and Pouliot 2011, 136). From this perspective, social structures are not exclusively determined by particular configurations of resources and actions (e.g. EU resources and actions towards the neighbours...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• 1. The eastern dimension of the European neighbourhood policy: practices, instruments and social structures
• 2. Region-building in the eastern neighbourhood: assessing EU regional policies in the South Caucasus
• 3. Democracy for export: the Europeanisation of electoral laws in the East European neighbourhood
• 4. New regionalism in Europe’s Black Sea Region: the EU, BSEC and changing practices of regionalism
• 5. Cross-border cooperation over the Eastern EU border: between assistance and partnership under the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument
• 6. Meandering Europeanisation. EU policy instruments and policy convergence in Georgia under the Eastern Partnership
• 7. Reforms in the judiciary of Ukraine: domestic practices and the EU’s policy instruments
• Index