Resilience and the EU's Eastern Neighbourhood Countries

From Theoretical Concepts to a Normative Agenda

Gilles Rouet, Gabriela Carmen Pascariu, Gilles Rouet, Gabriela Carmen Pascariu

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9783030256050
• eBook ISBN: 9783030256067
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: International Business
• Index: Business

Resilience has emerged as a key concept in EU foreign policy. The policy debate around this concept has been vigorous, but theoretical attempts to develop the concept are few.  Covering fields of strategical importance, such as economic governance; growth and sustainable development; energy, environment and climate action; education, the labour market, and foreign affairs, this book is one of the first attempts to profoundly theorise the concept of 'resilience' in international relations by looking at several policy areas and countries. Faced with multiple crises (the economic crisis, the Brexit referendum, the refugee crisis, terrorist attacks, geopolitics such as events in the Ukraine), and challenges with its integration process, the European Union needs to become not only more intelligent, more inclusive and more sustainable, but also more resilient and more capable of reacting to different internal and external shocks. This book integrates a systemic assessment of theregions' specific shocks and risks in relation to internal vulnerabilities (i.e. structural economic, social, institutional and political fragility) and to their long and medium-term impact on the stability, security and sustainable development in the region.   

Part IThe EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood Context

© The Author(s) 2019

G. Rouet, G. C. Pascariu (eds.)Resilience and the EU's Eastern Neighbourhood Countrieshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25606-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Resilience and the Eastern Partnership—What Relevance for Policies?

Gabriela Carmen Pascariu¹ and Gilles Rouet²

(1)

Centre for Research in International Economic Relations and European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Iasi, Romania

(2)

LAREQUOI, ISM-IAE of Versailles-St-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Paris-Saclay University, Guyancourt, France

Gabriela Carmen Pascariu (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Gilles Rouet

End Abstract

The year 2019 is an auspicious one, considering that the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) celebrates its 15th anniversary, whereas the Eastern Partnership, the multilateral dimension of the ENP towards the European Union (EU’s) Eastern Neighbourhood, is approaching its 10th anniversary. With this in mind, it is high time for EU decision-makers to ponder the region’s future prospects and to reflect on the key questions and answers regarding some of the most worrying concerns about Europe’s security and stability, concerns that also have global significance and impact.

1 European Union’s Eastern Neighbourhood: Geopolitical Context and the Normative Agenda

Launched in 2004, only one year after the European Commission’s Communication “Wider Europe—Neighbourhood: A New Framework for Relations with Our Eastern and Southern Neighbours” (European Commission 2003), the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP’s) main goal was to develop “a zone of prosperity and a friendly neighbourhood—a ‘ring of friends’—with whom the EU enjoys close, peaceful and co-operative relations” (European Commission 2003, p. 4). In this regard, through its new foreign policy, the European Union (EU) has assumed the role of a regional power, aiming to promote stability and prosperity at its external borders by strengthening cooperation with its closest neighbours and by supporting them in adopting the necessary reforms for establishing democracy and consolidating free market institutions. Moreover, the Commission’s Communication even includes the “promise” of a deeper integration through the neighbours’ participation in the European Single market, “in return for concrete progress demonstrating shared values and effective implementation of political, economic and institutional reforms, including in aligning legislation with the acquis” (European Commission 2003, p. 4), following the model of the European Economic Space.

Initially designed to include Russia, the ENP has also outlined the prospect of a broader pan-European economic integration, following the model of concentric circles, with the Union as the tough nucleus, that promotes at its external borders “shared” values, which were in fact European values, norms, institutions, and development patterns. A simple analysis of this document, which represented the basis of the ENP, leads to three key conclusions, which played a significant role in the evolution of this policy in the eastern neighbourhood of the EU:

1. 1.
   The ENP was mainly the result of external pressures, of a certain constraint, present on the regional geopolitical environment that has been restructured as a result of the EU’s own dynamics; as such, through successive expansions to the South and East (see also Howorth 2016), the EU aimed “to avoid new dividing lines in Europe”, by reducing the gaps between the regions inside the EU and those situated outside its immediate borders; furthermore, the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood was perceived as a threat to the Union’s security, as these countries (Russia included) did not clearly express a willingness to adopt a clear democratic path and a sustainable development model. Subsequently, the ENP has thus emerged as a reactive policy, its tools and methods being “imported” from its enlargement policy towards Central and Eastern Europe (i.e. Association Agreements, Action Plans, Financing, Market Liberalisation, Positive Conditionality). In this case, the Union sought to encourage and support, at the same time, the new neighbours to adopt the Western model of society and economy, but without offering institutional integration, thus “sharing everything with the Union, but institutions” (Prodi 2002). However, such a limitation has generated two opposite reactions in the neighbourhood: frustration in those countries that had European aspirations (such as Georgia, Moldova, or Ukraine), respectively, the perception of the EU as an oppressive power, with its specific conditionality; this view was particularly expressed by those countries with a more balanced approach towards the EU, that were rather oriented towards Russia (such as Belarus, Armenia and Azerbaijan).
2. 2.
   When the ENP was launched, the EU was deemed strong and attractive enough for neighbouring countries so that it assumed a clearer external dimension. Moreover, the EU was also inclined to believe that its mechanism of positive conditionality, that had worked so well in the enlargement process, would be just as effective, despite lacking the promise of the EU’s accession itself. At the same time, the lack of a clear integration perspective, of limiting the neighbours’ access to the European common market highlighted the emerging of a certain “fatigue”, following the eastern enlargement of 2004–2007, which also partially indicated that the EU might have reached its geographical limit. In practice, these translated into a raising awareness of the existing vulnerabilities which have compelled the EU not to consider future enlargements, even in the case of those countries that would have opted for such a perspective.
3. 3.
   By giving its own model a universal value, the EU has built its ENP around the idea that all neighbouring countries, including Russia, will automatically aspire and strive for the European model, so that the Union could assume the role of a transformative power in the region, without facing notable challenges in transferring to these countries its own rules, values, and institutions, in line with the acquis communautaire. In return for adopting the required reforms and policies that these countries have agreed to, thus promoting the “Europeanisation” phenomenon, the EU has offered financial support, strengthened cooperation and access to European programmes, security guarantees, as well as it has, overall, facilitated people’s mobility and access to European markets. However, in literature, the EU’s approach is being perceived as “Eurocentric” (Lehne 2014; Howorth 2016), “missionary” (Simionov and Tiganasu 2018, p. 137), or as an “intoxication with its own model” (Krastev and Leonard 2014).

Apart from the specific ENP aspects mentioned earlier, the lack of a common EU foreign and security policy has played a major role in the policy’s implementation dynamics and the results obtained in the region. The resulting limits have been very clearly highlighted in the context of the crisis in Ukraine, when the discordant preferences of the member states towards the neighbours and Russia have led to different positions that have weakened the effects of sanctions against Russia along with the EU’s overall ability to provide security and stability in the region. Moreover, the ENP is rather a common European platform that is not entirely assumed by the individual member states. Furthermore, border states, which should play a key role in implementing the ENP, are not necessarily accountable in this process, thus displaying a very low self-awareness. At individual level, connecting countries to the ENP is mainly achieved through cross-border cooperation within the framework of European Cohesion Policy, without assuming, from a political standpoint, an active role in the region, given that in the EU’s external policy, the key players are the member states, not the Union.

Over the past 15 years, all these limitations have determined the EU to constant...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Part I. The EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood Context
• Part II. The EU’s Actorness and Eastern Neighbourhood Challenges
• Part III. Eastern Neighbourhood Countries’ Resilience. Case Studies and Prospects
• Back Matter