Change or continuity: Is the eastern partnership an adequate tool for the european neighbourhood?

International Relations

Volumn 25, Issue 2, 2011, Pages 243-262

  Korosteleva, Elena A ^a  

^a ABERYSTWYTH UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Belarus; European union; Governance; Moldova; Russia; Ukraine

Indexed keywords

EID: 79952015154     PISSN: 00471178     EISSN: 17412862     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0047117811404446     Document Type: Article

References (125)

1. Benita Ferrero-Waldner, 'Civil Society Forum Strengthens the Eastern Partnership', speech at Eastern Partnership Civil Society forum, SPEECH/09/538, Brussels, 17 November 2009, available at: www.eumonitor.net/print.php?sid=139874 (emphasis added).
2. This initiative included six countries of the former Soviet Union: Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova to the east and Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia in the South Caucasus. It was primarily launched to address the ENP's limitations by adding a specific focus to the region. The regionalisation of the policy sought to offer further differentiation to account for contextual differences between the already participating partner states and those who had initially rejected or been hesitant to engage with the ENP (Belarus, Azerbaijan and Armenia). The EaP was also a competitive response by some member states (Poland, Sweden and Germany) to the realisation of the French proposal for the Union of the Mediterranean.
3. Commission of the European Communities, A Strong Neighbourhood Policy, Communication from the Commission, COM (2007) 774 final, Brussels, 5 December 2007.
4. Council of the European Union, Joint Declaration of the Prague Eastern Partnership Summit, Prague, 7 May, 8435/09 (Presse 78), Brussels 2009 (emphasis added).
5. Commission of the European Communities, Eastern Partnership, COM 823 final, Brussels, 3 December 2008; Commission of the European Communities, Eastern Partnership: Staff Working Document, SEC (2008) 2974/3, 2008.
6. Contrary to the enlargement method of promising 'accession for convergence', the ENP was envisaged to offer convergence without accession. The intention was to incentivise the neighbouring countries towards painful reforms by EU design, without committing sufficient resources or indeed accounting for the countries' geopolitics. This naturally produced the effect of delegitimising EU policy in the region, with Belarus surprisingly acting as a catalyst for its re-conceptualisation. The EaP was sought to redress the problem by underscoring partnership and shifting the emphasis away from the EU's agenda to partners' ownership in the pursuit of joint interests. However, as this research demonstrates, these intentions remain declaratory, in practice still prioritising the EU's interests and imposing geopolitical 'security dilemmas' onto the neighbourhood. Such actions explicitly contradict the notion of partnership, and, more critically, steer the EU in the direction of neo-colonialism rather than its legitimation as a 'force for good'. For more discussion on the EU's concept of partnership.
7. Michelle Pace, 'The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and the Common Mediterranean Strategy? European Union Policy from a Discursive Perspective', Geopolitics, 9(2), 2004, pp. 292-309.
8. 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, 48(3), 2010, pp. 47-500.
9. Chris Bickerton, 'From Brezhnev to Brussels: Transformations of Sovereignty in Eastern Europe', International Politics, 46(6), 2009, pp. 73-52.
10. These first and foremost include a critically disincentivised form of partnership, which continues to be ill defined and EU-owned, thus causing further EU-isation of the region and so precipitating security dilemmas for the contested neighbourhood.
11. Javier Solana, 'Countering Globalisation's Dark Side', Europe's World, policy dossier 2007, available at: www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/articles/96791.pdf.
12. Interviews, upon which the current analysis is premised, were conducted in September-October 2009. The interview fieldwork was organised concurrently in two phases: (i) interviews in Brussels and Strasburg conducted by the project's research assistant.
13. And (ii) interviews in eastern Europe conducted by the author, the principal investigator of the project. Interviewees in the EU included officials of the European Commission, members of the European Parliament and permanent member states representatives. EU respondents were targeted on the basis of their expertise and relevance to the ENP/EaP. In eastern Europe (Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova) interviewees consisted of members of foreign affairs committees in parliament, senior officials of Ministries of Foreign Affairs and presidential administrations, as well as in-country senior officials of EU delegations and member states' representatives chosen by expertise and relevance (e.g. officials from the Polish and Swedish embassies were targeted as policy initiators.
14. UK and German embassies were included as influential member states in the region, etc.). Interviews were semi-structured, in-depth, audio-recorded when permitted, anonymised when requested, and lasted on average 40-50 minutes. Please note that only those interviewees are named or their official status divulged when explicit permission was given to do so. Interviews were conducted in English or the local language. Over 100 interviews were conducted in total, and included the following breakdown per country: EU (11 interviews); Belarus (25 interviews).
15. Ukraine (27 interviews).
16. Moldova (18 interviews).
17. And Russia (23 interviews). The questionnaire for eastern Europe included three thematic blocks to address the following issues: (i) the country's foreign policy priorities (EU vis-à-vis Russia).
18. Relations with the EU (knowledge, perceptions, type of relations); and (iii) the ENP/EaP's effectiveness (knowledge, perceptions, problems and future). The questionnaire for the EU officials pursued the following themes: (i) the type of relationship (governance/partnership).
19. The foundations of the relationship (values versus interests).
20. Partner perceptions and expectations. These interviews form part of a larger ESRC-funded project (RES-061-25-0001). A brief synopsis of fieldwork findings is available on the project's website: www.aber.ac.uk/interpol/en/research/EKPproject/index.htm.
21. Solana, 'Countering Globalisation's Dark Side'.
22. It has also been utilised in the context of EU relations with its southern neighbours.
23. For more see Michelle Pace, 'The Ugly Duckling of Europe: The Mediterranean in the Foreign Policy of the European Union', Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 10(2) 2002, pp. 189-209.
24. Heather Grabbe, The EU's Transformative Power: Europeanization through Conditionality in Central and Eastern Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
25. Judith Kelley, 'New Wine in Old Wineskins: Promoting Political Reform through the New European Neighbourhood Policy', Journal of Common Market Studies, 44(1), 2006, pp. 29-55.
26. Jan Zielonka, Europe as Empire: The Nature of the Enlarged European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
27. Elsa Tulmets, 'New Modes of Governance in EU's External Relations', 14 June 2006, available at: www.forumvilnius.lt/print.php?news.29.
28. Commission of the European Communities, Wider Europe-Neighbourhood: A New Framework for Relations with our Eastern and Southern Neighbours, COM (2003) 104 final, Brussels, 11 March 2003, p. 15.
29. Commission, Wider Europe, p. 16.
30. For more discussion of similar issues see Bechev and Nicolaidis, 'From Policy to Polity'.
31. Commission, A Strong Neighbourhood Policy.
32. Commission of the European Communities, European Neighbourhood Policy: Strategy Paper, COM 373 final, Brussels, 12 May 2004, especially pp. 12-13.
33. For more on the contradictory EU discourse of values.
34. Giselle Bosse, 'Challenges for EU Governance through Neighbourhood Policy and Eastern Partnership: The Values/Security Nexus in EU-Belarus Relations', Contemporary Politics, 15(2), 2009, pp. 215-229.
35. On the need to contextualise and pluralise democratic values.
36. see the discussion by Milja Kurki, 'Democracy and Conceptual Contestability: Reconsidering Conceptions of Democracy in Democracy Promotion', International Studies Review, 12(3), 2010, pp. 362-386.
37. Commission, European Neighbourhood Policy: Strategy Paper, p. 12.
38. Commission, Eastern Partnership, p. 3 (emphasis added).
39. Commission, European Neighbourhood Policy: Strategy Paper, p. 8.
40. Commission, Eastern Partnership, p. 3.
41. Richard Youngs, 'Normative Dynamics and Strategic Interests in the EU's External Identity', Journal of Common Market Studies, 42(2), 2004, pp. 415-435, at p. 421.
42. Michelle Pace, 'Paradoxes and Contradictions in EU Democracy Promotion in the Mediterranean: The Limits of EU Normative Power', Democratization, 16(1), 2009, pp. 39-58, at p. 7.
43. Michelle Pace, 'The Construction of EU Normative Power', Journal of Common Market Studies, 45(5), 2007, pp. 1041-1064, at p. 671.
44. Interview with a senior official, RELEX DDG2 E2, 6 October 2009.
45. Interview with a member of the European Parliament (MEP), Strasburg, 2 October 2009.
46. Interview with an MEP, 2 October 2009.
47. The situation is currently exacerbated further by the EU's changing institutional layout due to the Lisbon Treaty not being enacted. For example, the new reforms have left some key decision-making roles in the Commission and the Council ill defined and some restructuring of EU foreign missions open-ended. For more information listen to a critical evaluation of Baroness Ashton's position by the BBC, podcast available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8559000/8559141.stm.
48. Michael E. Smith and Mark Webber, 'Political Dialogue and Security in the European Neighbourhood: The Virtues and Limits of New Partnership Perspective', European Foreign Affairs Review, 13, 2008, pp. 73-95, at p. 81.
49. Smith and Webber, 'Political Dialogue and Security', p. 81.
50. Interview with a senior official, DG EuropeAid Cooperation Office, Unit A.3, Brussels, 8 October 2009.
51. Here it implies a process of conditional top-down rule-transfer executed by the EU in relation to outsiders.
52. Interview with a senior official, RELEX DDG2 E2, 6 October 2009.
53. Interview with a senior official, DG RELEX DDG2 Task Force 'Eastern Partnership', 28 October 2010.
54. Interview with an MEP, Strasburg, 8 October 2009.
55. Interview with a senior diplomat, permanent representation, Brussels, 1 October 2009.
56. Interview with a member of the Political Section, German Embassy, Kiev, 28 September 2009.
57. These comments were commonplace, especially among senior diplomats from British embassies.
58. Sandra Lavenex, 'EU External Governance in Wider Europe', Journal for European Public Policy, 11(4), pp. 680-670, at p. 694.
59. Lavenex, 'EU External Governance'; Ian Manners, 'Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?' Journal of Common Market Studies, 40(2), 2002, pp. 235-258.
60. Ian Manners, 'Normative Power Europe Reconsidered: Beyond the Crossroads', Journal of European Public Policy, 13(2), 2006, pp. 182-199.
61. Sonia Lucarelli and Ian Manners (eds), Values and Principles in European Union Foreign Policy (London: Routledge, 2006).
62. Helen Sjursen, 'The EU as a Normative Power: How Can This Be?' Journal of European Public Policy, 13(2), 2006, pp. 235-251.
63. Harmut Mayer and Henri Vogt (eds), A Responsible Europe? Ethical Foundations of EU External Affairs (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
64. Lavenex, 'EU External Governance', p. 685.
65. Quoted in Lavenex, 'EU External Governance', p. 682.
66. Manners, 'Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?
67. Sandra Lavenex, 'A Governance Perspective on the European Neighbourhood Policy: Integration beyond Conditionality?' Journal of European Public Policy, 15(6), 2009, pp. 938-955.
68. Sandra Lavenex, and Frank Schimmelfennig, 'EU Rules beyond EU Borders: Theorizing External Governance in European Politics', Journal of European Public Policy, 16(6), 2009, pp. 791-812.
69. Stepan Gänzle, 'EU Governance and the European Neighbourhood Policy: A Framework for Analysis', Europe-Asia Studies, 61(10), 2009, pp. 1715-1734.
70. Lykke Friis and Anna Murphy, 'The European Union and Central and Eastern Europe', Journal of Common Market Studies, 37(2), 1999, pp. 211-232.
71. Oliver Treib, Bahr Holger and Gerda Falkner, 'Modes of Governance: Towards a Conceptual Clarification', Journal of European Public Policy, 14(1), 2007, pp. 1-20.
72. The EU methodology and embedded asymmetry in its relations with candidate countries, however, have been strongly criticised by Grabbe, The EU's Transformative Power; Geoffrey Pridham, Designing Democracy: EU Enlargement and Regime Change in Postcommunist Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
73. Elsa Tulmets, 'Can the Discourse on Soft Power Help the EU to Bridge its Capability-Expectations Gap?'European Political Economy Review, 7, 2007, pp. 195-226.
74. For more conceptual discussion of tensions and solutions.
75. Bechev and Nikolaidis, 'From Policy to Polity'.
76. Tanya Börzel, 'Europeanization: How the European Union Interacts with its Member States', in C. Lequesne and S. Bulmer (eds), Member States and the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 45-77.
77. For more discussion see Giselle Bosse and Elena Korosteleva, 'Changing Belarus? The Limits of EU Governance in Eastern Europe', Conflict and Cooperation, 44(2), 2009, pp. 143-165.
78. Elena Korosteleva, 'The Limits of the EU Governance: Belarus' Response to the European Neighbourhood Policy', Contemporary Politics, 15(2), 2009, pp. 229-245.
79. For more information see Federica Bicchi, 'One Size Fits All': Normative Power Europe and the Mediterranean', Journal of European Public Policy, 13(2), 2006, pp. 286-303.
80. Derek Averre, 'Competing Rationalities: Russia, the EU and the Shared Neighbourhood', Europe-Asia Studies, 61(10), 2009, pp. 1689-1713.
81. Lena Korosteleva, 'The Eastern Partnership Initiative: A New Opportunity for Neighbours?, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 27(1), 2011, pp. 1-21.
82. Argot Light, 'Russia and the EU: Strategic Partners or Strategic Rivals?' Journal of Common Market Studies, 46, 2009, Annual Review, pp. 7-27.
83. Thomas Diez, 'Constructing the Self and Changing Others: Reconsidering Normative Power Europe', Millennium, 33(3), 2005, pp. 613-666, at p. 626.
84. Diez, 'Constructing the Self and Changing Others', p. 629.
85. For more debate on the nature of EU transformative power, see special issue of International Affairs, 84(1), 2008.
86. Belarus is the only one of the neighbouring countries that does not have any legal provisions for cooperation with the EU.
87. T is also the only country which does not have any aspirations to a future in Europe. For more discussion.
88. see Elena Korosteleva, 'The Limits of EU Governance'.
89. For more information see Pavol Demeš, 'Belarus's Aleksander Lukashenko, European Chessmaster', 4 March 2010, available at: http://blog.gmfus.org/2010/03/04/belarus%E2%80%99-aleksander-lukashenko-european-chessmaster/.
90. Kastus' Lashkevich, 'Belarus-ES: Pochti kak v Gollivude' [Belarus-EU: Almost like in Hollywood], 10 February 2010, available at: http://news.tut.by/politics/160522.html.
91. Interview with a senior official of the EU delegation in Minsk, 23 September 2009.
92. Interview with a senior official of the EU delegation in Minsk.
93. The document succinctly embodies the EU political acquis, with explicit references to liberal democracy and human rights. 'What the EU Could Bring to Belarus?', Commission's Non-paper, November 2006, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/external-relations/belarus/intro/non-paper-1106.pdf.
94. For more discussion and commentary on Belarus' path to Europe see Belarusian Institute for Security Studies, 3rd annual conference held on 9-10 February 2010 in Minsk, available at: www.belinstitute.eu/index.php?option=comcontent&view=category&id=42&Itemid=35&lang=en&layout=blog.
95. Interview with a senior official, EU member state embassy, Minsk, 24 September 2009.
96. Benita Ferrero-Waldner, 'The European Neighbourhood Policy-Making Europe More Secure', speech/08/285, 28 May 2008, Kangaroo Group, European Security and Defence, European Office of Land Baden Wurttemberg.
97. Interview with a chairman, Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC), House of Representatives, Minsk, 22 September 2009
98. Interview with a senior government official, MFA, Minsk, 21 September 2009
99. Interview with a chairman, FAC, Parliament, Minsk, 22 September 2009.
100. Interview with a chairman, FAC, Parliament, Minsk.
101. Interview with a chairman, FAC, Parliament, Minsk.
102. Interview with an official, Department for Europe, MFA, Minsk, 21 September 2009.
103. Interview with a senior official, European delegation, Kiev, 29 September 2009.
104. Interview with an official of the Political Section, British embassy, Kiev, 28 September 2009 (emphasis added).
105. Interview with an official of the Political Section, British embassy, Kiev.
106. Interview with a senior official, Department for European Integration, MFA, Kiev, 29 September 2009.
107. Interview with a senior official, Department for European Integration. Similar opinions were expressed by members of the presidential administration and the Rada (the Ukrainian parliament).
108. Interviews with a senior official, Department for European Integration, with similar opinions expressed by interviewees from the Rada and the presidential administration.
109. Interview with a deputy chairman, FAC, Rada.
110. Interview a senior official, Department for European Integration.
111. Interview with a deputy chairman, FAC, Rada.
112. Kataryna Wolchuk, 'The EU Strategy towards the Post-Soviet States: Lessons from Ukraine', paper to the BASEES-UACES International Conference, 'Russia: A Part of Europe or Apart from Europe?', University of Birmingham, 27-28 November 2009.
113. For more detailed information see Elena Korosteleva, 'Moldova's European Choice: Between Two Stools', Europe-Asia Studies, 62(8), 2010, pp. 1267-1289.
114. Interview with a senior official, Political and Economic Section, EU Delegation, Chisinau, 1 October 2009
115. Interview with a senior official, German Embassy, Chisinau, 1 October 2009.
116. For more on EU-Moldova relations see Elena Korosteleva, 'Moldova's European Choice'.
117. Interview with a former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, MFA, 2 October 2009
118. Interview with Deputy Minister, Department for European Integration, MFA, 1 October 2009.
119. Interview with a chairman, Committee of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, Parliament, Chisinau, 1 October 2009.
120. Interview with a chairman, Committee of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, Chisinau.
121. Interview with a chairman, Committee of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, Chisinau.
122. Interview with a former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, MFA.
123. Solana, 'Countering Globalisation's Dark Side'.
124. Manners, 'Normative Power Europe', p. 239.
125. Federica Bicchi, 'One Size Fits All', p. 287.