Abstract
With its aspirations to be a global power, the European Union designed the European Neighbourhood Policy with the main aim of having an impact on democratisation in its neighbouring countries. This chapter elaborates the shortcomings of this policy in detail, through a case study of its inadequate impact on democratisation and stabilisation in Ukraine, one of the EU’s most important neighbourhood partners. This chapter also aims to reveal the contradiction between the EU’s normative vision and its security demands, and explore whether this policy supports the EU’s security needs or rather supplements the extension of its normative vision into its periphery.
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Notes
- 1.
Despite the fact that the European project was constructed without reference to hard security issues, the outbreak of war in the Balkans, 9/11, and the U.S. decision to wage an international war against terror, as well as American unilateralism, awakened the EU as a security actor. Thus, Javier Solana, the Secretary General of the Council of Ministers and the High Representative for the CFSP, was asked to prepare a paper on a common EU security strategy. The European Council then adopted the European Security Strategy in December 2003, which set out for the first time a vision for the EU’s strategic policy by identifying common security threats (Aydın and Kaptanoğlu 2008, p. 65).
- 2.
As such, the Commission detected the trans-border dimension of environmental and nuclear hazards, communicable diseases, illegal immigration, trafficking, organised crime, border management or terrorist networks (Commission 2003a, p. 6).
- 3.
Today the ENP consists of Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Palestinian Authority, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
- 4.
In the ENP, co-operation in areas such as the environment, migration, transport or economic policies intensifies, and concrete support for this kind of democracy promotion can be seen in the involvement of ENP partners in democracy and governance projects funded by European aid (Schimmelfennig 2009, p. 17).
- 5.
One of the examples of successful sectoral co-operation between the EU and its ENP partners is the Mediterranean Sea Environment Strategy. Under this strategy, the EU provides financial assistance and supports specific environment projects in ENP countries bordering the Mediterranean. These projects mainly aim to de-pollute the region by 2020. In that sense, the EU also takes co-operation with civil societies in the neighbouring countries very seriously as well. This can also be seen in its approach towards the Arab Spring, which was further elaborated in a joint communication on 25 May 2012. This communication, which initiated the launch of a new response to a changing neighbourhood, stressed that there would be particular emphasis on the capacity of civil society to promote reform and increase public accountability in the ENP countries through the new Civil Society Facility. It would also consult civil society organisations more systematically in the preparation and monitoring of bilateral action plans and financial co-operation projects.
- 6.
Change does not only come from outside, because there are also some internal factors which may promote democracy. This happens mostly as a result of elections leading to the defeat of less democratic incumbents, or to popular unrest causing the downfall of the old regime. Externally, the EU is not the only actor which may cause democratic change in third countries. The United Nations also supports the liberal values that form the core elements of the EU. However, experience has shown that those international organisations that do not offer tangible or political incentives to the states of the region have not been effective in promoting democratic change against domestic obstacles.
- 7.
One other financial instrument committed to helping partner countries achieve sustainable economic development and social growth is the Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership (FEMIP), the financial arm of the European Investment Bank in the Mediterranean region. According to the 2010 Annual Report of the FEMIP, through enhanced co-operation between the European Investment Bank, the European Commission, the Member States and their financing institutions, as well as the Mediterranean partners themselves, the FEMIP signed loans amounting to 2.6 billion euros to finance 18 projects: six in North African countries, nine in the East and three regional operations (queryFEMIP 2010 Annual Report, pp. 50–57).
- 8.
The Orange Revolution was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine, from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate aftermath of the run-off vote of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, which was claimed to be marred by massive corruption, voter intimidation and direct electoral fraud. Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, was the focal point of the movement, with thousands of protesters demonstrating daily.
- 9.
In the EU-Ukraine AP, which was endorsed by the EU-Ukraine Co-operation Council on 21 February 2005, the EU ‘acknowledges Ukraine’s European aspirations and welcomes Ukraine’s European choice. By sharing a border as direct neighbours, the EU and Ukraine are determined to enhance their relations and to promote security, stability and well-being. It will furthermore help to devise and implement policies and measures to promote economic growth and social cohesion, to raise living standards and to protect the environment, thereby contributing to the long-term objective of sustainable development’. Moreover, the part of the AP which covers co-operation on Freedom, Security and Justice has been revised by the EU, and sections on co-operation were strengthened (EU-Ukraine Action Plan and Revised EU-Ukraine Action Plan on Freedom, Security and Justice, 2005, 2010). For more details, see the report on Ukraine’s Relations with the EU, in the paper prepared within the framework of the project ‘Integration Perspectives and Synergic Effects of European Transformation in the Countries Targeted by EU Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policies’ (Centre for EU Enlargement Studies, Central Eastern University, Budapest, June 2008).
- 10.
Ukraine granted visa-free travel rights to citizens of all EU member states in 2005 on a voluntary basis, awaiting EU concessions with respect to deeper economic integration and free visa regime. When this reciprocation did not materialize, starting in 2008, Ukrainian authorities started to diminish their support for co-operation with the EU in JHA, in terms of postponing visa-free access for Romanians and Bulgarians.
- 11.
According to the National Institute for Strategic Studies, domestic support for Ukraine’s membership in the EU decreased from 55 % in 2001, to 47 % in 2005, and 43 % in 2008, mainly based on the lack of response from the EU in the immediate aftermath of the Orange Revolution.
- 12.
This preference can be seen in EU’s co-ordinated response to the democratic changes in North Africa and the Middle East. While EU assistance mainly focused on deep democracy building, including electoral reform, support for civil society, construction of an independent judiciary and a free press and media, and the fight against corruption, the preparations for Tunisia seem to indicate that the EU is most likely to concentrate on effective rather than democratic governance, particularly in the area of economic development and border control (Börzel and van Hüllen 2011, p. 14–15).
- 13.
This statement is taken from an interview held with Mr. Bucek on 21 September 2010 in Prague.
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‘A Secure Europe’ in a better world European security strategy, 12 December 2003
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News Agencies
Lily Hyde, ‘East/West: Baltic-Black Sea Conference Revealed Divisions’, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Accessed October 22, 2002 from http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1999/09/F.R.U.990913131055.html
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Eris, Ö.Ü. (2013). European Neighbourhood Policy and The EU’s Role as a Normative Power: The Case of Ukraine. In: Boening, A., Kremer, JF., van Loon, A. (eds) Global Power Europe - Vol. 2. Global Power Shift. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32416-1_4
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