Evolution of the European neighbourhood policy –instruments, limits and conditionalities

There is no doubt that the enlargement of the European Union in 2004, with the eight Central and Eastern European countries plus Cyprus and Malta, completed in 2007 by the accession of Romania and Bulgaria has brought to the attention not only the need to reform the EU’s institutional framework and to revise some policies, but also the way to approach the external relations, mainly with the new immediate neighbourhood. Confronted with new challenges at its Eastern borders, the European Union has proposed to its neighbours a European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) that intends to avoid creating new dividing lines in Europe and also to ensure the development of fruitful cooperation relations with the partner states. Concentrating on adapting former mechanisms of cooperation and benefiting from the enlargement process experience, the ENP also brings new policy tools and instruments (see for instance the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument) to the negotiation table. It remains under debate the ability and willingness of the EU Member States to join forces in order to define better and more coherently and concretely the support they intend to offer to the “ring of friends”, as well as the extent to which the ENP partner states will identify other ways to embark on the necessary reform process, in the absence of the ultimate incentive: the perspective of membership to the European Union.