EU cooperation with non-member neighboring countries: the principle of variable geometry

The European Union (EU) represents a large and highly integrated bloc which contributed 19.4% of global GDP and over 30% of global exports in 2012. As of July 1, 2013 it consists of 28 member states. All of them belong to the customs union and the Single European Market (SEM) in which most formal and informal barriers to the free movement of goods, services, people and capital have been removed. In addition, most members share a common currency (Euro) and form a free-travel Schengen zone. The important policy areas such as external trade, customs, competition, other regulations related to SEM, monetary policy (in the case of the Eurozone), certain iscal and other macroeconomic policies, part of indirect taxation, research, energy policy, etc. have been transferred to the competence of supranational EU bodies. Several other questions such as immigration and asylum, visas, common border management, justice and home affairs, and foreign and security policy remain subject to coordination and common decisions. Since the beginning of its existence, the EU has been involved in building close economic and political relations with non-member countries, involving a variety of legal forms. The EU has always been lexible in offering or accepting the exact cooperation model, trying to adjust itself to the speciic needs, constraints and sovereignty concerns of individual partners. The EU has never pushed any country to join the EU or sign association/free trade agreements. EU membership is considered a scarce good, membership in the elite club of developed and rich nations, a prize for good policies and institutions of the potential candidate. The same principle works in the case of association and free trade agreements with countries which are not going to join the EU: it is an offer and a prize for good performance rather than an instrument of economic or political pressure. It is the choice of a potential partner to accept, postpone or reject such a cooperation offer. The EU’s experience in building a complex and lexible net of economic and political relations with non-member countries can serve as a good lesson and example to follow by other regional integration blocs which also face the problem of shaping their external relations with countries which are interested in close cooperation but not membership in a given bloc. On the other hand, the EU’s institutional lexibility creates room for negotiating cross-regional trade and economic integration deals not only with individual countries but also with other blocs such as NAFTA, MERCOSUR, ASEAN or the Eurasian Economic Community.