This present article is part of a series of articles published as part of the “Europe - What if?” Campaign by JEF Europe, within the project CompletEU framework. Its aim is to acknowledge that Europe is not limited to the European Union. Therefore, we invite our readers to examine the complex relationship the EU has with non-EU and newly EU countries in Europe and how this relationship could develop in the future.
Since the collapse of the USSR, the Western-centric approach towards the Eastern neighbourhood countries has always been linked to the idea of peripherality. In other words, the Eastern neighbourhood was denoted as ‘other’, beyond the natural European borders, and rather as a sort of buffer zone between the West and Russia. This European ‘peripheral discourse’, connected to the reluctance to consider the Eastern neighbourhood as fully European, has contributed to the EU’s prolonged lack of commitment and undermined the effectiveness of its policies in the region.
The intensification of relations reached a turning point with the so-called ‘Big Bang’ enlargement in 2004, after which the EU found itself bordering more fragile and unstable countries, posing a security threat to the Union as a whole. Being more exposed to this radical change in circumstances, the Eastern European countries called for the necessity of creating a “ring of friends” and safeguarding their borders through cooperative and peaceful relations. Therefore, following a joint initiative by Poland and Sweden, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) became the first form of institutional cooperation with the Eastern neighbourhood. The ENP is a European initiative launched in 2004 to foster “stability, security and prosperity in the EU’s neighbouring regions”, both Eastern and Southern, by supporting their foreign and domestic policy towards liberal democratic systems. The ENP envisages the same European strategy reserved for potential accession states, i.e. the subordination of enhanced cooperation to the compliance with the so-called EU acquis through the fulfilment of a series of political, economic and social reforms. However, despite such similarities with the enlargement policies, the ENP does not contemplate the possibility of EU membership.
Over the years, the ENP has faced various criticisms. In addition to the limited progress on reforms - largely due to unclear implementation guidelines and inadequate incentives - another major challenge was represented by the geographical and ideological heterogeneity of the partner states, particularly in terms of their aspirations and objectives vis-à-vis the EU. This oversimplification became increasingly evident with the 2008 war in Georgia, which confirmed the necessity for a more defined foreign policy strategy in the region. Therefore, once the need for greater internal differentiation was recognised, the EU decided in 2009 to launch the Eastern Partnership (EaP) as a “specific Eastern dimension within the ENP”.
The EaP confirms the EU’s persistent normative approach towards its neighbourhood, framing it on a regional scale. The integration potential of the EaP marked a turning point in the development of a dual policy strategy, multilateral and bilateral, which was instrumental in fostering regional cooperation while further reinforcing the principle of differentiation. The bilateral track particularly established an enhanced contractual framework with each country through tailor-made agreements, which provided stronger incentives for those partners willing to pursue closer relations with the EU. In the case of Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia, Association Agreements entered into force as a legal basis to foster political dialogue, along with Deep and Comprehensive Free-Trade Areas (DCFTAs) and visa-free regimes to promote economic integration.
However, starting from the assumption that the primary goal of the EaP was to support the political and economic development of the Eastern neighbourhood, the initiative has also revealed several shortcomings that have largely questioned the extent to which the European Neighbourhood Policy has influenced domestic change in its partner countries. First, the EaP, as well as the ENP, was born with an internal contradiction: applying the logic of enlargement policies to partner countries for which EU membership was not contemplated. Indeed, the appellation of ‘partner countries’, emphasising partnership rather than accession, seems to implicitly suggest an EU-centric perspective according to which neighbouring countries could become “like us, but not one of us”. In addition, any enhanced offer of incentives, such as access to the internal market, was subordinated to the achievement of increasingly defined and stringent conditions in terms of legislative harmonisation with the acquis. Consequently, the benefits of increased cooperation – which, in any case, did not envisage full integration as the ultimate goal – could only be reaped after the lengthy and costly task of policy alignment, resulting in insufficient incentives for partner countries to fully commit to the implementation of the required reforms. In sum, the European partnership model with its Eastern neighbourhood was conceived as asymmetrical, as dominated by a hierarchical logic in which the EU holds greater leverage over partner countries through conditionalities, but, more importantly, built upon a gap in expectations: the EU advances its claims through the imposition of rules without simultaneously providing concrete guarantees in return, neither in terms of integration nor of security – considering the frozen conflicts, unresolved disputes, and strong Russian interference across the Easter Partnership countries.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine can be considered the real driver of change in the EU’s relationship with its Eastern neighbourhood. Unlike the 2008 war in Georgia, for the first time, the EU perceived a direct threat to its own borders, which constituted a watershed moment that changed the paradigm of the Eastern neighbourhood from a Western perspective. The traditional ‘buffer narrative’ gave way to the idea of a bridge, prompting the EU to recognise the strategic importance of supporting these countries and to view them as true European neighbours with whom to promote and share liberal democratic values, in line with its normative approach. This renewed sense of regard encouraged neighbouring countries to seek closer ties with the EU, as evidenced by Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia’s membership applications, and the subsequent launch of their accession process. However, while these developments represent a major step forward in strengthening EU-Eastern neighbourhood relations, they have not necessarily translated into domestic reform progress, as demonstrated by Georgia’s recent democratic backsliding.
Moreover, these steps did not occur within the EaP Framework, but rather in parallel with it, as part of the so-called enhanced Pre-Accession Strategy. This means that over time, the six partner countries have progressively followed diverging paths, with three of them stepping beyond the EaP by entering the EU enlargement process, thereby relegating the Eastern Partnership to a secondary role in their relationship with the Union. Indeed, this ‘grouping’ effort, unilaterally undertaken by the EU, was based on the flawed assumption that the six states constituted a homogeneous region, substantially overlooking the significant differences in their interests and ambitions vis-à-vis the EU. Therefore, in light of the diverse domestic developments in each state and consequent differentiated relations with the EU, the one-size-fits-all approach of the EaP appears to be rather obsolete, resulting in a largely fragmented and predominantly bilateral cooperation framework, given the limited impact of its multilateral dimension.
That said, this should not imply the abolition of the multilateral track. On the contrary, given its key function in directly involving civil society in the implementation of national and regional initiatives, it remains essential to support it as a central platform for stakeholder dialogue within the EaP countries and with the EU, recognising civil society’s pivotal role as both a catalyst for regional cooperation and a driver of democratic change. Nevertheless, considering the necessity of maintaining bilateral relations as the primary channel of engagement, it is worth asking whether the Eastern Partnership, in its current structure, still serves a meaningful purpose. In view of a possible renewed post-2025 EaP policy, it may be recommended to implement tailored bilateral approaches based on each country’s socio-political specificities. This would require the EU to explicitly define its intentions and level of commitment through clear timeframes for each partner, adapting them to the pace and capacity for reform implementation and to the status of bilateral relations – particularly distinguishing between countries engaged in accession negotiations and those covered by broader neighbourhood policies. In both cases, the EU should avoid reverting to its traditional paternalistic approach and instead adopt a mechanism of joint responsibility, shifting the relationship towards a more balanced and mutually beneficial partnership. This would involve setting clear expectations, feasible objectives and realistic deadlines: for instance, requiring specific reforms to be achieved by a set date in exchange for concrete guarantees. Greater emphasis should also be placed on the security issue, such as by strengthening cooperation within the frameworks of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).
In conclusion, the recent division of DG NEAR and the creation of DG ENEST signal a promising shift towards a renewed willingness to intensify relations with the region, and suggest the prospects of a reinforced European Neighbourhood Instrument within the 2028-2034 Multiannual Financial Framework.
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