How the EU Should Help its Neighbours

A. Main Hypotheses of Relevance to PDT

External Players and Influences:

EU

• Supportive: The Central and East European accession countries have been motivated by the real and near prospect of accession, which allowed their politicians to push through reforms in the name of joining the EU (2).
• Counter-arguments: Without the prospect of accession, countries are less likely to take up the EU’s offers of help, for example in reforming their economies (2).
• Other: EU needs to give specific rewards in return for specific improvements, with clear conditions and benchmarks to measure progress – “Tough Love” approach, rather than vague promises of ‘launching a dialogue’ on various issues such is it the European Neighborhood Policy.

B. Article Summary

Grabbe examines the Commission’s proposal for the European Neighborhood Policy and argues that the EU should give stronger incentives for its neighbors for its policy to be effective. According to Grabbe, the EU should be granting its neighbors greater access to its huge internal market (especially agriculture) and easier passage for travelers across its borders. Furthermore, the EU should also set clearer and more consistent conditions for countries to gain its benefits (“specific rewards for specific improvements” approach)

Grabbe specifically deals with the question whether the EU can encourage democratization and conversion to market for its neighbors, such as Ukraine and Algeria that are not likely to become the EU members in the near future. After examination of the ENP, she concludes that the Commission’s proposals are “not a serious attempt to transform the EU’s neighbourhood” (2) and sets out ideas on how the EU could improve its Neighbourhood Policy, that is based on the “Everything But Institutions” Approach which does not satisfy the countries’ desire of a visa-free access to the EU and free trade in agricultural products.

European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP):

Covers 17 countries to the EU’s east and south, from the Arctic circle down to the Black Sea and round the Mediterranean. Only the neighboring countries which have already signed association or partnership agreements with the EU are eligible immediately, which means that the package is not available to Belarus and Libya at the moment. However, Libya could join it as soon as it becomes a member of the EU’s ‘Barcelona process.’

The EU has added the countries of the Southern Caucasus – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia – following Georgia’s ‘rose revolution’ that brought in a new government in 2003.

Complicates the EU-Russia relationship:

• although the Commission claims that Russia is covered by the policy, EU’s existing plans for Russia overlap with many areas of the Neighbourhood Policy. [More in Katinka Barysch, ‘The EU and Russia: strategic partners or squabbling neighbours?’ CER, May 2004];
• conflicts with Russia’s ‘near abroad’ policy: i.e. the EU’s demand to reinforce border controls with none-EU countries often conflicts with already existing cross-border agreements and ‘common economic space’ initiatives between former Soviet-Union countries (‘near abroad’ countries);

Proposes to give its neighbors more money from 2007 onwards for the development of new rules for using existing aid and a gradual integration of neighboring countries into some EU markets; however, makes “rather vague promises of greater political dialogue and security co-operation” (2).

Introduces a ‘European Neighbourhood Instrument’ that could fund projects both inside and outside the Union that focus on cross-border projects and wider transnational initiatives that promote sustainable development, the environment, public health, fighting organized crime, border control, and ‘people-to-people’ contacts through education and civil society.

Grabbe focuses on two areas, where the EU can encourage its neighbors to democratize more effectively.

With regard to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), Grabbe claims that the EU should:

• Sell the idea of agricultural trade liberalization to reluctant member-states by emphasizing how little it would cost the Union (“trade concessions are very cheap in comparison with aid or military intervention”) (3).
• Do a study on the export potential of neighboring countries’ agricultural sectors to show how little EU markets would be affected (3).
• Apply its agricultural product standards to imports from third countries as a means of improving farming sectors not as a means of protecting its own producers (4).

With regard to the movement of people, Grabbe argues that

• While mentioning the possibility of making it easier for citizens of neighboring countries to gain Schengen visas, the proposal does not provide any details or a specific timescale.
• As knowledge about the existence of the possibility of free movement in neighboring countries for the ordinary people and their children fundamentally shapes their view of the EU, the EU needs to design a better travel and visa-issuing systems for its neighbors before domestic political pressures cause its member-states to close their doors more tightly. (4)
• The EU could help neighboring countries by: developing a common system for issuing Schengen visas that are made cheaper and easer to obtain; providing more assistance with customs; giving the next generation a chance to learn about the EU by allowing them to work and study in the EU for a short period of time.

The EU should apply “Tough Love” approach that requires:

• Coherent message from all parts of the EU: “speak[ing] with one voice in its whole neighbourhood [and] keep saying the same thing year after year.” (5)
• Creating a post of a ‘neighbourhood and enlargement commissioner’ within the Commission.
• Encouraging officials of CEE countries who have been through the experience of implementing the EU’s policies in their own countries to explain them to other reforming countries.
• Adopting the EU’s acquis communautaire (guidelines of rules and regulations) to the reforming economies by selecting some elements of the acquis that are appropriate for their economies as a proper implementation of all present EU rules requires complex and sophisticated institutional frameworks that are little developed in neighbouring countries.
• Outlining a clearer agenda for democracy: “the EU needs to spell out the criteria for achieving (or indeed measuring) political conditions, such as the stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and respect for and protection of minorities” (5).

The EU’s proposal is vague about exactly what the EU might offer, and when.

“If the EU wants to persuade its neighbours to co-operate, it needs to give them much more help with the areas they really care about, not just its own concerns.” (6)

Be realistic: “The Union cannot expect to transform the whole of ‘wider Europe’ in the way it did the Central and East European candidates” (6).

Countries covered by the ENP are unlikely to be converted to the EU’s free-market rhetoric (paper’s invitation to adopt EU economic legislation, open up their economies to one another, and reduce trade barriers) if the Union grants no specific inducements in return for liberalization (4).

The EU needs to give specific rewards in return for specific improvements with clear conditions and benchmarks to measure progress.

C. Additional comments and suggestions:

The article is particularly useful for the Project as it specifically deals with the role of the EU in the non-EU member states, such as Ukraine and Georgia, and examines the ENP and its shortcomings. Also, it provides alternative “tough love” approach that can be used by the EU and applied in the countries where the membership is not feasible in a near future.

Grabbe’s suggestions can be used for drawing the PDT’s policy recommendations.

Summarized by Christine Otsver, December 2006

[1] The 1985 Schengen Agreement is an agreement among European states, which allows for common policy on the temporary entry of persons (including the Schengen visa) and the harmonization of external border controls. A total of 26 countries – including all European Union states except the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic, but including non-EU members Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland – have signed the agreement and 15 have implemented it so far.

[2] “Tough Love” approach is a mixture of the EU’s “carrots and sticks” that demands the EU “to make it clear that countries will gain rewards if they meet various conditions, and that the rewards will be denied or withdrawn if they lapse back into bad habits“ (5).