Van Vooren, Bart --- "The European Union as an international actors and progressive experimentation in its neighbourhood" [2011] ELECD 224; in Koutrakos, Panos (ed), "European Foreign Policy" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: European Foreign Policy

Editor(s): Koutrakos, Panos

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849804097

Section: Chapter 5

Section Title: The European Union as an international actors and progressive experimentation in its neighbourhood

Author(s): Van Vooren, Bart

Number of pages: 25

Extract:

5. The European Union as an
international actor and progressive
experimentation in its neighbourhood
Bart Van Vooren

INTRODUCTION: THE NATURE OF THE EU AS AN
INTERNATIONAL ACTOR
In the European Security Strategy (ESS) of December 2003 `building security
in our neighbourhood' was posited as a key strategic objective for the
European Union.1 The forthcoming enlargement of May 2004 would `bring
the EU closer to troubled areas'2 and was the main driving force for drawing
up a European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) to attain that objective.
According to the ESS the Union should promote a ring of well-governed coun-
tries to the East and South with whom it could enjoy `close and cooperative
relations'. The approach set out to that end was `to extend the benefits of
economic and political cooperation to our neighbours ... while tackling politi-
cal problems there'.3 Beyond that broad statement, the strategic objectives of
the ENP have been subject to much debate and they were certainly not set in
stone.4 In December 2002 Romano Prodi described the `Wider Europe
Initiative' as seeking to `share everything but institutions' with the neighbours,
and the centrepiece would be a common market as well as far-reaching coop-
eration in common political challenges.5 The first Commission strategy paper
of 2003 famously stated that the neighbours should be offered the prospect of
`the stake in the internal market and further integration and liberalisation to
promote the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital'. On this


1 ` ...