The European Neighbourhood Policy towards the Western New Independent States

“New Europe”, Aspects of the EU Enlargement

Abstract

The European Union elaborated its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in May 2004. The policy seeks to make the EU's new neighbours democratic, stable and prosperous, and to assure the security of the EU, but, at the same time, to avoid promising these new neighbours accession to the Union. To accomplish its objectives, the EU has concluded with these states an Action Plan which stipulates goals as benchmarks to be realised with regard to democratisation and market economic reform. Nevertheless, there has been concern whether the ENP will succeed or not, as it does not assure EU membership to the new neighbours, in contrast to the prior EU enlargement into Central and Eastern Europe. The success or failure of the ENP, in particular towards the Western New Independent States (WNIS)-Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus-will influence not only the stability of these states and the security of the EU, but also the future of European and Eurasian international geopolitics. Therefore, this article analyses the likelihood of success or failure of the ENP towards the WNIS, focusing on: 1) EU-WNIS relations, 2) WNIS-Russian relations, and 3) EU-Russia relations in relation to the WNIS. Finally, the impact of the later Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Orange Evolution in the Republic of Moldova on this analysis will be assessed.
The conclusion reached in this analysis is that, the only thing that the EU can do is to encourage Ukraine and Moldova to accomplish the benchmarks without assuring them of accession to the Union (which means a lack of stimulation for their political and economic reforms) and without obtaining Russian cooperation in stabilizing this region. In addition, prior to the Orange Revolution, both states were interested in accession to the EU, but they fluctuated between closer relations with the EU or with Russia, as they were situated between the two from political, economic, identity, and geopolitical points of view. Furthermore, Russia made efforts to keep the two states within its sphere of influence. Therefore, it was quite difficult to expect that the beneficial effects of conditionality for EU enlargement on Central and Eastern Europe would also occur in the case of the WNIS. With regard to the future relations between the EU and Belarus, there were no prospects for the normalisation of relations at the time.
However, in the light of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Orange Evolution in Moldova, the above conclusions have been re-evaluated. The Orange Revolution demonstrated that civil society has matured in Ukraine, and that it is a promoter of democracy and market economics-benchmarks in the Action Plan. The contrast between, on the one hand, the old-fashioned methods used by Russia to influence Ukraine and Moldova and, on the other, the methods used by U. S. -European international democratisation NGOs in their relations with the domestic NGOs which contributed to the Orange Revolution and Evolution in the two countries, has made it inevitable that both states are now approaching the EU and the U. S., while keeping a distance from Russia. The Orange Revolution and Evolution have also led to a more serious involvement of the EU in both states than the Action Plan stipulated. In any event, observers will have to wait until the final results are made clear in the EU Commission report concerning the implementation of the Action Plan to be published in two years.