Secretariat of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

Paper on the review of the European Neighbourhood Policy

In the mission letter sent to Commissioner Hahn, the President of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker underlined that the focus of his work "should be on strengthening the EU's political and economic ties with its Southern and Eastern neighbourhood". The aim is still to "promote stability at Europe's borders". "The European Neighbourhood Policy should appropriately distinguish between the specific situations of different parts of Europe’s neighbourhood"1.

The Commissioner is tasked with making a new proposal within the first year of his mandate.

The Committee on Foreign Affairs of the EP decided to draft a resolution on the subject to thus contribute to the process. The outcomes of the debate will be adequately reflected to the maximum extent in the draft resolution.

I - Context The European Neighbourhood Policy was established in the early 2000's following the last wave of accession of 10 partner countries of Central and Eastern Europe. At international level, this policy was conceived following the attacks on the World Trade centre and the invasion of in 2003. At this time the European Union was discussing and negotiating the Constitutional Treaty within the European Convention. It was also adopting the European Security Strategy "A safer Europe in a better world" at the European Council meeting in December 2003. A conclusion shared by all stake holders was that the EU should speak with one voice in order to be a respected player on the international scene. The EU should also aim at promoting stability and good governance within the countries at its new border. The common perception was that the EU needs to promote "a ring of well governed countries to the East of the EU and on the borders of the Mediterranean with whom {the EU} can enjoy close and cooperation relations"2.

On 11 March 2003, the European Commission (EC) set the principles of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) by publishing of a Communication entitled "Wider Europe - neighbourhood: a new framework for relations with our Eastern and Southern neighbours"3. The rationale was to foster economic integration with these neighbours by providing the necessary assistance for them to implement the "acquis communautaire" and the necessary political, institutional and economic reforms, as illustrated by the famous saying of Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission at the time, "Everything but the institutions".

1 See http://ec.europa.eu/about/juncker-commission/docs/hahn_en.pdf 2 See European Security Strategy: " A safer Europe in a better world", p8 http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf 3 See Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament "Wider Europe - neighbourhood: a new framework for relations with our Eastern and Southern Neighbours", COM (2003) 104 final, http://eeas.europa.eu/enp/pdf/pdf/com03_104_en.pdf [email protected] - www.europarl.europa.eu B-1047 Brussels - Tel +32 2 284 21 11 - Fax £ 32 2 284 90 13 Ten years later and especially with the uprisings in the Southern Mediterranean which started in December 2011, the EC and the European External Action Service (EEAS) took rapidly stock of the situations and conceived a policy change. Two further communications were published: first "A partnership for democracy and shared prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean"4 on 8 March 2011, and secondly "A new response to a changing Neighbourhood"5 on 25 May 2011.

The new approach was summarised by the VP/HR Catherine Ashton by: "Money, market and mobility". The rationale behind the policy of incentives was still in place but the differentiation would be more important and based on political and economic reforms.

In parallel, the financing instrument of the ENP was to be revised by an ordinary legislative procedure (cf. article 209 §1 of the TFEU). The new proposal for a regulation6 was published on 7 December 2011. The new regulation was adopted by a decision of the Council of 11 March 2014.

Of the various impact studies undertaken at the time by the EC and the EEAS, the best option was to update the financing instrument instead of creating a new one for example. The current European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) is allocated 15.4 billion € for the period running from 2014-20207.

II - Mediterranean partners For some of the Southern Mediterranean countries, many of the policy tools of the revised ENP have been put on hold or suspended, like the negotiations of an association agreement with Libya, the suspension of the ratification process of the agreement with Syria.

At economic level the negotiations of a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) with Morocco, with Tunisia or with Egypt and Jordan (approved by the Council on 14 December 2011) have not made much progress yet.

In the field of mobility, only Morocco (June 2013) and Tunisia (March 2014) are at the forefront of dialogues on migration. The EU and the Morocco adopted a joint declaration in June 2013, whereby they endeavour to "develop further their dialogue and cooperation on migration, mobility and security in a spirit of shared responsibility and solidarity". The EU and Tunisia also signed a declaration (in March 2014) whereby they will begin negotiations on visa facilitations and on a readmission agreement. Negotiations are also in progress with Jordan.

4 See COM(2011) 200 final, http://eeas.europa.eu/euromed/docs/com2011_200_en.pdf 5 See COM (2011) 303 final, http://eur- lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2011:0303:FIN:en:PDF

6 See COM (2011) 839 final, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/com/com_com(2011)0839_/com_com(2011)08 39_en.pdf

7 Cf. in annex the breakdown of credits per country Last but not least the goal of promoting the regional integration dimension amongst the Mediterranean partners has not been achieved and protracted conflicts still persist within the EU Southern neighbourhood.

III - Eastern partners

For the Eastern partnership, there is clear differentiation in the EU policy towards eastern countries following results of Association Agreement negotiation. Countries like Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine, have signed association agreements in the mid-term of 2014 (foresee the establishment of Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas). Therefore, as a direct application of the principle 'more for more', main of EU funding is oriented towards these recipients while policy towards other countries is in standing position.

At economic level, provisional application of the DCFTA in Ukraine is delayed to early 2016 prolonging the Autonomous Trade Measure allowing Ukraine to export without taxation on European market while fees are kept for EU imports. As Belarus and have joined the Customs Union launched by Russia, a free trade area with the EU is not anymore an option. The EU is currently thinking to reshape its policy towards these countries.

With regards the field of mobility, Moldova is the only country to benefit from a visa liberalisation since 28 April 2014 while a visa facilitation and readmission agreements have entered into force on 1 January 2014 in Armenia. Ukraine and Georgia are following the same path than Moldova implementing the second phase of the Action Plan for a Visa Liberalisation. On 30 January 2014, the negotiations with Belarus on visa facilitation and readmission agreements have been launched to the benefit of the public at large keeping the EU policy of critical engagement towards Belarus.

Taking into account importance of energy in Eastern Countries, it is worth to notice that Ukraine and Moldova are full membership of Energy Community aiming at implementing the third energy package while Georgia is on the way of being a full member. For its part, Armenia has the status of observers.

IV - Elements of assessment For many academics the ENP suffers from:  A flawed conceptual framework based on the enlargement approach of incentives but in a dynamic process with accession perspectives.  A Eurocentric nature, as the EU seems to fail to take into account the role and influence of other stake holders like Russia, China, the countries of the Arabic Peninsula, the USA but also non-state actors like ISIS for example.  An inconsistent conditionality resulting from a political compromise between different interests8.

Recently, a number of Member States (Cyprus, France, Greece, , Malta, Spain and Portugal) have launched an initiative regarding the "Updating of the ENP". For these countries, greater attention should be paid by the ENP to EU's interests and those of our partners. The policy should be more strategic with a real political vision. It should not be

8 See the paper "Time to reset the European Neighbourhood policy", by Stefan Lehne, February 2014, http://carnegieeurope.eu/publications/?fa=54420 mixed with other policies like enlargement for example. It should be discussed regularly within the Council in order to fine-tune it to evolving circumstances on the ground.

These Member States would like that a single policy framework be kept with the same instruments for both dimensions but with greater flexibility in the selections of instruments and procedures.

In their opinion, the principle of differentiation should be liked to a real co-ownership of the policy as the EU's partners have to be convinced that it is a useful tool to address common challenges.

As a general rule, the ENP has increasingly been divided between East and South. Is it a division that should be further enhanced? or rather should the new ENP foresee the different levels of cooperation depending on the efforts and interest of the countries? From a maximum level of "association" to simple bilateral cooperation?

Security is an essential component of the policy. How can the EU ensure that the countries have proper state structures to deal with these issues, such as effective law enforcement, intelligence and security that should be accompanied by proper parliamentary oversight?

Annexes