ABSTRACT
In the 1991 Maastricht Treaty, the EU specified for the first time its foreign policy objectives. These included conflict resolution as well as strengthening international security, promoting regional cooperation, combating international crime, and promoting democracy, the rule of law and human rights (Article J.1). Since then, the EU has remained firm on its objectives. The draft Constitutional Treaty states that the Union’s external action would aim at ‘preserving peace, preventing conflicts and strengthening international security’ (Art III-193(2c)), and in doing so, it would be ‘guided by, and designed to advance in the wider world, the principles which have inspired its own creation, development and enlargement’ (Article III-193(1)). These principles include democracy, human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law (Article I-2 and I-3). The EU Security Strategy then pinpointed the neighbourhood as a key geographical priority of EU external action. It stated that the Union’s task is to ‘make a particular contribution to stability and good governance in our immediate neighbourhood (and) to promote a ring of well-governed countries to the east of the EU and on the borders of the Mediterranean with whom we can enjoy cooperative relations’ (European Council 2003b). The ENP explicitly aims to promote the EU’s values as a means to spread stability, security and prosperity in the southern and eastern neighbourhoods. It also aspires to strengthen the EU’s contribution to the solution of regional conflicts (Commission 2004a: 6).
