ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter discusses the main findings of the contributions to this volume regarding the reasons for the proliferation of privileged partnerships between the European Union (EU) and neighbouring states as well as their development over time. It draws on concepts from historical institutionalism that help explain the institutional choices made from a longer-term, comparative perspective and identifies some of the lessons that can be learned. The chapter shows that the EU’s own institutional set-up has played a defining role by providing a template for the negotiation of privileged partnerships, whose shape also reflect path dependence and the neighbours’ own ambitions and relative bargaining power. The precedent of existing relationships is now also impacting on the institutional options for the United Kingdom’s post-Brexit partnership with the EU. It can thus be argued that by exporting its institutional norms and principles to its neighbourhood, the EU has turned into a ‘Governance Power Europe’.
