ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with EU interfaces vis-à-vis the neighbouring countries to the east and southeast of the EU area, countries that were part of the Soviet Union before gaining independence in the 1990s. These countries – Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine to the east, and Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia to the southeast – thus share some important elements in terms of common history, political institutions and economic practices. They can all be referred to as transition countries. At the same time, there are vast differences among them, in terms of how the transition process in general has developed, in terms of the character of the relationship to Russia, and also in terms of integration with European and Euro-Atlantic institutions. Regarding the latter point, with the exception of Belarus, all countries have embarked on a path of Europeanization on a combined basis of manifest cooperation with the EU and attempting to adopt European democratic standards. As noted by the EU Commission, in the east and southeast, ‘all ENP partners that have agreed Action Plans are members of the OSCE and the Council of Europe, which contributes to a particular reform agenda aiming at close approximation to the fundamental standards prevailing in the EU’ (Commission 2008a: 3). Yet, as this chapter will show, there are dramatic differences not only between Belarus and the other five countries, but also within the group of European orientation. For practical reasons, the analysis below is structured around the concepts of Wider Europe and South Caucasus, respectively. These are geographical distinctions that can be traced back to the early ENP policy development (as the initial thoughts of what later became the ENP were focused on Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine – and Russia – and labelled ‘Wider Europe’, whereas the South Caucasus countries were included later). It is also a distinction employed in the analysis of Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver regarding what they label the post-Soviet regional security complex. As will be evident in the coming pages, however, these geographical distinctions carry little value in terms of interface characteristics, neither in terms of group-internal similarities, nor in terms of distinct differences between the groups. Before embarking on analyses of individual interfaces, we need to briefly review the scope and nature of regional cooperation involving the countries of interest to this chapter.
