ABSTRACT

Introduction With the ‘big bang’ enlargement in 2004, the European Union (EU) started to spur political and economic reforms in Eastern Europe and promote the fight against corruption and for good governance. As its borders moved eastwards, the EU has developed a new foreign policy framework for those countries in the East and in the South that do not have a membership perspective in the near future. The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) aims at developing ‘a zone of prosperity and a friendly neighbourhood – a “ring of friends” – with whom the EU enjoys close, peaceful, and co-operative relations’.1