ABSTRACT

This chapter analyses the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) by unveiling its historical record, distilling the 'policy' stimuli, examining its texture. It investigates the 'edifice' that the Union has put in place to deal with it, critically scrutinizing its nature; explaining it within the major theoretical/conceptual paradigms, and making a political prognosis. The southern and eastern neighbours were placed under the same umbrella in the Communication from the Commission: the European Neighbourhood Policy Strategy Paper produced in 2004. The ENP is not a completely idiosyncratic 'policy': a large part of its toolkit has been inherited from the enlargement policy, which it was supposed to replace at least in the short-to-medium term. The ENP's ambitious and comprehensive nature opens up a large horizon for theoretical interpretation. The acclaimed features of the ENP have been stated to be 'joint ownership', 'differentiation', 'partnership', 'shared values' and 'conditionality'.