ABSTRACT
The drive towards the enlargement of the European Union to include ten new members in 2004 dominated the agenda and policy-making energies of the European Union’s regional engagement over the last decade. The resulting accessions have undoubtedly represented a key success story of the European Union’s adaptation to the challenges of the end of the Cold War and to the vocation of East Central Europe (ECE) to integrate into European political and economic structures (Smith 2004; Dunay 2004). As such, it is hardly surprising that the European Security Strategy (ESS) places particular emphasis on the European Union’s regional ambitions and outreach. The aim of ‘building security in our neighbourhood’ is explicitly set out in the document as one of the two core pillars of the European Union’s strategic priorities, along with the ambition of contributing to an international order based on ‘effective multilateralism’. The ESS recognises that the European Union has a special responsibility towards its neighbourhood and that its strategic aim and vision is to ‘promote a ring of well-governed countries to the East of the European Union and on the borders of the Mediterranean with whom we can enjoy close and cooperative relations’ (European Council 2003a: 9). The urgency of this task is underlined by the definition of the European Union’s neighbourhood, including an area where there is ‘violent conflict, weak states where organised crime flourishes, dysfunctional societies [and] exploding population growth’ (European Council 2003a: 8).
