European Neighbourhood Policy or Neighbourhood Policies? 1

This first chapter focuses on security and the increasing tendency for the European Union (EU) to regionalize its foreign policy. The evolution of the eastern dimension of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) perhaps serves as the best illustration of this tendency. Although the Lisbon Treaty 2009 contains some provisions aiming to consolidate European security and foreign policies, it actually acts as a catalyst, accelerating the regionalization process, with the ENP East providing the clearest proof of this in recent years. This chapter asks whether the shift to a regional definition of the eastern neighbourhood is an inevitable process which will eventually result in the fragmentation of the eastern policy, or if the European Commission might regain its initiative and give direction to the future of the ENP East.