ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the territorial imaginaries of EU policies in the context of the discussion about the role of the EU as a new kind of international actor. Special attention is paid to the changing significance given to the concept of neighbourhood in the process of elaborating alternatives to the Cold War confrontation between east and west. The study aims to examine how and to what degree the concept of neighbourhood has contributed to new conceptions of sovereignty and spatial imaginaries in EU 55policies. The analysis focuses on the emerging policy frames for external relations elaborated as part of cross-border cooperation policies. Where spatial imaginaries are concerned, special attention is paid to east–west perspectives in security thinking and the kind of alternatives that have been offered. This includes the identifying of early initial notions and later competing or even conflicting conceptualisations of neighbourhood.
