Eu Neighbours 1995 2015 Shades Of Grey

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has evolved into one of the European Union's major foreign policy instruments and received considerable attention. However, other EU neighbourhood policies, and their relevance for the ENP, also require examination. The Arab uprisings, civil wars in Libya and Syria, the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the crisis in Ukraine and Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula have all brought the institutional design and tools of the ENP into question and a comparative perspective is crucial to understand EU neighbourhood policies in a wider sense. This timely book puts the ENP into context by exploring the major challenges and key lessons of the EU's other policy frameworks with neighbouring countries. Mapping the EU's bi-lateral and multilateral neighbourhood relations in comparison to the ENP and investigating the major challenges faced, it provides a comprehensive, up-to-date view of the EU's relations with its neighbours. Focusing on current affairs and future challenges, the comparison with the ENP and the lessons to be drawn, generate novel insights into the EU's closest external relations. This book will be of key interest to students and scholars studying European Politics, policies and comparative politics.

Several events in the past few years have dramatically shown how the interests of European citizens are directly affected by the stability, security and prosperity of their neighbouring regions. At the same time, the European Union and its member states face many challenges and dilemmas in designing and pursuing policies that not only effectively promote these interests, but also build stronger partnerships with neighbouring countries based on the values on which the Union is founded. First the Arab revolts and then Russia’s assertiveness in the eastern neighbourhood prompted reviews by the EU of its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), in 2011 and 2015, respectively. These reviews, in turn, have renewed scholarly interest in the ENP. By deliberately focusing on the recent literature (since 2011), this book by CEPS identifies the factors that explain the (lack of) effectiveness and coherence of the ENP. This exercise has resulted in a rich overview of and deep reflection on a wide variety of ENP-related themes, such as conditionality and leverage, the interests vs values dilemma and the role of third parties. The study identifies where there is consensus among scholars and where perspectives and judgements differ. It also identifies important gaps in the literature where further research is needed. This book will be of interest to a wide audience of officials, diplomats, parliamentarians, researchers at think tanks, civil society organisations, university teachers, trainers, students and journalists who want to know more about the challenges and dilemmas arising from the ENP. The work has been carried out by a team of researchers from CEPS in Brussels, with the support of the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.

The idealism that engendered the European ​​Neighbourhood Policy in 2004, later codified in the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, has since been reviewed to adapt to the turbulence that has befallen the EU and its neighbourhood. The ENP is now little more than an elegantly crafted fig leaf that purports to take a soft power approach to the EU’s outer periphery, argues the author, but in effect it inclines more towards Realpolitik. By prioritising security interests over liberal values in increasingly transactional partnerships, the EU is atomising relations with its neighbouring countries. And without the political will and a strategic vision to guide relations with the neighbours of the EU’s neighbours, the ENP remains in suspended animation.

As China rises as an economic and an international power, new relationships are being forged with all areas of the world including Central and Eastern Europe. This book explores how this relationship is developing. It considers how China’s links with Central and Eastern Europe fit in to China’s overall international relations strategies. It looks at economic and trade ties, diplomatic initiatives and the role of the European Union, and examines China’s bilateral relations with the different states of the region. These relationships are particularly interesting because before the end of communism in Eastern Europe China had many direct links with the countries of the region.

This scholarly book provides a timely examination of China’s growing influence in the Mediterranean region. It offers a comparative and theoretical perspective underpinned by an up-to-date empirical analysis. The book uses role theory as the theoretical framework throughout, exploring the escalating tensions in the Mediterranean, where a complex triangular relationship seems to have emerged, largely due to China’s expanding presence on both the Southern and Northern shores. Beijing’s sustained engagement and increasing influence have significantly affected the perceptions of France, the region’s former colonial power, and Spain, as well as global competitors such as Russia, Turkey, Israel, and the Gulf states. From a security standpoint, China’s engagement in the Mediterranean has also raised concerns in the United States. Within this multifaceted context, the chapters in this volume scrutinize how the evolving interactions between China and the Mediterranean states elucidate the progression of Sino-Southern Mediterranean relations and Sino-Northern Mediterranean relations. Moreover, the current conflict in Gaza has heightened interest in China’s role in the Mediterranean and the broader Middle East. This volume is undoubtedly a valuable resource for academics, policymakers, and students at both undergraduate and graduate levels with an interest in strategic studies, politics, diplomacy and international relations. The chapters in this book were initially published as a special issue of Mediterranean Politics.

The monographs ‘European Integration: Conditions, Essence and Consequences’ and its follow-up ‘The Future of the European Union’ were compiled in the course of the project ‘Quo vadis Unio? a racja stanu Polski’ under the DIALOG research programme between 2019 and 2023. They are the result of contributions by Europeanists, political scientists, lawyers, economists, cultural scholars and historians who study the issues of European integration. The content presented in both publications reflects the research outcomes and views of the individual authors. The first monograph was designed as an attempt to summarise the integration process within the European Union to date and its legal and institutional dimension. The monograph consists of four parts: ‘The State of European Integration’, ‘Selected Problems of European Integration’, ‘EU and National Concepts of Reforms of the European Union’ and ‘Theoretical Problems of Research on European Integration’. We hope that the issues discussed in the monograph will attract the interest of potential readers, especially academics and students involved in European studies, political science, economics, sociology, history, law and cultural studies. Insight into these issues may also be useful to government officials and NGO activists, as well as to a wide audience interested in European issues.

This edited collection details and analyses the dramatic changes that the international political economy of energy has undergone in the past decade. This change began with the increasing assertiveness of Russia when the oil price rose above the $100 mark in 2008. This, combined with the rise of shale oil and gas, made the USA all but self-sufficient in terms of fossil fuels. The collapse of the oil price in 2014-15, Saudi Arabia’s new strategy of defending its market share and the increasingly tense and controversial relationship between the West and Russia all worked to further strengthen the geopolitical dimension of energy in Europe. The global result is a world in which geopolitics play a bigger part than ever before; the central question the authors of this volume grapple with is how the EU – and European small states – can deal with this. Chapter 4 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com