Events
EU policy seminar: Exploring the scope of the European Neighbourhood Policy. Towards new forms of partnership? 11 April 2008
On 11 April, the Clingendael European Studies Programme hosted a high-level seminar on the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and alternative forms of membership. The seminar was organised in close cooperation with the Forward Strategy Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The main goal of the seminar was to discuss the scope and limitations of the ENP, four years into its existence, to look at its southern and eastern dimension, and to address the question whether there is a need to explore alternative forms of membership. The seminar's objective was to arrive at (some) policy recommendations on the basis of an open discussion amongst the 45 experts, Ambassadors, academics and policy makers from all over the EU.
The opening speech of the seminar was delivered by Ian de Jong, Director-General for European Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In his keynote speech "ENP: state of the art", Andreas Herdina, Head of the European Neighbourhood Policy Sector Co-ordination Unit of the European Commission, gave an excellent introduction to the subject. Other key speakers included Michael Emerson of the Centre for European Policy Studies, who elaborated the southern dimension of the ENP and the French Ambassador Alain le Roy who addressed the Union for the Mediterranean. The session about the EU and its Eastern partners: "ENP, ENP-plus and beyond?" was introduced by Tomas Valasek, Director of Foreign Policy and Defence of the Centre for European Reform, while Janis Emmanouilides of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy introduced the last session "ENP as a stepping stone to new forms of partnership?". Comments were given by, amongst others, Gerhard Almer (the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Jerzy Marek Nowakowski (Open University, Poland), José Ignacio Torreblanca (European Council on Foreign Relations) and Cosmin Dobran (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania).
The lively debate on the ENP's southern and eastern dimension concentrated on the conditionality of this policy and most of all on the following question: should the holistic approach to the whole "ring of friends" not be replaced by a more regional approach, which will distinguish at least between these two (southern and eastern) dimensions, given that, as it was argued, Ukraine and Moldova are undoubtedly European and both countries harbour hope for membership. In this respect part of the discussion highlighted the present two-track approach, i.e., on the one hand the obligations of the bilateral ENP action-plans, on the other hand leaving the door ajar for membership (albeit in the very far future). In the session about alternative forms of membership, or "in-between-forms", the ideas of partial membership and limited membership were introduced. "Partial membership" amounts to integration in certain political and economic sectors, with full (membership) obligations as far as these sectors are concerned. "Limited membership" means full membership, but with some limitations and/or derogations, such as regarding the four freedoms, or with opt-outs like in the Schengen- and Eurozone. The discussion focused on the question whether these forms could be an interesting alternative for the ENP.
