In May 2011, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Baronness Ashton, produced yet another report of the type member states complain about; that no one reads and wastes their time. This one was a review of the European Union neighbourhood policy, setting out goals for the next few years.
The EU neighbourhood is defined as the Arab states of north Africa: Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco; the core Middle East states of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, and the "Occupied Palestinian Territories"; and the lands that lead into and include Eastern Europe, of Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Ukraine, and Belarus.
The neighbourhood policy aims to build partnerships with the region, promoting democracy, sustainable growth and better management of cross-border links. It aims to exploit the greater powers given to the EU under the Lisbon Treaty, which demands greater unity, more submission of member state policy to the EU, and subordination to Community aims (see, for example, the Lisbon Treaty, Articles 4:3, 24:3, 29, 32 and 34:1).
The EU is of course by the nature of its size the major trading partner with many of these states, but also the area of wealth into which many people seek to escape, or into which criminals seek to trade their wares. As such, working with these bordering states is an essential first point for any wider, global role.
Democracy or dem-what-cracy?
Yet the EU so often becomes that which it argues it is opposed to. It talks of democracy and allowing the people to choose, and on the first page of the document demands submission to the European neighbourhood policy (ENP). "The ENP should be a policy of the Union with the Member States aligning their own bilateral efforts in support of its overall political objectives". Immediately, the voter-chosen foreign policies of EU member states must be curtailed to the EU's own aims. This is of course rarely better illustrated than in the failed 'save-the-Euro' negotiations in Brussels, when David Cameron said 'no', finally reflecting the will of the British people, and prompting outbursts of disgust and rage from the French and Germans, as if there was no right to say no. Promoting democracy abroad is a grand aim, but one must first check it is operational at home. The EU's democratic deficit does not need documenting yet again here, but the falling voter-turnouts reflect the popular view that real choice often does not exist, and government's do not really listen to the people. The events in Greece are a prime example.
Showing resolve
Pages 2-3 of the report further extend this European cultural imperialist view. "Some partners may want to move further in their integration effort, which will entail a greater degree of alignment with EU policies and rules leading progressively to economic integration in the EU Internal Market. The EU does not seek to impose a model or a ready-made recipe for political reform, but it will insist that each partner country’s reform process reflect a clear commitment to universal values that form the basis of our renewed approach."
Thus the views that the EU represents are de facto of the highest quality and occupy the moral high-ground…thus surely undermining the same support for freedom of thought and expression that it also wants to promote, whilst denying the Christian heritage that produced many of the values.
The EU must fix itself first, and then show that its policies have mettle. If a country does not reform, so states the ENP, it will risk losing financing from the EU. The financing is thus conditional. This is good: but what will the EU do when an Islamic government is elected which restricts, by popular consent, the very rights the EU claims to believe in? And will the EU fund civil society groups, via its 'European Endowment for Democracy', when the regimes suppressing them are the very regimes that hold Europe's oil supplies…?
Fueling fire
It is certainly an admirable aim to tackle the sources of instability and conflict in the EU's neighbourhood. Yet the European version is focused only on the material, failing to recognise or offer a solution to the ideological. Extremism does not come only from economic sources. Poverty is certainly fuel for the flames, but as many states and societies have embraced liberalisation and the global forces the EU represents, so have people turned to ideologies opposed to these very things. Pursuing the material will in fact fuel the same sources of conflict the EU seeks to quash.
The ENP re-states the EU's position of not recognising border changes brought about by the use of force. This is in general an admirable principle, yet falls apart when one considers Kosovo. Most of the EU member states have recognised Kosovo, an independent state-let forged by the use of Western force. Yet Spain, Slovakia, Greece and Romania are amongst the states not recognising Kosovo, apparantly upholding the EU's own principles, whilst the rest of the EU looked the other way.
An effective EU neighbourhood policy is ultimately only relevant if the EU can agree to function as one block, which requires political unity. Yet there are too many internal divisions and too much hypocrisy within Europe already. Only when the EU can live up to its own ideals can it have a successful neighbourhood policy.
