The European neighborhood policy

The European Union (EU) launched the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) in response to the 2004 Eastern enlargement that reshaped the EU’s borders and elicited a new policy framework for relations with the EU’s new neighbors. In 2003, the first Security Strategy drafted by the EU identified the neighborhood as a crucial zone for the EU’s security. It was in the EU’s best interest to “promote a ring of well governed countries to the East of the European Union and on the borders of the Mediterranean” (Council of the European Union, 2003, p. 8). As a result, a new initiative with two titles – “Wider Europe” and “New Neighborhood” – and two geographical dimensions – Eastern and Mediterranean – was born. Later, the EU abandoned the “Wider Europe” concept and pigeonholed its neighbors in the European Neighborhood Policy. The Eastern dimension includes the so-called Western Newly Independent States (Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine) and the South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia); the Mediterranean dimension comprises Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestinian Authority, Syria and Tunisia.