The European Neighbourhood Policy and the South Caucasus

At the onset of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), in 2003, the South Caucasus countries, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, ¹ were left out of this initiative due to their ‘geographical location’ (Commission of the European Communities 2003: 4). This rather simplistic formal explanation obscures the fundamental reasons why, in 2003, the region was considered not eligible for the neighbourhood initiative, namely its complex security relations marked by three protracted conflicts in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh, ² and the understanding among most European Union (EU) Member States that the South Caucasus was part of an area of privileged interests for Russia (Popescu 2011). This naturally created reluctance among some EU Member States on the desirability of an EU policy for the region. Until Georgia’s ‘Rose Revolution’, in October 2003, there were also no clear incentives for the EU to include the region in an initiative focused on the promotion of democratic standards and economic modernisation. Even the energy potential of the South Caucasus, especially in Azerbaijan’s Caspian shores, failed to mobilise EU interests in the absence of viable energy transit routes.