The EU’s Neighbourhood Policy towards the South Caucasus

This chapter serves as the framework for analysing the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) as a regional security policy of the European Union (EU) and its profound impacts in regional ordering. The introduction presents the research puzzle underpinning the book and the articulation between the Security Community conceptual framework, the ENP and the South Caucasus. It also presents an outline of the book.

This chapter introduces the concept of security community and proposes the concept of security community expansion as an illustration of the processes taking place under European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) relations with the Eastern neighbours. It focuses on the main institutional and ideational elements through which the European security community has been historically consolidated. It makes the argument that in the wider European space, the increasing prominence of the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in European security, the ENP has raised its profile as a border-making mechanism, contributing to the definition of existing security community and those seeking to join it. This chapter proposes a focus on the mutually constitutive nature of norms and the practices sustaining security community expansion. The focus on a broad understanding of elites, on the quality of integration processes and the acknowledgement of political agency outside the security community are distinctive elements advanced in our analytical approach.

This chapter focuses on the wide geopolitical challenges the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) addresses. It locates the ENP in the wider framework of the EU’s political and security policies, taking particular notice of its security dimension. The chapter starts with a broad analysis of the EU’s role as a security provider, the international and regional contexts driving EU action on security affairs, and the security understandings and policy responses developed by the Union. It then proceeds with a more detailed analysis of EU official documents on the ENP to map the proposals put forward by EU institutions regarding the promotion of security in the neighbourhood—what we consider the expansion of the security community.

This chapter introduces the competing influences converging in the South Caucasus, in the post-Cold War context. It is divided into two main sections, one presenting the institutional structures, which are perceived as reinforcing the expansion and consolidation of a European security community, and the other dealing with the competing forces that provide the region with alternative approaches to its security. This chapter acknowledges that this area is geographically, culturally, politically and economically pulled in many directions and that this has a direct impact on the process of including it in the European security community. It affects processes of socialisation of elites, creates competing institutional frameworks and provides competing incentives for political transformation. It, thus, sets the context in which the EU’s neighbourhood proposals interact.

This chapter deals with the expansion of the European security community to incorporate Armenia within the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). It addresses the main issues affecting the definition of Armenia’s post-Soviet identity and foreign and security policies. It maps and traces the evolution of perceptions towards European integration and advances generalisations regarding the mechanisms of ideational change set in motion through institutional cooperation between the European Union (EU) and Armenia in the context of the ENP and the Eastern Partnership (EaP).

This chapter deals with the expansion of the European security community to incorporate Azerbaijan within the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). It addresses the main issues affecting the definition of Azerbaijan’s modern identity and the central role played by both energy and the Karabakh conflict in the evolution of its foreign and security policies. The chapter maps and traces the evolution of perceptions towards European integration and puts forward generalisations regarding the mechanisms of ideational change set in motion through institutional cooperation between the European Union (EU) and Azerbaijan in the context of the ENP and the Eastern Partnership (EaP).

This chapter deals with the expansion of the European security community to Georgia in the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). It addresses the main issues affecting Georgia’s post-Soviet transition, from the turbulent 1990s to the post-Rose Revolution normalisation. It maps and traces the evolution of perceptions towards European integration and advances generalisations regarding the mechanisms of ideational change set in motion through institutional cooperation between the European Union (EU) and Georgia in the context of the ENP and the Eastern Partnership (EaP).

The permanence of a European security community raises the issue of its relevance to pan-European security. This chapter resumes the main argument of the book, highlighting the challenges of defining regional security from the perspective of identities. It addresses the dangers of essentialisation of the European identity and the ontological challenge that the failure to provide security represents. It also addresses the opportunities inherent in the reconceptualisation of the South Caucasus post-Soviet identity.