The outsiders: the European neighbourhood policy

In May 2004, the European Union acquired not just ten new member states but several new neighbours. At about the same time, it began to flesh out a European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) to bring some order to the EU's relations with its old and new neighbours and to ensure that the newly enlarged EU would be surrounded by a 'ring of friends'. The ENP is also supposed to stave off further enlargement to eastern Europe. However, several problems with the ENP are evident. It requires much of the neighbours and offers only vague incentives in return, making it unlikely that the ENP can meet its core objectives. Furthermore, the ENP is ambiguous about where the EU's borders will end, and it is already apparent that such ambiguity is not helping to foster reform in eastern Europe. Either the EU should say 'no' to further enlargement, so the ENP becomes the framework for relations with the neighbour for the foreseeable future, or it should say 'yes' to eventually letting in a specified number of neighbours which then move out of the ENP.     

Visa requirements,carrier sanctions, "safe third countries" and "readmission": the development of an asylum "buffer zone" in Europe

"This paper explores the development of a so-called asylum 'buffer zone' around the eastern frontiers of the west European region as a result of the Schengen, EU and EFTA member states' introduction of more restrictive asylum policies during the first half of the 1990s. Restrictive policies in western Europe are forcing central and east European states into a 'buffer role', obliging them to absorb asylum-seekers who fail to gain entry into western Europe and/or restrict asylum-seekers' access to the borders of potential 'receiving' states. In addition to examining the mechanisms by which this 'buffer zone' is developing and questioning what it might mean for future asylum trends and policies in Europe, the paper considers the wider questions raised by this development in relation to the changing geopolitical landscape of Europe, particularly in relation to the changing political and security relations between western, central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union."     

The Regional Impact of EU Eastern Enlargement: A View from Germany

Based on a relational concept of regional analysis this contribution emphasizes that European Union (EU) Eastern enlargement will primarily lead to a restructuring or intensification of interregional economic relations. However, it rejects the widespread view that at first the border regions at the present EU Eastern boundary would be affected by Eastern enlargement. This view relies on the problematic assumption that the regions' transnational relations are subject to a logic of geographical nearness. The most important nodes of transnational economic relations in an enlarged EU are not the border regions, but certain regional development centres in the interior of the European economic space. Thus the regional impact of EU Eastern enlargement should be differentiated with regard to different types of regions: Particular advantages come towards the structurally strong regions in the interior of the present EU as well as the accession countries, whereas the structurally weak regions at the present EU Eastern boundary can gain advantages from Eastern enlargement only to the extent that they manage to overcome their endogenous blockades concerning cross-border economic cooperation and a positive attitude of the regions' population towards European integration.     

Sub-regionalism in the Newly Independent States

Since 1989, six new sub-regional cooperation groups have emerged as the states of northern, central and eastern Europe work towards forging relationships with one another and their neighbours to east and west. Five of these groups are still in existence and have had considerable success in establishing cooperative relations in many areas outside the realm of purely military security. The authors suggest that such sub-regional groups could provide a useful model in the search for stability among the Newly Independent states of the former Soviet Union. Acknowledging and describing the ways in which this environment differs markedly form that of northern, central and eastern Europe, they point out the suitability of the model to the particular circumstances of the post-Soviet republics.     

Transatlantic relations and peace in Europe

In his recent novel Alain Crémieux imagines what might happen in Europe without NATO and US military forces and security commitments. Numerous border and minority conflicts break out, coalitions comparable to those in Europe's past begin to form, and the European Union is divided and ineffectual— until pro‐peace and pro‐EU forces rally. Most European countries then unite under a treaty providing for collective defence and security and a new central European government. The novel raises questions of international order: to what extent have the Europeans overcome their old ‘demons’ (distrust, power rivalry etc.), notably through the EU? While many theories purport to explain the peaceful relations among the EU member states, critical tests of the Union's political cohesion would come in circumstances without the US‐dominated external security framework, including US leadership in NATO. To what extent could the EU maintain cohesion and resist aggression or coercion by an external power against a member state, contain and resolve external conflicts affecting EU interests, and defend the Union's economic and security interests beyond Europe? To determine whether the US ‘pacifying’ and protective role has in fact become irrelevant, thanks in large part to the EU, would require a risky experiment—actually removing US military forces and commitments. The challenges and uncertainties that would face Europe without NATO argue that the Alliance remains an essential underpinning of political order in Europe. Moreover, the Alliance can serve as a key element in the campaigns against terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. To revitalize the Alliance, it is imperative that the Europeans improve their military capabilities and acquire the means necessary for a more balanced transatlantic partnership in maintaining international security.     

Riding Routes and Itinerant Borders: Autonomy of Migration and Border Externalization

Despite technological upgrading of borders at the edges of Europe, “Fortress Europe” continues to fail as an effective means of controlling irregular migration. As a consequence, European states are restructuring their border regimes by externalizing migration management to non‐EU countries beyond the border and creating new programs and policies to do so. Autonomy of Migration (AoM) offers a distinct way for thinking about border control mechanisms and goals of managing mobility. AoM does not read this off‐shoring of borders through the lens of centralized and coordinated state powers, but develops an autonomous gaze that supplements these institutional readings of apparatuses of capture with a view that takes as its starting point the ways in which border architectures, institutions, and policies interact with and react to the turbulence of migrant mobilities. By engaging current EU externalization policies, this paper illustrates the shifting relationship between border control and mobility.     

Poland, Germany and the EU

The eastward enlargement of the European Union may well be the biggest challenge in the history of European integration. It is, however, accompanied by profound internal and external crises highlighted by the EU's difficulties in coping with the effects of economic globalization, of which the most obvious are high unemployment and a growing scepticism with regard to integration. This article argues that the solutions to both these challenges are deeply interconnected: while enlargement is a strategic necessity in its own right, it is also the only factor galvanizing EU member states into action for the reforms which are inevitable if the integration project is to be kept afloat.
As the new democracies of central and eastern Europe prepare for EU membership and the EU prepares for enlargement, Poland and Germany can reflect on the past eight years of a historically unprecedented improvement in their relationship. Bringing Poland into the EU (as well as into NATO) has become a key item in the Polish-German 'community of interest'.     

Differentiation as a double‐edged sword: member states’ practices and Brexit

The reform of the eurozone and the concerns surrounding a potential ‘Brexit’ has given rise to a new debate about differentiation but also disintegration in the European Union. This article provides a theoretical and analytical approach to understanding how differentiation is related to the debate on distribution of competences across various levels government. It finds that differentiation has played an important role in the EU integration process since the 1950s, even though the risk of fragmentation has always existed. Facing the benefits and costs of differentiation, the member states have developed their own practices. Three ideosyncratic groups of member states can be identified in this regard: first, a group of Anglo‐Scandinavian member states which refuse centralization of the EU; a Franco‐German group which considers the integration through the promotion of a ‘core Europe’; and, third, a group of central and east European member states who fear that differentiation would set their interests aside and relegate them to second‐class status within the EU. Finally, Brexit is not only about the status of the UK in the EU, but casts deeper questions on how to clarify the nature of relations between the eurozone and the EU as a whole.     

Exchange Rate Policy and Economic Growth after the Financial Crisis in Central and Eastern Europe

In a paper on the effects of the global financial crisis in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), a European Union economist reacts to a companion paper (Åslund, 2001) published in the same issue of Eurasian Geography and Economics on the influence of exchange rate policies on the region's recovery. The author argues that post-crisis corrections in current account deficits in CEE countries do not in themselves signal a return to steady economic growth. Disagreeing with Åslund over the role of loose monetary policy in fostering the region's economic problems, he outlines a number of competitiveness problems that remain to be addressed in the 10 new EU member states of CEE, along with improvements in framework conditions supporting future macroeconomic growth.     

ARE EU COUNTRIES LESS INTEGRATED THAN U.S. STATES? THEORY AND EVIDENCE*

ABSTRACT A belief that EU integration is incomplete is often predicated on a comparison to U.S. states. Yet, with low barriers to trade and factor mobility between EU countries, is this belief correct? To address this question, we develop three theoretical predictions regarding the distribution of output and factors across members of an integrated economic area with harmonized policies and free movement of goods and factors. Empirical tests strongly support these predictions for U.S. states and 14 EU countries. Constructing a measure of integration, we find that EU integration rose from the 1960s to equal that of U.S. states by 2000.     

Territorial Cohesion of Tomorrow: A Path to Cooperation or Competition?

Explicit reference was made to “Territorial Cohesion” in the draft Constitution for Europe. The concept has recently been celebrated by many stakeholders of territorial development policies, including the European community of planners. Territorial Cohesion does not seem to have received any official definition, but it is clearly meant to aim at some sort of “spatial justice” while promoting integration between EU sector policies that have a territorial impact. Seemingly a consensual principle: who in Europe would object to a better coherence between various EU policies and the provision of reasonably equal standards of living to all EU citizens, regardless of their area of settlement? Yet a close examination of the current political debate suggests that very divergent views are being expressed as to what Territorial Cohesion exactly entails in practical terms. Two main different policy approaches seem to emerge in this debate. The first approach tends to equate Territorial Cohesion to a range of positive discrimination steps in favour of various penalised areas. Interest groups, in particular lobbies for specific regions, have proved influential in propagating this conception. In the area of regional policy, this approach embodies the neo-corporatist, depoliticised line of the contemporary political culture. It is primarily inspired by financial considerations and a competitive zero-sum game scenario: regions of a specific category should increase their share of the EU funding at the expense of the others. The opposite approach places much more emphasis on the need for integrated territorial planning strategies and the integration of EU policies. Its proponents are the heirs of the post-war urban and regional planning tradition. They strive to revive the politicised and rationalist ideology of the Enlightenment, based on the notion of public interest. They raise awareness about the steadily growing interdependence between regions and cities of Europe and advocate a cooperative approach focusing on issues of transnational relevance and win-win situations. This rather idealistic cooperative approach seems to be less influential than its rival, and currently confined to a relatively small group of planning professionals. The question remains: which of the two models—interregional competition or cooperation—will finally succeed in shaping the EU cohesion policy?     

The narratives of exclusion and self-exclusion in the Russian conflict discourse on EU–Russian Relations

The article focuses on the interplay of the narratives of ‘exclusion’ and ‘self-exclusion’ in the Russian discourse on EU–Russian relations. Since the late 1990s, this discourse has acquired an increasingly conflictual orientation, whereby the official foreign policy objectives of ‘strategic partnership’ with the EU and Russia's ‘integration with Europe’ are increasingly problematised across the entire Russian political spectrum. In the analysis of the Russian conflict discourse we shall identify two at first glance opposed narratives. Firstly, the EU enlargement has raised the issue of the expansion of the Schengen visa regime for Russian citizens, travelling to Europe. Particularly acute with regard to Kaliningrad Oblast', this issue has also generated a wider identity-related discourse on the EU's exclusionary policies towards Russia. Secondly, the perception of Russia's passive or subordinate status in EU–Russian cooperative arrangements at national, regional and local levels resulted in the problematisation of the insufficiently reciprocal or intersubjective nature of the EU–Russian ‘partnership’ and the increasing tendency towards Russia's ‘self-exclusion’ from integrative processes, grounded in the reaffirmation of state sovereignty that generally characterises the Putin presidency. This article concludes with the interpretation of the two conflict narratives in the wider context of debates around the project of European integration.     

“Masters in Our Native Place”: The politics of Latvian national parks on the road from Communism to “Europe”

On May 1, 2004, eight formerly Communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe consummated their long-desired “return to Europe” by joining the European Union (EU). While popular perceptions of the east European environment center on nightmarish images of pollution hotspots, Communism also bequeathed a wealth of relatively untouched nature that supports far more biological diversity than can be found in Western Europe. The enlargement represents a biodiversity bonanza for the EU, but millions of humans inhabit the post-Communist countryside, too, tending cultural landscapes rich with local and national meanings. EU accession has thus raised profound questions about post-Communist nature management. Should priority be given to biodiversity conservation at the continental scale, or to maintaining peopled landscapes and traditional land-use patterns? This article examines the confrontation between global and local understandings of nature through a case study of two Western-supported initiatives in national park management in Latvia in the late 1990s. Some Latvians, seeing hope for national development only through an internationalist embrace of globalization and regional integration, appropriated the Western narratives of biodiversity and rural economic diversification. But others resisted these narratives as threatening to agrarian notions of the value of rural landscapes: notions rooted in a potent agrarian discourse of national identity. What internationalists saw as a savvy embrace of the globalization of nature, agrarians denounced as a sort of self-imposed neo-colonialism.     

European Policy and the Regions: A Review and Analysis of Tensions

This article explores a series of tensions inherent in the series of European policies that are designed to improve the competitiveness of regions in the face of globalization. Its focus is the co-existence of interventionist policies intended to overcome problems of lagging regions such as cohesion policies and those, for example competition policy which are designed to remove barriers to market integration and that are anti-interventionist. Moreover, the changing relationship between the European Union (EU), member states and the regions and problems of how regions are defined complicate policy implementation. To review these issues, the article adopts an agent-centred approach to understanding economic behaviour in the face of globalization in particular geographical and sectoral contexts. This methodology is used to highlight five sources of tension relating to the reality of the experience of globalization. These are illustrated by evidence from a recently completed EU Fifth Framework Programme study of regional adjustment strategies and technological change in five European countries.     

'Euroscepticism', Political Agendas and Spatial Planning: British National and Regional Planning Policy in Uncertain Times

Over the last 10 years, European Union interest in planning has increased significantly. Although land use planning remains a function of each member state, the legal obligations imposed by the EU in the fields of environmental law, structural funds, the Common Agricultural Policy, and Trans-European Transport Networks, have all impacted upon the context of the operation of the British planning process. Many of the EU initiatives have had to be transposed into domestic legislation, while others form an important-if oft-times uncertain-framework for British policy-makers. This paper examines the relationship between the European Union's policies and initiatives as they have potentially impacted upon the British planning system and the contents of Britain's national and regional planning policy guidance to local planning authorities in the assessment period 1988-1997. But the Conservative governments adopted a 'Eurosceptic' approach to their relations with Europe and, as demonstrated within this paper, also towards spatial planning issues that caused uncertainty in practice. The research indicates that although the EU has impacted upon British planning, particularly at the local level of government, this has not been reflected at the national and regional levels in planning policy documentation, mainly because of the 'Eurosceptic' attitude of the government. Policy-makers at both the national and regional levels in England, Scotland and Wales are now recognizing the need, however, to keep apace with changes occurring simultaneously with regard to enhanced European integration, and the approach of the Blair government since 1997 has re-focused the relationship between the EU and UK over spatial planning.     

Between Kant and Machiavelli: EU foreign policy priorities in the 2010s

The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty invites and enables Europe to develop elements of a common foreign policy. Europe should resist the tendency of listing all issues calling for attention, and be aware that it will have to address three agendas, not just one. The first agenda is the Kantian one of universal causes. While it remains essential to European identity, it presents Europe with limited opportunities for success in the 2010s as could be seen at the 2009 Climate Summit in Copenhagen. The ‘Alliance’ agenda remains essential on the security front and would benefit from a transatlantic effort at rejuvenation on the economic one. Last but not least, the ‘Machiavellian’ agenda reflects what most countries would define as their ‘normal’ foreign policy. It calls for Europe to influence key aspects of the world order in the absence of universal causes or common values. While Europe's ‘Machiavellian’ experience is limited to trade policy, developing a capacity to address this third agenda in a manner that places its common interests first and reinforces its identity will be Europe's central foreign policy challenge in the 2010s. A key part of the Machiavellian agenda presently revolves around relations with Ukraine, Turkey and the Russian Federation, three countries essential to Europe's energy security that are unlikely to change their foreign policy stance faced with EU soft power. Stressing that foreign policy is about ‘us’ and ‘them’, the article looks at what could be a genuine European foreign policy vis‐à‐vis each of these interdependent countries, beginning with energy and a more self‐interested approach to enlargement. The European public space is political in nature, as majority voting and mutual recognition imply that citizens accept ‘foreigners’ as legitimate legislators. At a time when the European integration process has become more hesitant and the political dimension of European integration tends to be derided or assumed away, admitting Turkey or Ukraine as members would change Europe more than it would change these countries. Foreign policy cannot be reduced to making Europe itself the prize of the relationship. What objectives Europe sets for itself in its dealing with Ukraine, Turkey and Russia will test whether it is ready for a fully‐fledged foreign policy or whether the invocation of ‘Europe’ is merely a convenient instrument for entities other than ‘Europe’.     

The EU as a conflict manager? The case of Georgia and its implications

This article offers an analysis of the EU's engagement in Georgia as a standpoint from which to assess the EU's role as a conflict manager. The article begins with a brief narrative account of the development of EU—Georgia relations in the context of the country's two unresolved conflicts over Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It then proceeds to the analysis of two sets of factors—those within, and those external to, the EU—that are crucial for understanding the nature and impact of EU efforts to manage the two Georgian conflicts. On the basis of this case-study analysis, the authors offer a wider analysis of the EU's potential for assuming a wider role as an international security actor. This is undertaken by considering both the limitations of the EU's existing capabilities for conflict resolution and the new developments contained within the Lisbon Treaty. The final part of the article asserts that the EU has suffered from two key weaknesses that have prevented it from living up to its aspirations of becoming a globally significant and effective conflict manager. The first is structural—the lack of, to date, a permanent External Action Service; the second is conceptual—the lack of a coherent and comprehensive conflict management strategy. The article concludes with five substantive principles that should guide the EU's approach to conflict management.     

Peace without money,war without Americans: challenges for European strategy

Just as the shift of the American strategic focus to Asia and the Pacific forces strategic autonomy upon Europeans, the financial crisis limits their means. In the age of austerity, dispersed efforts and spending on secondary issues have become unaffordable. Prioritizing and making strategic choices have become more important than ever. As no single European state can face all these challenges alone, a joint European strategy must assess where collective foreign and security policies can bring the most added value to the national effort. Through the European Union, Europeans have attempted as much in the 2003 European Security Strategy, but for lack of prioritization, the EU has so far underperformed. Yet the EU does have access to substantial means and possesses all the necessary instruments to pursue a comprehensive strategy. The key to their effective use is a collective European strategic review, starting from the vital interests that all European states have in common. Two priorities stand out: making a new start in Europe's relations with its southern neighbours after the Arab Awakening, and deciding which responsibilities Europeans will assume as security providers outside their borders after the American ‘pivot’ to Asia.     

边境区位、边境区经济合作的理论与实践--以辽宁省-朝鲜边境地区经济合作为例

欧洲和北美的实践表明,边境地区经济合作具有推动经济全球化和区域经济一体化的作用,同时,经济全球化和区域经济一体化又促进了边境地区经济合作的发展。本文从边境区位的理论分析入手,探讨了边境区位再创造问题,并分析边境区位再创造与边境区经济合作的内在联系。最后,对辽宁省和朝鲜之间边境区经济合作做了实证研究。     

THE BORDER POPULATION EFFECTS OF EU INTEGRATION*

ABSTRACT Border cities or regions are in theory more affected by the EU integration process than more central locations as it more drastically influences their transaction costs and market potential. We find a positive empirical effect of EU enlargement as measured by the growth in population share along the integration borders. This effect is active for a limited distance (70 km) and time period (30 years), and is more important for large cities and regions. Despite this positive EU enlargement effect along the border, a location close to a border remains a burden in view of the (larger) negative general border effect.