Uncertainty at the the EU's borders: narratives of EU external relations in the revised European Neighbourhood Policy towards the southern borderlands

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Uncertainty at the EU's borders:narratives of EU external relations inthe revised European NeighbourhoodPolicy towards the southernborderlandsTobias Schumachera

a College of Europe (Natolin Campus), ENP Chair, Nowoursynowska84, Warszawa PL-02-797, PolandPublished online: 04 Jun 2015.

To cite this article: Tobias Schumacher (2015) Uncertainty at the EU's borders: narratives of EUexternal relations in the revised European Neighbourhood Policy towards the southern borderlands,European Security, 24:3, 381-401, DOI: 10.1080/09662839.2015.1028186

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Uncertainty at the EU’s borders: narratives of EU external relations inthe revised European Neighbourhood Policy towards the southernborderlands

Tobias Schumacher*

College of Europe (Natolin Campus), ENP Chair, Nowoursynowska 84, Warszawa PL-02-797,Poland

(Received 28 February 2014; final version received 17 February 2015)

This article analyses the role of narratives in European Union (EU) external relationsin the revised European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and systematically exploreshow they operate in practice in the context of the EU’s border managementpractices vis-à-vis the “southern borderlands”, in particular with respect to theirinclusionary and exclusionary potential. Key EU documents and statements by EUagents, released throughout the first three years of Arab uprisings and pertaining to therevised ENP, will be subjected to a thorough examination which highlights fourobservations: first, in spite of the fact that the revised ENP is rooted in severalnarratives, some nevertheless dominate over others; second, the simultaneous presenceof and recourse to different narratives contribute to an increase, rather than a decrease,of uncertainty in the EU’s southern borderlands; third, despite a multitude of narrativeswhich serve to legitimize EU action in the framework of the revised ENP, the latterperpetuates the logics of its predecessor by generating benefits mainly for the EUitself; fourth, that the first three years of the revised ENP have in practicedemonstrated that an imbalance exists between on the one hand the originalacceptance of the narratives by EU stakeholders and on the other hand theirwillingness to abide by them and fill them with life.

Keywords: European Neighbourhood Policy; EU foreign policy; narrative; border-lands; governance

Introduction

On 8 March 2011, shortly after the outbreak of what is widely called the “Arab Spring”,the European Union (EU) released its “Partnership for Democracy and Prosperity with thesouthern Mediterranean”. This document, by focusing exclusively on the EU’s southernneighbourhood, converged with the EU’s “New response to a changing neighborhood”published just two and a half months later, and nowadays forms the basis of the revisedEuropean Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). Since then, much scholarly attention has beendirected to the EU’s response to the multi-faceted dimensions of Arab unrests, theensuing processes of transition, and domestic conflict. The debate was originallycharacterized by a strong sense of policy orientation and prescription (Tocci andCassarino 2011, Balfour 2012, Behr 2012, Huber 2012) and was dominated by studiesthat focused on how the EU reacted to uprisings in individual countries (Berg 2012,

*Email: [email protected]

European Security, 2015Vol. 24, No. 3, 381–401, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2015.1028186

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Koenig 2012, Pace 2012, Pinfari 2012). Lately, studies have emerged that aspire toconceptually frame the revised ENP’s performance (Gillespie 2013) and appropriateness(Tömmel 2013) in more general terms, accompanied by scholarship that places concretepolicy sectors and the corresponding EU cooperation efforts (Bauer 2013, Bicchi andVoltolini 2013, Seeberg 2013) at the centre of analysis. This article, therefore, is destinedto complement these analyses by moving beyond them and examining the extent to whichthe revised ENP is underpinned and guided by the EU’s overarching and predominantnarratives regarding external relations. This is intended to shed light on how thesenarratives resonate with EU border management and governance practices with the EU’ssouthern neighbours – its southern “borderlands” (Del Sarto 2010) – and how they impacton the construction and/or dissolution of boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. In thisspecial issue, linking narratives of EU external relations to concrete practices within therevised ENP is particularly relevant. Since narratives do not directly cause behaviour, butrather underpin and legitimize implicitly or explicitly EU actions in the borderlands,identifying their presence and resonance helps to identify ambiguities and potentialcontradictions both within and between narratives. More importantly, it facilitatesunderstanding of ambiguities and contradictions in the EU’s border policies themselves.Key EU documents and statements by EU agents concerning the revised ENP andreleased during the first three years of Arab uprisings will be subjected to a thoroughexamination which highlights four observations: first, although the revised ENP is rootedin several narratives, some nevertheless dominate over others; second, the simultaneouspresence of and recourse to different narratives contribute to an increase, rather than adecrease, of uncertainty in the EU’s southern borderlands; third, despite a multitude ofnarratives which serve to legitimize EU action in the framework of the revised ENP, thelatter perpetuates the logics of its predecessor by generating benefits mainly for the EUitself; fourth, that the first three years of the ENP have demonstrated an imbalancebetween on the one hand the original acceptance of the narratives by EU stakeholders andon the other hand their willingness to abide by them and fill them with life.

At the outset it is important to stress that the construction of the revised ENP was asmuch the result of the outbreak of Arab uprisings in early 2011 as it was a consequenceof pre-existing structural problems and challenges in the EU’s southern borderlands.Many of these issues were considered to have a direct bearing on the EU’s security andEU security governance of the Euro-Mediterranean space (Aliboni et al. 1996).Simultaneously, the revision of the ENP was perceived as a necessary and overdueprocess, given that the original ENP of 2003/2004 had produced rather few results asregards incentivizing authoritarian regimes in the south to embark on wide-rangingpolitical and economic reforms (Barbé and Johansson-Nogués 2008, Bicchi 2010a, DelSarto and Schumacher 2011). By the time the revised ENP was presented, the southernborderlands displayed ambiguous characteristics. On the one hand, the overthrow ofseemingly resilient dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya generated hopes for a“return of politics” (Boserup and Tassinari 2012) and sustainable processes ofdemocratization. On the other hand, these processes of transition, coupled with the re-emergence of authoritarian tendencies, civil war, and economic malaise, reinforced withinthe EU past notions of instability and insecurity. They fuelled fears that Europe will(continue to) be exposed to negative spill-overs, this time however arising from turbulentor failing transitions. In fact, the European Commission’s document of early 2013 on the“state of play” after two years of Arab uprisings encapsulates these fears, mentioningexplicitly five concerns: uncontrolled waves of migrants and refugees towards the EU and

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the neighbours of the neighbours; internal security threats; growing polarization intransition societies mainly between secular and Islamist forces; a deterioration of socio-economic conditions; and instability in more general terms (European Commission2013). The Commission’s decision to single out these challenges is not only indicative ofthe securitizing logic that continues to underlie and inform EU policy-making in EUneighbourhood relations. It also seems to imply that the recourse to a threat narrativecontinues to be regarded as a key means of justifying why the EU should uphold andreinforce its engagement in the southern borderlands, particularly in times when publicsupport for European integration is waning considerably (Leonard and Torreblanca 2013).To test this assumption and investigate whether other narratives are equally or moreprominently employed in the revised ENP, and thus how they resonate with EU bordermanagement practices, the following section synthesizes and discusses the mainnarratives in EU external relations. The subsequent section, having mapped out whichnarratives can be identified in the revised ENP, systematically explores how they operatedin practice in EU neighbourhood relations during 2011–2013, in particular with respect totheir inclusionary and/or exclusionary potential. This will be done by looking at concreteEU foreign policy (EUFP) practices in the fields of security and conflict resolution with aparticular focus on Libya and Syria, Western Sahara, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict,and economic and trade cooperation in the framework of currently negotiated Deep andComprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) agreements.

Narratives, EU external relations, and EUFP

The debate on narrative in EU studies in general, and in EU external relations and EUFPscholarship in particular, introduced as a result of the “interpretative turn” in the socialsciences, is marked by several key characteristics. First, it is common sense that EU politicsand by extension EUFP and EU external relations are rooted in narrative(s) (Manners 2010,Hill and Smith 2011, Nicolaïdis and Whitman 2013). This might sound an obviousobservation, yet it deserves emphasis as a reminder that the EU’s engagement in theinternational system is not merely a function of inter-governmental bargaining, transfers ofcompetence, and opportunity structures. Accordingly, and second, different forms of narrativecan be identified that underpin and inform EUFP and external relations. Third, in spite of theanalytical challenges of generating inter-disciplinary consensus on its exact meaning,narrative has explanatory value, is bound to lead to narrative action, and exerts certainfunctions (Miskimmon et al. 2012, 2013). Fourth, with respect to narrative construction, theduality of coordinative and communicative discourse – the former taking place as a rather self-centred elite discourse and the latter featuring an outward public justification orientation(Schmidt 2008) – stimulates and thus contributes to narratives in EU external relations.

The functional aspect of narrative can be split up into several elements. While there ismuch controversy revolving around the question whether narrative constructs reality orreveals it (Miller 1995), Merrill points out that consensus does, in fact, exist that narrativeand narrative activities, rooted in repeatedly overlapping and thus self-manifestingdiscourses, produce “consequential realties” (Merrill 2007, p. 11). Naturally, this hasimplications for the development of notions of self, selfhood, other, otherness (Diez2005), and, in fact, social structures. This is the case as narrative and thus the practice ofacting upon the institutionalization of overlapping, mutually accepted and often mutuallyreinforcing discourses is at the heart of constructing identity. The extent to which thisnewly constructed or already existing identity and selfhood, and thus the ideational

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demarcation from the other, is then sustainable depends on many external factors – inforeign policy even more than in domestic politics (Tonra 2006). But it is also, first andforemost, a function of the ability of the discoursing actors to uphold and consolidate thediscourses that led, in the first place, to the creation of the narrative(s) in question. Putsimply: producing, re-producing and telling narratives are the sum of “one way selvescome to be” (Merrill 2007, p. 8) and they are a precondition for the articulation of identitythat is derived from discourse (Tonra 2011, p. 1193). This implies that simultaneouslyongoing processes of constitution and reconstitution underpin the manifestation ofnarrative and that this manifestation is the end result of previous contestations ofcompeting narratives for “discursive dominance” (Tonra 2011, p. 1193).

Another function of narrative lies in the effects that its use has on the publicacceptance of policies and policy action. Through the creation of ideational, emotional, ormaterial linkages with the policies at stake, policy entrepreneurs utilize narratives in moreor less systematic fashions to justify and thus legitimize the construction, adoption, andimplementation of policies (Nitoiu 2013, p. 241). Consequently, their success rests to aconsiderable extent on the solidity of these linkages and on whether the narrativesaddress, resonate, and ideally, overlap with the social imaginaries of as wide a public aspossible. Arguably, this may stimulate further policy entrepreneurship or it might forcethe narrative tellers to continue on the path of narrative construction simply because theyare “constrained to accept the practical outcomes of their prior acceptance of certaindiscourses although these might not match the current social or political reality” (Nitoiu2013, p. 242).

Lastly, the construction and utilization of narratives can be considered a tool thatpolicy entrepreneurs deliberately use not only to “underpin their own self understandingof the unique political project that they have undertaken” (Tonra 2011, p. 1192), but alsoto reinforce their own legitimacy and status (Miskimmon et al. 2013). Provided this(calculated) recourse to narrative is valued positively, it generates important repercussionsfor policy entrepreneurs’ definition of the self and the perceptions of the other. While atfirst this might be conducive for the furthering of desired self-presentations, it has thepotential to generate collective memories and remembrance which, conversely, are boundto motivate the narrative teller to engage in further narrative construction as a result ofnew policy entrepreneurship in yet another policy domain. Such a process of agentivemeaning-making is dependent on narrative linkage and narrative options, both of whichare mutually reinforcing. As Holstein and Gubrium (2000) point out, no item ofexperience is meaningful in its own right but is made meaningful only through linkage toother items, thus creating a situational context for understanding. As a result, whilenarrative linkage allows narrative tellers to induce threads of coherence by linking presentto past and anticipated future narratives, recourse to narrative options describes theprocess of feeding the emerging, existing, or changing narratives with potential story linesto accommodate potential contingencies of narration (Holstein and Gubrium 2000, p. 110,Merrill 2007, p. 9)

The “threat/risk narrative” and the “duty and opportunity” narrative in EU externalrelations and EUFP

Broadly speaking, EU external relations and EUFP follow two interconnected narrativestrands. The first strand, coined by Christou (2010) as threat/risk security narrative,has its roots in the European Security Strategy (ESS) of 2003 and the notion that the

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post-cold war “environment is one of increasingly open borders in which the internal andexternal aspects of security are indissolubly linked” (ESS 2003, p. 3). Put differently: theEU and its citizens are exposed to broad, multi-dimensional, border-transcending risks,and threats that go beyond classic, military hard security challenges and that require theEU to develop and apply comprehensive capabilities and policies in order to ensure itsown security and development (Biscop 2005). The underlying logic of this narrative isthat it divides the world into spaces of security and insecurity and it leaves no doubtwhere the EU situates itself: it puts itself at the centre of such spaces of security andstability, and in doing so it feeds into notions of the self and delineates the borders thatseparate the self from the other(s). This furthers and substantiates the EU’s narrative of aregional “peace project” which, conversely, helps the EU to legitimize further integrationsteps and the adoption of measures destined to keep the dangers outside.

Arguably, the threat/risk narrative is closely associated with the discourses of dutyand opportunity, introduced by Browning and Joeniemmi (2008) and representing thesecond of the two interconnected narrative strands discussed here. The recourse to andperpetuation of the threat/security narrative imposes on the EU the obligation to engagewith the narrated security challenges in order to uphold the EU’s self-presented identity asa space that has succeeded in sustainably domesticating relations between its memberstates (Manners and Whitman 2000, p. 257). What is more, the changed nature of securityin a post-cold war world and, most important, the Lisbon Treaty with its normative andvalue-loaded base have both instilled into the EU the normative conviction that it is dutybound to address the challenges at their source by extending EU systems of governance(Browning and Joeniemmi 2008, p. 15) and by transposing EU norms and values.Interestingly, abiding by this “call for duty” can create additional opportunities for eitherthe substantiation of existing narratives or the construction of new ones which then havethe potential to serve both as formative mechanisms in the reconstitution of self andreality and as tools that are used to legitimate further policy entrepreneurship. Thisbecomes even more accentuated when it is taken into account that the duty narrative ismerely an umbrella narrative for four additional sub-narratives, all of which will beintroduced in the remainder of this section. The common factor of these four sub-narratives is that they derive from narratives that have been underlying the Europeanproject since its very beginning and that have been regularly utilized to legitimize furtherintegration efforts.

The “EU as a promoter of peace” narrative

The “EU as a promoter of peace” (Nitoiu 2013, p. 243) narrative is probably the mostcharacteristic in this regard and has its roots in the Zurich speech of 1946 by WinstonChurchill and the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950. While Churchill spoke of theneed to provide the “European family” with a structure under which it can dwell in peace,in safety and in freedom,1 thus offering a first perspective for post-war intra-Europeanrelations, the Schuman Declaration provided concrete proposals for the pooling ofresources and the establishment of a supranational structure, and contained a firstreference to the implications such measures would have for international security andworld peace.2 Over the years, this discourse has gained in importance. As a result of thetransfers of powers and competences from the member state level to the EU level, as wellas in light of the success of the European “peace project”, a narrative linkage emergedand the ambition to promote peace regionally became gradually accompanied by the

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aspiration to do so also on the global level. This dual ambition is best encapsulated inArticle 3 of the Lisbon Treaty (TEU) which stipulates that the EU’s aim is “to promotepeace, its values and the well-being of its peoples”, though it leaves room forinterpretation to what extent this objective shall be pursued uni-directionally.

The “EU as a democratizing force” narrative

Similarly, the “EU as a democratizing force” narrative draws its inspiration from thedemocratic foundations of its member states, compliance with the Copenhagen criteria,the values and norms contained in the Lisbon Treaty, as well as the acquis pertaining tofundamental rights and principles. Although Article 21 (1) TEU is explicit in this regardby stipulating that the “Union’s actions on the international scene shall be guided by theprinciples which have inspired its own creation, development and enlargement, andwhich it seeks to advance in the wider world”, the narrative rests, strictly speaking, oncomparatively fragile foundations. The EU’s internal system of governance itself isexposed to considerable procedural, efficiency, and social legitimacy deficits (Follesdaland Hix 2006, Jensen 2009). Moreover, the EU is still in search of effective ways andmeans to overcome the limits of external democracy promotion (Pace 2009) and thusto generate measurable “transformational impact” that does not presuppose an EUmembership perspective (Stivachtis and Webber 2013).

The EU and the “good neighbourliness” narrative

In order to bypass this challenge at least discursively, the EU has developed andincreasingly consolidated the narrative of “good neighbourliness” (Nitoiu 2013, pp. 246–248) throughout the last 10 years. This discourse was originally borne out of therecognition that once EU enlargement had come to an end, the construction of a newnarrative was needed in order to legitimate the EU’s engagement with those countries thatwould not be offered a membership perspective and was even constitutionalized throughArticle 8 TEU. Referring exclusively to the values of the EU (the self) and not the other,this Article has become an important tool in the EU’s discursive efforts of self-presentation and of delineating boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. In other words, thereference in Article 8 to “neighbouring countries”, as undefined as this term is, serves thepurpose of confining a potentially large number of countries to non-membership, and thusexclusion, even though, strictly speaking, the Lisbon Treaty does not disqualify any“European” country from accession (Article 49 TEU). Hence, what exactly the narrativeof good neighbourliness entails in terms of scope cannot be deduced entirely from thisstipulation even though the emphasis on “close and peaceful relations based oncooperation” (Article 8 TEU) would indicate a vast spectrum of areas of potentialengagement. “Good neighbourliness” is noteworthy also for the fact that it is a primeexample of narrative linkage with the “EU as a democratizing force” and the “EU as apromoter of peace” narrative, respectively, as well as with the fourth narrative, the “EUand the well-being of peoples around the world” (Nitoiu 2013, pp. 250–251).

The EU and “the well-being of people” narrative

While Nitoiu reduces the “well-being of peoples” narrative mainly to climate change, itseems justified to argue that the narrative draws heavily on notions revolving around

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development, protection and prevention. This relates it to human security, a narrative thathas its origins in the first half of the 1990s when the United Nations DevelopmentProgramme (UNDP) developed the first ever Human Development Index, and which, asKaldor et al. (2007, p. 273) point out, links “physical and material security with freedomfrom fear and freedom from want”. In spite of the absence of an explicit EU humansecurity strategy, human security forms to a considerable degree the narrational backboneof the ESS, inspired the Commission communication of 2006 on “Europe in the world”(EU Commission 2006), and has underpinned the discursive practices of EU agents eversince. This is exemplified in the numerous statements by former Commissioner forExternal Relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner. By arguing that “there can be no long-termpeace and global security without human security” (Ferrero-Waldner 2005), she under-scored the need to situate the individual’s human rights at the centre of EU policies, all ofwhich, according to this line of narration, are destined to counter the many threats tohuman security, as listed by the Human Development Index of 1994 (UNDP 1994).Conversely, the well-being of people narrative is linked to political development in that itis based on the assumption that socio-economic development increases the likelihood ofsuccessful democratization (Schimmelfennig 2011, p. 729).

Mapping narratives of EU external relations in the revised ENP

The initiation of the revised ENP stands in the tradition of the construction patterns ofpast policy frameworks governing Euro-Mediterranean relations. It was yet again a mixof internal and external developments that motivated the EU to engage in policyentrepreneurship. The creation of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) ofNovember 1995 benefited considerably from profound changes in the internationalsystem that allowed the EU to advance the process of integration (in the field of foreignand security policy) and thus engage in “normative region-building” (Pace 2007) in itsnear abroad. In contrast, the ENP of 2003/2004 responded primarily to the emergence ofnew EU external borders as a result of the 2004/2007 enlargement, a subsequentlyemerging new geostrategic outlook, and a new global environment, marked by notions ofinsecurity and threat, following the events of 9/11 (Dannreuther 2006). There is scholarlyconsensus that the implementation of both frameworks were embedded in a securitizationlogic at the core of which was both the desire to provide security to EU citizens as well asto effectively control EU external borders in order to ensure that the multi-faceted (soft)security challenges were addressed (Del Sarto and Schumacher 2005, Bicchi 2010b, Pace2010). The revised ENP, originally conceived to adjust the ENP internally to the LisbonTreaty and externally to Arab uprisings in the EU’s southern borderlands also draws onthis logic. The “New Response” report reiterated what had already been stated in theWider Europe report of 2003, namely that only cooperation “allows us to tackle sourcesof instability and conflict in the region” (Del Sarto and Schumacher 2005, Bicchi 2010b,Pace 2010, p. 21). By announcing further that “business as usual is no longer an option ifwe want to make our neighborhood a safer place and protect our interests” (Del Sarto andSchumacher 2005, Bicchi 2010b, Pace 2010, p. 5), the report makes it unmistakably clearthat notions of risk, instability and insecurity continue to be closely associated with thesouthern borderlands.

In parallel though, the emergence of the revised ENP was considerably exposed to,and is embedded in, the normative duty narrative. As early as late January 2011, shortlyafter the downfall of Tunisia’s President Ben Ali, Stefan Füle, the Commissioner for

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Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy engaged with the year-long recourse to thethreat/risk narrative, calling “the assumption that authoritarian regimes were a guaranteeof stability in the region […] short-termism” (Füle 2011). This critique was echoed bythe European Parliament (EP) which emphasized that the “quest for stability has oftenovershadowed the values of democracy, social justice and human rights in the EU and itsMember States’ relations with southern neighbors in the past years” (EuropeanParliament 2011, bt. pt. B). Subsequently, the EP became the first EU body to evokenotions of duty and responsibility by calling on the Council and the Commission “todevelop more ambitious and efficient policies and [to] support political, economic andsocial reforms in the EU’s southern neighborhood” (European Parliament 2011, bt.pt. 13). It took another two weeks until Commission President Barroso also positionedhimself more explicitly when he declared that “it is our duty to say to the Arab peoplesthat we are on their side!”,3 thus acknowledging indirectly the short-termism that Fülehad spoken of before. In contrast, EU member states’ governments were more hesitant toengage in an open display of self-critique and predominantly refrained from makingoverly supportive statements in the first weeks and months of the Arab Spring(Schumacher 2012). As a consequence of the EU member states’ difficulties in adjustingto the revolutionary dynamics in the southern Mediterranean, not least due to theirpractice over many years of constituting and reconstituting the southern borderlands as aspace of insecurity, they held on to the threat/risk narrative, albeit in a more modestfashion than previously. Only later did their use of the normative duty narrative with itsfour sub-narratives become more frequent, in particular once it had become clear that theousting of authoritarian regimes was seemingly irreversible or, as in the case of Syria, thatbroad international consensus existed that the regime had lost its legitimacy. In thosecases, therefore, where the authoritarian nature of political systems both remainedunaltered and were not put into question internationally (for example, Algeria, Morocco,and Jordan), they continued to offer discursive support for incumbent authoritarianregimes, thus reinforcing past notions that the latter can act as agents of reform and/orproviders of stability.

Even though, as mentioned above, the “New Response” contains references andstipulations that hint at it being underpinned by an engagement logic that revolves aroundthe management of multi-faceted security challenges and the prevention of spillovers intothe EU, a scrutiny of its contents reveals that the threat/risk security narrative is, in fact,considerably toned down. This is particularly so when compared to the original ENP of2003/2004 (Christou 2010) and the ESS (Biscop 2010), the latter of which narrativelyframed the former and is, at least theoretically, supposed still to inspire EUFP actions. Itis the normative duty narrative which dominates the discursive level, with the exceptionof a few stipulations which state bluntly that “EU geopolitical, economic and securityinterests are directly affected by continuing instability” (European Commission and HighRepresentative of the EU for Foreign and Security Policy 2011, p. 6), and one rathersuperficial reference to cross-border “threats” (European Commission and High Repres-entative of the EU for Foreign and Security Policy 2011, p. 21). The emphasis that the“EU needs to rise to the historical challenges in [its] neighborhood” (EuropeanCommission and High Representative of the EU for Foreign and Security Policy 2011,p. 1) is noteworthy in this regard for it ascribes to the EU a moral responsibility. Taken byitself, this observation is important for the historicity it induces, given that the WiderEurope document of 2003 was written in a similar tone (Jeandesboz 2007, p. 399), and

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thus for the recognition that the revised ENP seems to be inspired by a rationale thatcould be labelled “back to the future”.

But what does the predominance of the normative duty narrative mean with respect toits sub-narratives’ representation in the revised ENP? To what extent are they representedin the “New Response” and subsequent ENP related documents? And how do theirunderlying aims resonate with one another, what are their functional effects on securityand economic governance in the southern neighbourhood in general and on boundaries ofinclusion and exclusion in particular? Before the latter question is addressed in moredetail in the next section, it can be argued that the four sub-narratives, introduced earlier,are neatly woven into the revised ENP thus furnishing the normative duty discourse withconsiderable substance. Three observations stand out as follows.

First, even if neither the “New Response” nor subsequently published communica-tions refer explicitly to “good neighbourliness”, the latter serves as a conceptual bracketin that it ties the different sub-narratives together. Stipulations such as “a new approach isneeded to strengthen the partnership between the EU and the countries and societies ofthe neighborhood: to build and consolidate healthy democracies, pursue sustainableeconomic growth and manage cross-border links” (European Commission and HighRepresentative of the EU for Foreign and Security Policy 2011, p. 1) or “co-operationwith neighboring countries can now be broadened to cover the full range of issues in anintegrated and more effective manner” (European Commission and High Representativeof the EU for Foreign and Security Policy 2011) are indicative of this narrative linkage.In conjunction with the offer to advance contractual relations, they connect directly withthe possibility, laid out in Article 8(2) TEU, to “conclude specific agreements”. Thislinkage is hardly surprising, given that the revised ENP’s in-built vagueness and itsputative openness as regards the offer of broad-based cooperation and “close and peacefulrelations” [Article 8(1) TEU] allow the EU to demonstrate to its neighbours that itunderwent a learning process and transcended the use of a supposedly narrow threat/risknarrative. Moreover, while it also legitimates foreign policy action towards the southernborderlands in general and helps once more to demarcate the self from the other, itprovides the EU with ample room for manoeuver to (re-)define the limits of cooperationwhenever it feels inclined/pressured to do so.

Second, the sub-narratives of the “EU as a democratizing force” and the “EU and thewell-being of peoples” clearly dominate the “New Response” and thus the revised ENP.While the EU leaves no doubt that democratization and support for the improvement ofsocio-economic conditions (“well-being”) shall be anchored in the “values on which theEU is built” (European Commission and High Representative of the EU for Foreign andSecurity Policy 2011, p. 14), large parts of the revised ENP are dedicated explicitly tosupporting “progress towards deep democracy” and “sustainable economic and socialdevelopment”. Although the EU refrains from specifying the meaning of “deepdemocracy” – a term it uses synonymously with “healthy democracy” – it lists a numberof elements that it believes “are common to building deep and sustainable democracy”(European Commission and High Representative of the EU for Foreign and SecurityPolicy 2011, p. 3), ranging from more procedural to more structural and systemic ones.As in the framework of the original ENP of 2003/2004, it aims to accompany this supportin parallel with the establishment of civil society partnerships which, according to theCommission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and SecurityPolicy/Vice President of the European Commission (HR/VP), “can also help ensure thateconomic growth becomes more inclusive.” This is important in governance terms as it

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reveals not only a practice of linking the two narratives (Reynaert 2011), but also presentsa discourse which assumes the existence of a modernization-theory-inspired nexusbetween democracy, or rather democratization, and economic development, supposedlyleading to the construction of new spaces of stability, security and prosperity – in spite ofthe fact that this assumption was already refuted in the context of the EMP. This isaggravated by the fact that the means through which “deep democracy” and well-being ofthe “other” shall be constructed, follow more or less the same rationale that alreadyguided the original ENP and the EMP. Hence, the promise of financial assistance, marketaccess, and envisaged mobility schemes, nowadays labelled the “3M”, is yet again at thecentre of the envisaged narrative conversion into practices and continues to rely on theduality of negative (“less for less”) and positive (“more for more”) conditionality.

Third, the sub-narrative the “EU as a promoter of peace” is quantitatively under-represented in the revised ENP though the relevant stipulations are more wide rangingthan in the original ENP and point to a greater determination of the EU to go beyondmere discursive practices. In only five paragraphs, the revised ENP, after havingdiscussed briefly some of the potentially negative repercussions of unresolved conflictsin the borderlands, states mainly five objectives: (1) supporting confidence-buildinginitiatives, (2) linking instruments to promote economic integration and sectorialcooperation with confidence-building and conflict resolution objectives, (3) participatingin efforts related to the development of post-conflict reconstruction scenarios, (4) exploit-ing synergies between EU operational presence and EU efforts to promote reforms and(5) utilizing rule of law missions or other Common Foreign and Security Policyinstruments (Reynaert 2011, p. 6). These references mark a discursive shift. While “WiderEurope” spoke explicitly of crisis management and conflict prevention,4 the few peaceand security-related stipulations of the revised ENP nowadays revolve predominantlyaround conflict resolution and post-conflict action. This is a reflection of the consider-ably advanced provisions on the Common Security and Defense Policy in the LisbonTreaty and thus serves to underscore the process of self-presentation as an increasinglyresourceful and powerful actor.

The revised ENP and narratives of EU external relations and EUFP in a (post-)Arab Spring environment

Security and conflict resolution

After having overcome the initial sensation of disbelief and surprise over the magnitudeof developments in Tunisia in January 2011, the HR/VP hinted at the “EU as ademocratizing force” narrative when in an article published in The Guardian in earlyFebruary 2011, she announced that “the EU stands ready to help” laying down “the rootsof deep democracy” (Ashton 2011) in its southern borderlands. Interestingly, by declaringin a rather assertive tone that “we don’t do regime change, but system change” (Ashton2011), she provided observers, weeks before the publication of the Partnership forDemocracy and Prosperity, with a first idea that the transfer of EU systems of governancewas also likely to underpin future EU policies towards the southern borderlands.However, before it was attempted to translate this narrative into practices, the “EU as apromoter of peace” narrative gained centre stage, despite the fact that the way it washandled previously had already generated uncertainty among EU institutions and thepublic in EU member states, and among stakeholders in the southern borderlands.

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While almost immediately after the outbreak of civil war in both Libya and Syria and,in fact, ever since, EU member states governments used the “EU as a peace provider”narrative, this did not facilitate consensus among them over how best to respond. In fact,their willingness to abide by this narrative throughout 2011–2013 was rather under-developed and so was compliance with the revised ENP, which states:

But rising to the challenge requires that EU and Member States policies be much moreclosely aligned than in the past, in order to deliver the common message and the coherencethat will make our actions effective. EU instruments and policies will be effective only ifproperly backed by Member States policies. (European Commission and High Represent-ative of the EU for Foreign and Security Policy 2011, p. 5)

As demonstrated elsewhere (Koenig 2012), the quest for vertical coherence (Hillion andWessel 2008), to which this stipulation refers, was repeatedly undermined in the contextof EU efforts to “enhance EU involvement in solving” conflicts (European Commissionand High Representative of the EU for Foreign and Security Policy 2011, p. 5), inparticular when decisions had to be taken that concerned the imposition, expansion, orlifting of sanctions, the recognition of alternative domestic forces, such as the LibyanNational Transition Council (NTC) or the Syrian National Council (SNC), or the use ofmilitary force. As far as the latter is concerned, the EU did not take part in theenforcement of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1973 and theupholding of a no-fly zone over Libya. Instead, it stood by while a total of 11 EU memberstates, participating proactively in the international military coalition, contributed to thefall of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, thus contradicting Commission PresidentBarroso who, two weeks into the bombing campaign, had declared that regime change inLibya was “not the EU policy as such”.5 The passivity of the EU was a directconsequence of both considerable bickering within the Foreign Affairs Council overwhether the “EU as a peace provider” narrative entailed the use of military force and overFrance’s unilateral decision on 10 March 2011 to recognize the TNC. This contributed toa relatively low degree of the external legitimacy which, according to Manners (2010, p.38), is required in order for the EU to advance its normatively biased narratives. An EUneighbourhood barometer survey of 2012 (TNS Opinion 2012) showed that only 26% ofLibyan respondents regard the EU as an actor that generates peace and stability in theregion. Although no such figures exist for Syria, much points to similar perceptions,given that a similar gap between EU narrational practices and subsequent practices byindividual EU member states emerged. After French President Hollande had alreadypublicly remarked in May 2012, and without prior consultation with other EU leaders,that a military intervention can no longer be ruled out,6 it was France again that defied acommon EU position. In early November 2012 it unilaterally recognized the SNC,previously formed in Doha, “as the sole representative of the Syrian people, and as thefuture government of a democratic Syria”,7 thus forcing the EU to follow suit just a fewdays later. The undermining of the “EU as a peace provider” narrative continued at an EUForeign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels in late May 2013 when France and the UKvetoed the extension of the EU’s arms embargo even though all other 25 member stateswere opposed to such a move, fearing that it could lead to a further escalation of theconflict. After all the EU member states’ governments had eventually agreed on commonconclusions, simply to preserve at least the semblance of a unified position, a chemicalattack on a suburb outside Damascus was perpetrated on 21 August 2013, resulting in

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hundreds of casualties. This brought to the fore that, after a little more than two and a halfyears, not much was left of the revised ENP’s underlying peace narrative when referred toin ongoing military conflicts such as in Syria. Ashton called the attack a “crime againsthumanity” and demanded bluntly a “clear and strong response”.8 In contrast, EuropeanCouncil President Van Rompuy, echoing Commission President Barroso, opposed anymilitary action.9 France, picking up on Ashton’s statement, was quick to put the blame onthe Syrian regime and worked towards the creation of an international, non-EU coalitiondetermined “to penalize the use of chemical weapons by Assad’s regime and to dissuade[it] with a forceful and firm response”.10 Uncertainty among international and regionalactors over the EU’s position reached its climax in early September 2013. At the G-20Summit in St Petersburg, Germany refused to join France, the UK, Italy, and Spain insigning a US sponsored declaration which called for a strong, i.e. military response.However, 24 hours later at an EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Vilnius, Germanyperformed a U-turn and acknowledged that “some consequences will have to bedrawn”.11

As such consequences never materialized due to a Russian–US agreement and thesubsequent entering-into-force of UNSC resolution 2118, foreseeing the destruction ofthe Syrian regime’s chemical weapons arsenal by mid-2014 (Albright and Ivanov 2013),the credibility of the revised ENP to contribute to improved security governance in itssouthern borderlands was additionally undermined by the way the EU addressed theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict and the Western Sahara issue. The “New Response” singlesout both conflicts and, in line with the threat/risk narrative, considers their persistence“a serious security challenge to the whole region [as well as to] EU geopolitical,economic and security interests” (European Commission and High Representative of theEU for Foreign and Security Policy 2011, p. 5). Interestingly, however, neither the jointcommunication of May 2012, entitled “Delivering on a new European NeighborhoodPolicy”, nor the joint communication of March 2013 on the “European NeighborhoodPolicy: Working towards a Stronger Partnership”, mention them or any EU action in thisregard. This is hardly surprising in light of the fact that EU policy practices turned out tocontradict considerably the normative “EU as a peace promoter” narrative.

In the case of the Western Sahara conflict, the EP – after intense Spanish lobbying –voted in December 2013 in favour of a new EU–Morocco fisheries agreement that grantsboth Morocco and fishing vessels from 11 EU member states fishing rights in Moroccanwaters and, more important, in disputed territorial waters off Western Sahara at thediscretion of Moroccan authorities.12 Even though the agreement foresees that EUfinancial assistance of up to EUR 40 million will have to be invested by Morocco in away that benefits the Sahrawi population,13 the EU’s practice of including Morocco in ajoint governance scheme which excludes the other conflict party, i.e. the Polisario Front,is an expression of its tacit approval of Moroccan sovereignty of Western Sahara in spiteof the fact that neither the EU nor its member states ever officially recognized theMoroccan claim. Moreover, while this corresponds with past practices in the frameworkof the EU–Morocco fisheries accord 2007–2011 (Smith 2013), the conclusion of a newagreement is problematic for three more reasons (Sandvik 2013). First, the EU lagsconsiderably behind practical legal standards set by the USA and European Free TradeAssociation countries whose free trade accords with Morocco are not applied to goodsand thus fisheries-related items from Western Sahara14; second, the EU ignores both itsEuropean Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights and the UN Declaration on theRights of Indigenous Peoples, the latter of which it supports as it calls on states to provide

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legal protection to indigenous people’s ownership of land and resources; third, itgenerates uncertainty among the conflict parties, in particular among the Sahrawis, butalso among the public in EU member states, as to whether the EU’s self-presentation asan impartial peace broker is justified – a notion which pervades a letter from SahrawiArab Democratic Republic President Mohamed Abdelaziz to UN Secretary General BanKi Moon in early December 2013, calling for the UN to prevent the fisheries deal.15

Ironically, while the “EU as a peace promoter” narrative was ignored vis-à-vis theWestern Sahara conflict throughout the previous three years, EU policy practices in thiscontext corresponded with the “good neighbourliness” narrative, given that theconclusion of the fisheries agreement with Morocco – strictly speaking – complied fullywith Article 8 and thus the quest for “close and peaceful relations based on cooperation”[Article 8(1) TEU] on the basis of “specific agreements” [Article 8(2) TEU].

In contrast, the publication of the “guidelines on the eligibility of Israeli entities andtheir activities in the territories occupied by Israel”16 on 19 July 2013, as well as theSpecial Privileged Partnership, offered by the EU foreign affairs ministers to Israel andthe Palestinians on 16 December 2013 in the event of a final peace agreement,17 were anindication that the EU was prepared to put into practice the determination, expressedin the revised ENP, to act upon the underlying peace narrative. This occurred not least inview of the fact that, unlike in the case of Western Sahara, the EU has contractualrelations with, and thus legal obligations towards, both conflict parties, i.e. Israel andPalestine. The guidelines, covering a large number of areas of cooperation between theEU and Israel, such as economics, science, culture, sports and academia, stipulate that asof 1 January 2014, Israeli entities operating in the occupied territories will no longerbenefit from EU financial assistance. The decision is in line with the growing supportamong EU member states to ensure that products imported from the occupied territoriesare labelled correctly and it is regarded by some observers as a sign that the EU is movingtowards becoming a more proactive political actor in the resolution of the conflict (Bourisand Schumacher 2013) that interprets the revised ENP more strictly.18 At first, suchnotions seemed to be justified, given the harsh reactions among Israeli decision-makerswho considered the release of the guidelines an “earthquake” and a European “diktat”(Bouris and Schumacher 2013). However, it soon turned out that a gap betweendiscursive and policy practices was about to emerge. In late November 2013, in thecontext of bilateral negotiations over the Horizon 2020 scientific cooperation agreement,Ashton accepted two clauses put forward by Israel’s Justice Minister Tzipi Livni afterthe Israeli Government initially proved to be reluctant to sign the accord. The first clausestipulates that Israel objects to the guidelines from both a legal and political perspectivewhereas the second clause foresees that any Israeli entity operating within the GreenLine is eligible for EU funding and that both parties would examine ways to ensure thatthese funds would not be spent in the settlements.19 While this allowed the centre-rightIsraeli Government to save face vis-à-vis important nationalist electorates, thesestipulations defuse and undermine the spirit of the guidelines. In fact, as Gordon andPardo (2014) point out, their scope is seemingly irrelevant. During the period 1998–2013a total of only four research projects that involved Israeli entities in the occupiedterritories benefited from EU funds amounting to a mere EUR 1.45 million. Whencompared to the EUR 636.9 million that the EU granted to finance 1584 Israeliparticipations in 1310 EU funded research projects during 2007–2013 (Gordon and Pardo2014), it becomes obvious that the guidelines represent rather the characteristics of ashowcase project destined to demonstrate that the EU is not shying away from flexing its

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muscles, whereas in fact, the political realities on the ground, namely the ongoingconstruction of Israeli settlements and thus continuous occupation, are not beingchallenged. Moreover, the guidelines in their original version were supposed to declareindividual settlers ineligible for EU funding. But after considerable exertion of influenceby EU member states’ governments, the Commission and the European External ActionService had to abandon this envisaged restriction, thus constructing a governance schemethat excludes (a few potentially interested) Israeli entities and includes all Israeli settlerstout court, provided they apply for funding in an individual capacity. As a consequence,this practice has the potential to contribute to a further erosion of the “EU as a peacepromoter” narrative in the southern borderlands and it is bound to undermine the EU’simage in Israel, which is already considerably more negatively perceived than in the restof the neighbourhood.20

Economic and trade governance

That the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion are also blurred in relation to the well-beingnarrative is illustrated by the EU’s ambition to offer DCFTA pacts which are regarded asthe “main and most effective vehicle for developing closer trade ties” (EuropeanCommission and High Representative of the EU for Foreign and Security Policy 2011,p. 8). By stipulating that “DCFTAs require a high degree of commitment to complex andbroad-ranging reforms” (European Commission and High Representative of the EU forForeign and Security Policy 2011, p. 8), the “New Response” generates the notion thatonly those partner countries that have already advanced on the path of economic andsupposedly democratic transition are eligible to benefit from such accords. Conversely, thisimplies that reform–reluctant actors will not be offered the prospect of entering intonegotiations. However, the EU’s handling of this entry requirement points to a differentinterpretation by the Commission (European Commission and High Representative of theEU for Foreign and Security Policy 2013), given that besides Tunisia also Morocco,Jordan, and Egypt were offered the prospect of a DCFTA – in spite of the persistence ofauthoritarian structures and the military coup in Egypt in early July 2013. In fact, tworounds of negotiations had already taken place with Morocco by June 2013 and a firstround of talks was held with the Government of Egyptian President Mursi.21 Thediscursive origins of the DCFTAs are marked by two additional characteristics. First,unlike the Commission’s and Ashton’s tendency to portray DCFTAs as new instruments inthe EU’s tool kit to advance trade ties and socio-economic development in response to(post-) Arab Spring developments, the idea of offering DCFTAs is not new. It goes back tolate 2006, gained a certain degree of discursive prominence throughout 2007, disappearedfrom the EU’s neighbourhood-related discourse shortly thereafter only to be recycled in thecontext of the revised ENP.22 Second, discursive discontinuity can be identified in that therevised ENP hardly makes further mention of the objective of constructing a Neighbour-hood Economic Community23 – a goal that was rather prominently addressed in 2006 and2007. Rather, the revised ENP foresees DCFTAs to hold on to sectors that were alreadydiscussed then, namely commercial policy, service sector liberalization, public procure-ment, further liberalization of trade in agriculture, and investment protection (EuropeanCommission and High Representative of the EU for Foreign and Security Policy 2012).

Aiming at providing these areas with substance, the well-being narrative is, however,problematic at best and counterproductive at worst. As was pointed out by civil societyorganizations from the southern borderlands, most of the areas that DCFTAs aim to

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address were not accepted by southern neighbours as negotiation items under multilateralWorld Trade Organization negotiations in recent years due to their potentially negativerepercussions on developmental aspects.24 Yet, they are bound to form the core ofDCFTAs, although the Commission had admitted in a non-paper in 2007 that the“difficulties and challenges”25 that their implementation would entail cannot beunderrated. For instance, the envisaged inclusion of dispute settlement clauses, allowing(European) investors to sue states in the southern borderlands before international courtsin the event that the latter pursue regulatory changes that might be harmful to theinvestments of the former, is likely to allocate potential costs and responsibilitiesunevenly among investment recipients and foreign investors. As was discussedelsewhere, damages resulting from arbitration can result in extremely costly compensa-tion payments which are payable from public budgets, many of which are already markedby substantial deficits in the southern borderlands, thus shifting investment risks ontostruggling societies and generating uncertainty [TNI and Somo for the Seattle to BrusselsNetwork (S2B) 2013]. In other words, the arbitration system “on offer” in the context ofcurrent DCFTA negotiations is non-reciprocal as it excludes the eventuality of states inthe southern borderlands suing European investors.

Additional boundaries of inclusion and exclusion also characterize the revised ENP’sobjective to liberalize trade. Existing association agreements with states in the southernborderlands have already exempted industrial goods from tariff and non-tariff barriers,whereas restrictions remain for agricultural trade. However, instead of abandoning thisasymmetry, and thus complying with a long-standing demand of southern neighbours,DCFTAs do not foresee full access to European agricultural markets, which is due to theongoing resistance of EU member states and their protectionist attitudes. These are borneout of the awareness that a full liberalization of agricultural trade will allow producersfrom the southern borderlands to capitalize on their sector-specific competitive advantage,leading to changes on European agricultural markets and most likely to a crowding out ofEuropean producers. Conversely, this has implications for economic and labour marketdevelopment in the southern borderlands themselves and thus for the practical validity ofthe “EU and the well-being of the peoples” narrative: local agricultural producerscontinue to be hampered in utilizing their export potential and they remain exposed, andtherefore vulnerable to the inflow of highly subsidized agricultural goods from Europe(Costa-Font 2012).

Conclusions

This article has attempted to examine the role of narratives of EU external relations in therevised ENP and explored how they have been operating in practice in the context of a(post-) Arab Spring context, in particular with respect to the inclusionary andexclusionary potential of the EU’s border management practices during 2011–2013 vis-à-vis the southern borderlands. While it could be shown that the revised ENP continues tobe informed by the securitization logic that already characterized its predecessor, thenormative duty narrative and its four sub-narratives enjoy considerable discursivedominance and are powerfully employed in particular in the fields of security, economics,and trade. This is a direct consequence of the entering into force of the Lisbon Treaty andits in-built ambition to further and legitimate the EU’s self-presentation as a force forgood. Yet it is also related to the end of de-politicization tendencies in the EU’s relationswith its southern borderlands, as has been the case at least since the construction of the

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Union for the Mediterranean with its exclusively technical, project-based orientation.However, discursive action is not adequately matched by coherent and mutuallybeneficial policy practices, given the EU’s tendency to impose on the southernborderlands governance schemes that do not fit well with the four normative duty-relatedsub-narratives – even though the narrative selves proved to be contextual and contingentin light of the timing of the release of the revised ENP. In the period under review, thishas generated a considerable degree of uncertainty in the southern borderlands as regardsthe validity of the EU’s self-presentation and the corresponding normative duty narrative,and it puts in question the true objectives of the revised ENP.

The EU exploited the Arab uprisings to prove by means of the revised ENP that it is apowerful narrative teller capable of generating some degree of external legitimacy for itssupposedly missionary intentions of exporting EU Governance schemes. This is reflectedfor example in the statement by King Abdullah II of Jordan who, in line with thenormative duty narrative, remarked that “the EU [has] a moral duty to assist and supportnascent Arab democracies”.26 The extent to which this transcends the discourse of agenerally Europe-friendly political elite in parts of the southern borderlands, as is the casein Jordan and Morocco, is nonetheless rather questionable. The call for “more Europe” inforeign affairs to which European decision-makers tend to refer in order to legitimate thepooling of resources and EU interference in domestic affairs of other countries does notnecessarily coincide with public and elite opinion in large parts of the southernborderlands. In countries such as Egypt, Algeria, Libya, and Lebanon, for example, theEU is viewed with distrust fuelled by notions that EU border management policiesare simply destined to feed neo-colonial aspirations. This impediment to playing a morevisible role in the southern borderlands, and contradictory, uneven and often detrimentalborder management practices, in conjunction with the emergence of other actors, such asGulf Cooperation Council countries, Russia and China – all of which aim at involving theEU’s southern neighbours into unconditional and potentially competitive governanceregimes (Schumacher and Fernández Molina 2013, Schumacher and Nitoiu 2015, Sunand Zoubir 2014) – demand an acute re-orientation and reconstitution of EU narratives.This would mean that the shift from focusing on external effectiveness to self-presentation and identity that, according to Bickerton (2011), occurred in EUFP in recentyears, needs to be addressed and reversed. This might not be always conducive to verticaland horizontal coherence and generate serious repercussions on how the EU defines theself and the other. Yet, it might lead to more concrete and achievable results, expandnarratives’ external legitimacy base and facilitate the enhancement of “narrativecoherence” (Mayer 2013, p. 115). Whether such a shift is likely any time soon howeveris rather unlikely in light of the fact that EU member states, confronted with austerity,territorial reconfiguration in their eastern neighbourhood, and trapped in a spirit of navel-gazing, are not inclined to engage in EUFP action that holds the potential to be cost-intensive and that does not promise to increase domestic legitimacy among anincreasingly Euroskeptical public.

Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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Notes on contributorTobias Schumacher is the Chair holder of the European Neighbourhood Policy Chair at the Collegeof Europe (Natolin campus) and a Senior Research Associate at the Center for International Studies(CEI-IUL) in Lisbon.

Notes1. Quoted in Lipgens and Loth (1988, p. 664).2. Such a reference is, for example, embodied in “the statement that ‘world peace cannot be

safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers whichthreaten it.’”

3. “Statement by President Barroso on the situation inNorth Africa”, Point Press, Speech 11/137; seehttp://www.notre-europe.eu/media/eu_arabtransition_t.behr_ne_april2012.pdf?pdf=ok [Accessed2 March 2011].

4. See Commission of the European Communities, Wider Europe – Neighborhood: A NewFramework for Relations with our Eastern and Southern Neighbors, Communication from theCommission to the Council and the European Parliament, Brussels, 11 March 2003, 12.

5. http://www.theparliament.com/latest-news/article/newsarticle/barroso-leaps-to-defence-of-eu-foreign-chief

6. See http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/french-president-leaves-open-possibility-of-military-intervention-in-syria-a-835906.html

7. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/french-president-leaves-open-possibility-of-military-intervention-in-syria-a-835906.html

8. See Speech by HRVP Catherine Ashton on Syria at the European Parliament, 13/688, 11September 2013.

9. See http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/EU-sides-with-Russias-Putin-urges-against-US-military-solution-in-Syria-325343

10. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23928871. See also http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line

11. http://www.theguardian.com/world/german-elections-blog-2013/2013/sep/09/merkel-unlikely-allies-syria

12. See http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/de/news-room/content/20131206IPR30021/html/MEPs-approve-renewed-EU-Morocco-Fisheries-agreement

13. See http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/de/news-room/content/20131206IPR30021/html/MEPsapprove-renewed-EU-Morocco-Fisheries-agreement

14. While the US–Morocco free trade agreement does not contain any stipulation related toWestern Sahara, Bob Zoellick, the US Trade Representative at the time of the conclusion of theagreement, in a letter to the House of Representatives on 20 July 2004 stated explicitly that theagreement will cover “trade and investment in the territory of Morocco as recognizedinternationally, and will not include Western Sahara.” See http://www.bilaterals.org/IMG/pdf/040719l-ustr-moroccoFTA.pdf

15. See http://www.fishelsewhere.eu/a140x146216. Guidelines on the eligibility of Israeli entities and their activities in the territories occupied by

Israel since June 1967 for grants, prizes, and financial instruments funded by the EU from 2014onwards (2013/C 205/05). Available from: Official Journal of the European Union, 19 July2013, C205/9.

17. See Council of the European Union, Council Conclusions on the Middle East Peace Process,Foreign Affairs Council meeting, Brussels, 16 December 2013.

18. See the letter on the labelling of settlement products by Catherine Ashton of 8 July 2013 sent toCommission President Barroso and seven other commissioners. Available from: http://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-eu-foreign-policy-chiefs-letter-on-settlement-labeling/

19. See Barak Ravid, Horizon 2020 crisis – Israel and EU compromise on terms of joint initiative,following rift over settlement funding ban, Haaretz, 26 November 2013. Available from: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.560292

20. See EU Neighborhood Barometer – South, November, 12/2012. Available from: http://www.enpi-info.eu/files/publications/ANSA_ENPI%20SOUTH_Infographic_April%2013.jpg

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21. The EU Council of Ministers adopted negotiation directives in December 2011, but byDecember 2013, no negotiations with Tunisia and Jordan had taken place.

22. See European Commission, Communication from the Commission to the Council and theEuropean Parliament on strengthening the European Neighborhood Policy, COM (2006) 726final, 4 December 2006. See also Non-paper expanding on the proposals contained in thecommunication to the European Parliament and the Council on “Strengthening the ENP”. ENP– A Path towards further economic integration.

23. Only one reference exists, mentioning the “long-term vision of an economic community”. SeeEuropean Commission and High Representative of the EU for Foreign and Security Policy(2011, p. 9).

24. See Arab NGO Network for Development, Civil Society Reaction to the Joint Communication“A Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity”. Available from: http://www.eurostep.org/wcm/dmdocuments/es_internal/Civil_Society_Reaction_to_the_Joint_Communication_on_MENA_partnership_final_version-1.pdf

25. Non-paper expanding on the proposals contained in the communication to the EuropeanParliament and the Council on “Strengthening the ENP”. ENP – A path towards furthereconomic integration.

26. http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/images/Documents/urdunfull%20abdullah.pdf

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