The European Union and its Eastern Neighbours: Towards a more ambitious partnership?

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) of 2004, and the succeeding Eastern Partnership (EaP) of 2009 heralded a revolutionary new form of relations with the European Union's neighbours - partnership based on joint ownership and shared values - which would complement if not entirely replace the EU's traditional Eastern Partnership (EaP) governance framework used for enlargement. These initiatives, however, have received a mixed response from the EU's eastern neighbours. This book explores the EU's relations with its eastern neighbours. Based on extensive original research, including in-depth interviews with key people in Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and in Brussels, it assesses why the EU's initiatives have been so poorly received. It shows how the key elements of "partnership" have been forged mainly by the EU, and not jointly, and examines the idea of external governance, and how the application of this has been over-prescriptive and confusing.