Coherence Between the ENP and CSDP: Exercising Comprehensive Security

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Coherence Between the ENP and CSDP: Exercising Comprehensive Security

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) was designed with a clear conflict prevention potential, addressing political and economic dimensions of instability alongside conflict resolution measures. The interplay of ENP structural measures with CSDP tools is the focus of this reflection, in the particular case of the Eastern Partnership (EaP). The paper addresses the ways in which EaP policies and instruments interact with CSDP tools and their impact on the Georgian conflicts. The EU’s policy mix in this case illustrates the need for closer articulation between EU trade and visa policies and the international mediation efforts led by the EU. Other areas such as democracy promotion and human rights could also reinforce EU conflict transformation efforts. By looking at this interaction between structural and short and medium-term instruments, the article seeks to understand the obstacles hampering the EU’s goal of increased coherence and effectiveness in promoting security in the neighbourhood. Path-dependency and institutional bias as well as diverging national preferences and week institutionalization of CSDP are among the most significant obstacles to more effective EU security policies. Although, in the case of the Georgian conflicts external factors are also relevant, the paper focuses on the EU dimension as a means to understand how positive synergies can be established.


Licínia Simãolsimao@fe.uc.pt

Faculdade de Economia e Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra

Licínia Simão, PhD, is assistant professor in International Relations at the School of Economics, University of Coimbra and researcher at the Centre for Social Studies, being involved in several research projects on the post-Soviet space and European Security. She has held researching and teaching positions at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada) the OSCE Academy (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan) and the Centre for European Policy Studies (Brussels). From 2010 to 2012 she was a visiting professor at the University of Beira Interior (Covilhã, Portugal).