The European neighbourhood policy--a reality check: how effective is the European Neighbourhood Policy in promoting good governance?

• Author: Kleenmann, Kristof
• Position: EU AS A GOOD GOVERNANCE PROMOTER

1. Introduction

   International actors and national donors have increasingly recognised that good governance constitutes a prerequisite for development. With sound state institutions, governments are capable of providing a stable environment that is favourable to economic growth. Without adequate institutions, immense costs will occur. As argued by the former President of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, corruption alone creates costs for the developing world approximately $ 80 billion a year, which equals the total of all development assistance transferred to the developing world per year (Wolfowitz, 2006). Due to growing recognition of the importance of sound institutions, the international community is in a continuous search for instruments that could accelerate a country's transition to good governance practices.

   The present paper will employ the World Bank definition of good governance: "[good governance is]...epitomized by predictable, open and enlightened policy making; a bureaucracy imbued with a professional ethos; an executive arm of government accountable for its actions; and a strong civil society participating in public affairs; and all behaving under the rule of law." (World Bank, 1994).

   The definition is sufficiently broad as it combines the concepts of efficiency and effectiveness of government with that of democratic ruling. It goes well beyond effective delivery of public services and highlights the importance of an accountable government as well as the involvement of an active civil society. Limiting good governance to effective government would miss essential elements of good governance (e.g. corruption levels are often closely related to the degree of accountability a government faces).

   The increasing awareness of good governance has been matched by increased funding for good governance-related programmes and a boost in research with the aim of developing indicators that could measure the level of good governance in specific countries. The EU does not pose an exception to this trend. With the adoption of the revised Lome Convention in 1995, the EU included the concept of good governance in official documents for the first time and since then has attempted to optimise tools to promote good governance in third countries.

   One of the most recent foreign policy tools, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), constitutes an innovative instrument that tries to transfer the success of enlargement to other foreign policy instruments. Directed towards its eastern and southern neighbours (2) (see Appendix for map) and adopted in 2004, the ENP marks a departure from previous arrangements with third countries due its use of action plans, differentiation and regular monitoring. The centrality of good governance in the ENP framework is laid down in the 2004 Strategy Paper, where it is stated that the ENP should aim at "strengthening democracy, rule of law, reform of the judiciary and fight against corruption and organised crime" (European Commission, 2004: 13). Given the innovative nature as well as the recentness of the ENP as a policy tool, it is particularly interesting to analyse whether it has been effective in initiating change in the partner states. Hence, this paper is investigating whether the ENP has been successful in promoting good governance in the partner states.

   Existing literature on the ENP has mainly focused on the rationale and evolution of the ENP (Lavenex, 2004; Smith, 2005; Kelley 2006; Delcour & Tulmets, 2009). Moreover, studies have engaged in theoretical discussions on the potential impact of the ENP (Schimmelfennig, 2006, Bobitski, 2008) or have examined specific countries and policy areas (Borzel, 2010, Sasse, 2008, Lavenex et al. 2009). Some authors have been rather pessimistic regarding the effectiveness of the ENP They have argued that financial assistance is insufficient in bringing about change. In addition, it is argued that the costs of adopting liberal reforms constitute a challenge to domestic actors in authoritarian regimes (Borzel, 2010). Reform requirements threaten the power base of these regimes and therefore, the ENP will prove to be ineffective. On the other hand, it could well be argued that EU incentives may still constitute a sufficient condition for the successful transition to good governance by means of domestic empowerment (Vachudova, 20053). Even if incentives fail to influence authoritarian regimes directly, domestic actors (civil society organisations etc.) might increasingly view the incumbent regime to be the key obstacle to further integration into the EU and, thus, demand change. Moreover, it is quite reasonable to assume that in states with likeminded governments, the influence of the ENP will prove to be considerable. Until today, there has been no comprehensive study to test these assumptions. Therefore, the present paper tries to fill a research gap that will allow European policy-makers to assess the effectiveness of the ENP more clearly.

   The paper is structured as follows: the first part will outline the ENP in more detail. Both the general background and the most important instruments of the ENP will be introduced. Data from official EU documents as well as from semi-structured interviews with European Commission officials will be used to determine the degree of support to individual partner states. The second part will present the empirical findings as well as evaluate whether the ENP has been successful in initiating change in the partner states. The evaluation is based on impact indicators developed by the World Bank and Transparency International, as well as qualitative reports by Freedom House and Global Integrity. In order to avoid an over-emphasis of the EU impact, the evaluation will also include the importance of domestic factors to show that in countries where progress has been detectable, domestic rather than international factors have been the main causes of reform. The last part will conclude and offer policy recommendations to optimise the ENP

2. The European Neighbourhood Policy as an instrument for the promotion of good governance

   2.1. Background

   The 2004 Eastern Enlargement posed new important challenges to the European Union. The question arose how to deal with the next ring of European neighbours, a group of culturally and geographically extremely diverse countries, which all shared one characteristic: proximity to the European Union. The European Union recognised the need to develop a new and coherent policy towards its new neighbours, which would address these difficult questions. From the beginning, the idea behind the ENP was driven by two main factors. On the one hand, the belief that the EU needs to offer an alternative to enlargement policy as the EU has only limited capacity to absorb new members and, on the other hand, the conviction that it is vital to create an area of peace and prosperity in its backyard. Moreover, the promotion of good governance in the partner states has been a central element of the ENP as the EU has increasingly recognised that weak governance constitutes a major cause for considerable development restraints in the partner states.

   Key to the development of the ENP has been the European Commission Communication "Wider Europe" which was adopted in March 2003. The initiative already sets out the main characteristics of what would later become the ENP a differentiated and benchmarked approach that builds upon cooperation between the EU and its partners (European Commission, 2003). The concept of good governance played a major role from the beginning. The "Wider Europe Initiative" stressed that it is vital for the partner states to show strong commitment to capacity building of their judiciaries, administrations and political institutions and that the fight against corruption would ensure a stable setting for foreign investments (ibid: 16).

   2.2. The Policy

   In May 2004, the Commission published a more detailed strategy paper on the ENP which constitutes the core document of the new policy and sets out the main elements of the new approach (European Commission, 2004). The main idea behind the policy is driven by the concept of positive conditionality and partnership. Thus, the level of the relationship depends on the extent to which the values are shared, including aspects such as human rights and democracy, good governance, market economy principles and sustainable development (ibid). Progressive integration into the EU's internal market and extended political cooperation depends on progress made in the partner states.

   The ENP builds on existing institutional agreements between the EU and the partner states (Association Agreements and Partnership and Cooperation Agreements) (4). Next to the use of twinning (5) and financial support, one of the central and innovative elements of the ENP is the implementation of bilateral Action Plans that are agreed upon between the EU and each partner. The Action Plans set out an agenda of political and economic reforms with short and medium-term priorities (ibid). Progress on the implementation of the commitments and objectives set out in the Action Plans is regularly monitored through sub-committees, dealing with specific sectors or issues. Moreover, yearly progress reports of the European Commission strictly monitor the degree implementation of reforms. The assessment of the Commission is then "complemented by a consensual monitoring structure in joint Association Councils" (Lavenex et al., 2009: 820). Action Plans are similar in outline, but the content is specific to each country reflecting the principle of differentiation.

   The concept of good governance is central to the content of the Action Plans. Each Action Plan has a detailed chapter called "Enhanced political dialogue and reform" under which all aspects of democratic governance are covered. Moreover, further issues related to good governance can also be found in the other five chapters of...