14 European Neighbourhood Policy
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16371/06
COM(06) 726 + ADDs 1-9
| Commission Communication: Strengthening the European Neighbourhood Policy
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| Legal base | — |
| Document originated | 4 December 2006
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| Deposited in Parliament | 7 December 2006
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| Department | Foreign and Commonwealth Office
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| Basis of consideration | EM of 6 December 2006
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| Previous Committee Report | None
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| Discussed in Council | 11 December 2006 General Affairs and External Relations Council
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| Committee's assessment | Politically important
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| Committee's decision | Cleared. Relevant to ESC debate on enlargement on 15 January 2007
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Background
14.1 In the introduction to the Communication, the Commission
recalls the premise of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)
— "that the EU has a vital interest in seeing greater
economic development and stability and better governance in its
neighbourhood". Responsibility lies primarily with the countries
themselves, "but the EU can substantially encourage and support
their reform efforts".
14.2 It also recalls that "the ENP remains distinct from
the process of EU enlargement — for our partners, considerably
enhanced cooperation with the EU is entirely possible without
a specific prospect of accession and, for European neighbours,
without prejudging how their relationship with the EU may develop
in future, in accordance with Treaty provisions".
The Commission Communication
14.3 The Commission says that the first eighteen months "have
laid a substantial foundation for strengthened relations between
the Union and its neighbours" — a single policy framework,
eleven ENP Action Plans and a new financial instrument (the European
Neighbourhood Policy Instrument; ENPI). Specific information on
progress achieved in the first Action Plans is annexed to the
Communication. "Nevertheless, poverty and unemployment, mixed
economic performance, corruption and weak governance remain major
challenges". Unresolved conflicts between some neighbouring
countries and elsewhere risk producing major spillovers for the
EU, such as illegal immigration, unreliable energy supplies, environmental
degradation and terrorism. In sum:
"The central argument of this Communication is that the
ENP is indispensable and has already proven its worth —
and that it is no less indispensable that the EU build upon this
by strengthening its commitment to the ENP. The Communication
therefore contains a series of proposals to substantially improve
the impact of the policy".
14.4 The Commission says the strengths of the ENP lie in:
— Integration:
a single, clear framework covering the neighbourhood as a
whole in which to discuss and handle the whole range of issues
between the EU and each partner — not just economic issues
but also "uncomfortable governance or human rights issues",
with active cooperation in the field of freedom, security and
justice, promoting the rule of law;
— Joint
ownership: the ENP Action
Plan is an agenda for common work fully negotiated and mutually
agreed at political level;
— Concreteness:
broad and wide-ranging, but also detailed, with agreed specific,
time-bound and measurable objectives; and
— Better
use of funds: the new
ENPI will allow Community assistance to partner countries to be
explicitly policy-driven, moving from technical assistance to
fully-fledged cooperation.
14.5 However, many of the political and economic
costs are up-front, while an important part of the incentives
— market access and integration and other economic benefits
— only bear fruit later, presenting real difficulty for
partner countries in building the necessary domestic support for
reform. More specifically:
— Trade
and economic integration:
In order to reap additional economic and political benefits for
all, it is important to offer all ENP partners, both in the East
and the South, a clear perspective of deep trade and economic
integration with the EU and to include within liberalisation offers
improved access in all areas of economic potential and interest
for partners;
— Mobility
and migration: the ENP
has not yet allowed significant progress on improving the movement
of partner country citizens to the EU, particularly the length
and cost of procedures for short-term visas, which are "a
highly "visible" disincentive to partner countries,
and an obstacle to many of the ENP's underlying objectives";
and
— Regional
conflicts: The ENP has
achieved little in supporting the resolution of frozen or open
conflicts in the region; the EU needs to be more active, and more
present, in regional or multilateral conflict-resolution mechanisms
and in peace-monitoring or peace-keeping efforts.
14.6 The Commission has "therefore identified
a number of areas in which the ENP should be strengthened to ensure
its success"; all "would mean an additional effort for
the EU, but this would be outweighed by the political benefits".[39]
14.7 They are:
— Enhancing
the trade and economic component:
deep and comprehensive Free Trade Agreements with all partners;
enhanced support for reforms; efforts to improve trade and economic
regulatory environment and the investment climate; strengthened
economic integration and co-operation in key sectors.
— Facilitating
mobility and managing migration:
removing obstacles to legitimate travel while at the same time
ensuring well-managed mobility and migration.
— Promoting
people-to-people exchanges:
educational, youth, business and civil society exchanges; training;
increasing the visibility of the EU.
— Building
a thematic dimension:
multilateral dialogue on energy, transport, environment, information
society, public health, financial services, border management
and migration.
— Strengthening
political co-operation:
more active EU role in conflict resolution; informal ministerial
meeting with partner countries; intensified parliamentary co-operation.
— Enhancing
regional co-operation:
particularly in the Black Sea region.
— Strengthening
financial co-operation:
making the most of the new, larger funding instrument, including
a new Governance Facility and Investment Fund.
14.8 With the Governance Facility, the Commission
proposes over the period 2007-13 to set aside €300m (some
€43m per year, on average) on top of the normal country allocations,
to acknowledge and support the work of those partner countries
who have made most progress in implementing the agreed reform
agenda set out in their Action Plan and thus help reformist governments
to strengthen their domestic constituencies for reform.
14.9 For the Investment Fund, the Commission
proposes €700m (some €100m per year, on average), building
on the FEMIP,[40] to
provide grant support for lending operations by institutions such
as the EIB, EBRD and, possibly, Member State development finance
institutions, which it estimates could leverage as much as four
to five times the amount of grant funding dedicated to it in concessional
lending for investment projects in ENP partner countries, in priority
sectors as identified in the Action Plans.
The Government's view
14.10 In his 6 December 2006 Explanatory Memorandum,
the Minister for Europe (Mr Geoffrey Hoon) at the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office says that he supports efforts to strengthen
the ENP and comments on the Commission's proposals as follows:
"Enlargement fatigue is preventing the EU
from deploying its most powerful lever for reform in the East
— a perspective of EU membership. So we need to maximise
our offer in other areas. And in the South, we want the European
Neighbourhood Policy to be more effective in promoting the reform
objectives agreed at the Barcelona Summit in 2005."
14.11 He expects the December GAERC and European
Council to task the German Presidency with taking forward further
work on "fleshing out the areas identified by the Commission
for enhancing the EU's offer to partner countries. He is "broadly
supportive of the Commission's proposals and is "working
with other government departments on the detail".
14.12 With regard to the eastern neighbours' membership
prospects, he says that the Communication makes clear that the
ENP:
"should remain distinct from the question
of enlargement, that it should not be considered as an alternative
to enlargement and that it does not prejudge how the relationship
of the eastern neighbours with the EU may develop in accordance
with existing Treaty provisions. This is helpful language. We
believe that it is crucial to keep the door open to eventual full
membership for the eastern neighbours as a key lever for reform.
We believe that the eastern neighbours could contribute greatly
to the prosperity, stability and general well-being of the European
continent as full EU members".
14.13 With regard to the Governance Facility,
the Minister says that last year's Barcelona Summit agreed to
establish a "substantial" facility to support partners
in carrying out their reforms; his initial reaction is that the
sum proposed by the Commission "may not offer a sufficient
enough incentive to encourage third countries to undertake reform".
But as the Commission proposals on both it and the Investment
Fund have not been fully developed, he feels that "it
is too early to form any firm judgement".
14.14 The UK will encourage the Commission to work
with Member States "to draw up more detailed, evidence-based
proposals covering: scale; objectives; transparent and objective
resource allocation criteria; levels of conditionality; effective
management and monitoring arrangements; and the correct use of
grant resources".
14.15 Finally, he notes that he expects Council Conclusions
at the 11 December GAERC and at the 14-15 December European Council.
Conclusion
14.16 The Conclusions subsequently adopted at
the 11 December GAERC underlined the importance the Council attaches
to the ENP "as one of the core priorities of the Union's
external action". That being so, given the scale of the proposed
expenditure — the ENPI indicative financial framework is
€11,181 million for the period 2007-13 — the importance
of the Minister's last comment is self-evident. It is important
that €1.6 billion p.a. of European taxpayers' money is spent
as effectively, and objectively, as possible, and that horse-trading
and clientelism is avoided to the maximum extent.
14.17 We draw attention to the Minister's remarks
about enlargement because others might equally argue that what
is most important to the security and stability of the EU's "neighbourhood"
is prosperity and stability under the rule of law; that each is
bound up with the other; and that the key to stimulating this
equation is not EU membership (which is in any event not on offer
to "southern" neighbours) but market access —
in short, if genuine market access is offered, then economic reform
under the rule of law will be seen as a good in its own right,
and not as something that (for some at least) has to be implemented
because of a prospect whose reality is likely to be open to question
for the foreseeable future.
14.18 The Council Conclusions also look forward
to considering future proposals from the Commission and a Presidency
report to the Council in June 2007, as do we.
14.19 We also consider this Commission relevant
to the debate on enlargement that is to be held in the European
Standing Committee on 15 January 2007.
14.20 In the meantime, we now clear the document.
39 COM(06) 726, pages 1-3. Back
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