The EU's role in reforming Ukraine : what has changed since Euromaidan?

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Graduate School of Social Sciences

MSc Thesis in Political Science, track: European Politics and External Relations

The EU’s Role in Reforming Ukraine: What has changed

since Euromaidan?

By Jekaterina Kuzmina

Student number: 11209593

E-mail: JekaterinaKuzmina92@gmail.com

Supervisor: Dr Dimitris Bouris

Second Reader: Prof Jonathan Zeitlin

Word Count: 23,447

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

June 23, 2017

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Abstract

The period between the late 2013-early 2014 saw a wave of increased civic activism in Ukraine known as Euromaidan, which has later transformed into a large-scale conflict in the eastern part of the country with Russia’s military involvement. At the same time, the crisis acted as an impetus for radical domestic changes which have, first, led to government change and later advanced to a comprehensive reform process Ukraine has not seen before. The period following Euromaidan has been featured by Ukraine’s dynamic European integration reflected in the conclusion of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement (AA) with a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) and the country’s achievement of a visa-free travel regime with the EU. Thus, the key objective of the thesis is to assess the pace and quality of Ukraine’s unprecedented reform process and the EU’s involvement in it. While Ukraine has made a substantive breakthrough in converging with the EU-prescribed regulations on migration, which has brought the desired Visa Liberalisation Agreement to Ukraine, other policy sectors, such as anti-corruption, have not seen the same level of progress. Besides, the recent events in Ukraine have been accompanied by the strengthened role of the country’s civil society, which has turned into a powerful force behind the ongoing reform process. Through the rigorous analysis of the EU documents and monitoring reports of various Ukrainian non-governmental (NGOs) and civil society organisations (CSOs) involved in the reform process as well as conducting semi-structured interviews with both European and Ukrainian officials and representatives of Ukraine’s civil society, Ukraine’s progress in implementing EU sectoral acquis as stipulated in the EU-Ukraine AA will be assessed. From the gathered data, the conclusion can be drawn that Ukraine needs external incentives to act resolutely and achieve desired outcomes. While the role of Ukraine’s civil society has been strengthened, it still meets resistance from the current political elite. Although the reforms have not yet reached a point of no-return, Ukraine has showed an unprecedented progress so far, and it would be challenging for Ukraine’s political elite to reverse it.

Keywords: European Union, Ukraine, Association Agreement, external governance, reforms, civil society, visa liberalisation, corruption

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Acknowledgments

This thesis marks not only the end of my Master’s degree but also the end of my student life. These years were an adventure for me: I have gained knowledge, discovered my true interests, grown as a personality, met a lot of interesting and inspiring people, some of whom have become my good friends.

I would personally like to thank my supervisor Dr Dimitris Bouris for his invaluable help, ideas and motivation throughout the whole work on the thesis. I am thankful to Dr Bouris for his insightful comments and detailed feedback on my draft chapters as well as the interview contacts he shared with me. Without his moral support and belief in me, during my ups and downs, I might not have been able to make it until the end.

I would also like to thank Mr Gavin Evans, Advisor to the Head of the Support Group for Ukraine, for his help in introducing me to relevant contact persons in the field as well as the opportunity to attend the fourth (closed) meeting of the EU-Ukraine Civil Society Platform hosted by the European Economic and Social Committee, where I was able to interview both European and Ukrainian officials along with representatives of Ukraine’s civil society, which acted as an inspiration for my further research.

I would like to thank my mum for making these studies financially possible for me and for her always being there whenever I felt stressed or frustrated. Thank you to my fellow classmates and friends who cheered me up all the way through the thesis-writing process and for their helpful comments on my work.

I have learnt a lot during the research process and I am very happy that I have been able to finish it.

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List of Abbreviations:

AA Association Agreement

AP Action Plan

CEECs Central and Eastern European Countries CIS Commonwealth of Independent States CPE Civilian Power Europe

CSF Civil Society Forum CSO Civil Society Organisation CSP Civil Society Platform

DCFTA Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area EaP Eastern Partnership

ECU Eurasian Customs Union

EEAS European External Action Service EEU Eurasian Economic Union

EMP Euro-Mediterranean Partnership ENP European Neighbourhood Policy EPE Ethical Power Europe

ESS European Security Strategy

EU European Union

FTA Free Trade Area

GPO General Prosecutor’s Office MFA Micro-Financial Assistance

NABU National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine NAPC National Agency for Corruption Prevention NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

NGO Non-governmental Organisation NPE Normative Power Europe

PCA Partnership and Cooperation Agreement

SAPO Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office SMS State Migration Service

TACIS Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States TEU Treaty on the European Union

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Introduction

The recent events in Ukraine – the Euromaidan, the subsequent government change, increased civic activism coupled with active involvement of the European Union (EU) through the conclusion of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement (AA) with a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) – have considerably altered the domestic ‘playground’. Ukraine has embarked on a path of gradual reform, which has affected a wide range of policy areas from public procurement and fight against corruption to energy security and environmental protection. The ongoing reform process has been extensively assisted by the EU, financially – through its two granted tranches of Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) – and technically – through advising on and monitoring Ukraine’s regulatory convergence with the EU rules and regulations.

Therefore, the objective of this thesis is to look at the EU’s engagement with Ukraine: through its official government, but also, and more importantly, trans-governmental networks, where administrative officials from the EU and the target country are involved in sectoral co-operation (Schimmelfennig 2012, p. 224), as well as Ukraine’s broader civil society, whose role has been significantly strengthened during the years following the Euromaidan revolution. In other words, the thesis is targeted on the EU’s capacity to act as an “exporter of governance” to achieve institutional (and more generally democratic) change in Ukraine (Ibid., p. 225).

The thesis will use Ukraine as a case-study and look at the EU-Ukraine sectoral co-operation on migration and anti-corruption as a process of “socialisation,” that is how functional cooperation between the EU and Ukraine can bring not only tangible (e.g. economic, trade, strategic etc.) benefits, but also “introduce new patterns of governance,” such as transparency, accountability and participation by including local regulators in trans-governmental networks, which can then lead to institutional change and, ultimately, democratisation (Freyburg 2011, p. 1003; p. 1006; Langbein and Wolczuk 2011, p. 15). In this manner, the research question, which this thesis is aimed answering, reads as follows: how and to what extent have the recent developments in Ukraine and the EU’s engagement with the country influenced the current reform process within Ukraine?

To answer the question, the literature on EU external governance will be used as a theoretical framework. By looking at the EU-Ukraine sectoral co-operation on migration and

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corruption, the thesis will, first, try to assess the pace and quality of the reform dynamic in the two areas, but also identify key driving forces and obstacles behind the reform in each of the sectors.

The thesis will start by providing a broader picture on the EU as an international actor and then proceed to discussing the literature on external governance and its relevance to the research topic and question. Further, the EU’s regional role will be discussed within the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and its two revisions and the Eastern Partnership (EaP), which will be followed by an overview of how the EU-Ukraine co-operation has developed starting from the early 1990s up to now.

Methodology

To measure the dynamic of Ukraine’s reform process in line with the legal provisions of the EU-Ukraine AA, the thesis will use a qualitative research method based on the analysis of EU legal and public documents and monitoring reports of Ukrainian non-governmental (NGOs) and civil society organisations (CSOs). Besides, interviews with the officials in the European Commission’s Support Group for Ukraine, the official of the Political Section of the EU Delegation to Ukraine, a member of the European External Action Service (EEAS) working on Ukraine, a member of the Ukrainian Think Tank Liaison Office in Brussels, as well as Ukraine’s civil society representatives approached during the fourth meeting of the EU-Ukraine Civil Society Platform (CSP) hosted by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in Brussels on May 18, 2017, have been conducted to gather empirical data on the research topic.

All the interviews were semi-structured to be able to establish natural communication and mutual understanding between an interviewer and an interviewee. While a set of potential questions was prepared before the interviews, in all cases new questions were created during an actual interview in response to interviewees’ answers. Thus, a semi-structured design of interviews gave an interviewer more flexibility and was aimed at looking at the topic from different perspectives, which had not been determined in advance. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews help to establish a less formal atmosphere between an interviewer and an interviewee based on trust and mutual sympathy, which creates a more favourable environment for discussing sensitive issues.

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The choice of the interviewees was guided by their relevance to the topic addressed by the thesis and the extent of their involvement in Ukraine’s reform process. Therefore, two members of the European Commission’s Support Group for Ukraine were interviewed face-to-face in their office in Brussels, one of whom deals specifically with the reforms in the Justice and Home Affairs sector, including anti-corruption. The Support Group is a recently established institutional body (April 2014) which has been aimed at supporting Ukraine in the implementation of the EU-Ukraine AA with a DCFTA. The original idea was that the Support Group would provide technical expertise for the implementation of the detailed provisions of the AA, from agriculture to transport, standards and specifications for the internal market (Support Group for Ukraine 2016). However, the Group’s members quickly came to realise that in order for Ukraine to integrate more closely with the EU, Ukraine would have to enter into a fundamental reform of its state institutions (Ibid.). Therefore, its team has concentrated mostly for the past three years on public administration reform, civil service reform, judicial reform, reforms to support the fight against corruption, reforms to civilian security, to rule of law sector, reforms to public finance, and financial management (Ibid.). The Support Group works closely with the EEAS and with both the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine and with the European Union Assistance Mission. Thus, it relies on vast expertise and is directly involved in Ukraine’s reform process. It consists of several thematic groups all of which are focused on the reform priorities as laid down in the Association Agenda (Ibid.). In this manner, the Group is closely involved in the EU-Ukraine sectoral co-operation and thus engages with a variety of stakeholders as well as Ukraine’s civil society. Therefore, due to the Support Group’s focus on sectoral reforms and its active involvement in the reform process on the ground, the aim of the interviews was to find out the EU perspective of the pace and quality of the ongoing reform process in Ukraine with a focus on migration and anti-corruption reform, as well as how the Union has assisted Ukraine – its official government but also civil society – in its reform efforts.

Further, a phone interview was conducted with a member of the Political Section of the EU Delegation to Ukraine due to author’s inability to personally travel to Ukraine. The interview was semi-structured and addressed Ukraine’s progress on the anti-corruption reform with its link to the judicial reform. A sensitive issue of backsliding from the side of the current Ukrainian government -in particular, the recently signed bill on Amendments to the Law of Ukraine on Prevention of Corruption and the social media ban – and the EU’s reaction to it

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were addressed. The fact that the interviewee was engaged with Ukraine’s reform process on the ground and was in close contact with both the officials from the new Ukrainian government, but also other relevant stakeholders including Ukrainian civil society actors as well as the broader Ukrainian public provided the interviewer with an insider’s perspective. This, in turn, has helped to partly overcome the key limitation of this thesis stemming from the author’s being an external observer located outside Ukraine.

A short interview with an official from the EEAS working on Ukraine, who was approached during the fourth meeting of the EU-Ukraine CSP, was aimed at getting to know the official EU position on the reform achievements in Ukraine, EU’s support, and its flexibility in exercising positive and negative conditionality vis-à-vis Ukraine.

Finally, a skype interview with a member of the Ukrainian Think Tank Liaison Office in Brussels as well as multiple short interviews with Ukraine’s civil society representatives approached during the meeting of the EU-Ukraine CSP have provided an alternative perspective to the one found in official EU progress reports and during interviews with the EU officials. Since they represent the interests of the ordinary Ukrainian people, they are more responsive to their needs and have thus a broader picture of the effects of the reform process within Ukraine. The aim of those interviews was to identify the role of Ukraine’s civil society in reforming Ukraine and the strength of its impact on holding the new Ukrainian government to account and setting the pace of the reform process. These interviews have also helped to find out how the reforms have been perceived on the ground, by ordinary people, and what needs to be done by both the Ukrainian government and international donors, such as the EU, to push reforms further and make their results irreversible.

Two cases-studies, the policy area of migration and anti-corruption, have been chosen to assess the EU-Ukraine sectoral integration for the following reasons. Recently, Ukraine has been granted a visa-free travel regime with the EU, which came into force on June 11, 2017. The Visa Liberalisation Agreement is one of the most promising EU ‘carrots’ to its ENP non-candidate partner countries, and its achievement depends on a substantive progress in adopting and implementing EU acquis related to migration policies. Being granted it implies that Ukraine has made a considerable progress in meeting the criteria of the EU-Ukraine 2010 Action Plan on Visa Liberalisation (VLAP). Therefore, looking at this policy area and EU-Ukraine co-operation can shed light on the factors which have driven EU-Ukraine’s reform efforts

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in this policy field. In addition, EU-Ukraine co-operation on migration has been linked to an expanding reform agenda, which was meant to produce a spill-over effect and accelerate the overall reform process in the country (Sasse 2016). Therefore, looking at this sector can generate a broader picture of Ukraine’s reform process as well as help to better understand the EU’s role in driving the reform process in the country. By analysing the European Commission’s reports on the implementation by Ukraine of the VLAP during the period of 2011-2015 and reports of Ukrainian NGOs, such as Europe Without Barriers and Reanimation Package of Reforms, which have been involved in monitoring the reform process, the empirical data has been gathered on the progress of Ukraine’s reform in this policy area.

In contrast, fight against corruption is the most challenging area in Ukraine, where vested interests are still very influential. Moreover, corruption has been so pervasive in Ukraine, that it has penetrated almost all policy areas. Hence, Ukraine’s progress in combating corruption can have an overall positive effect on the reform process and lead to institutional and democratic change by instilling a culture of transparency and accountability. For empirical data on Ukraine’s anti-corruption reform, interviews with members of the European Commission’s Support Group, a member of the Political Section of the EU Delegation to Ukraine, and Ukraine’s civil society actors have been conducted. In addition, the European Commission’s Association Implementation Reports (2015-2016), the monitoring reports of the Ukrainian NGOs – Anti-Corruption Action Centre, International Renaissance Foundation, and Reanimation Package of Reforms – actively involved in the anti-corruption reform have been analysed for a more comprehensive understanding of Ukraine’s progress in this policy area.

In this manner, since the reform process is ongoing, and Ukraine still needs time and effort to make reforms irreversible, the research on the topic can help find answers on the factors which facilitate the reform process, but also the obstacles which hinder its development. Furthermore, it can shed light on the EU’s role as a promoter of institutional and democratic change through the export of its sectoral acquis. The literature on EU external governance with its focus on functional co-operation between the EU and its non-candidate partner countries via “horizontal trans-governmental networks” (Lavenex and Schimmelfennig 2011, p. 896) between the EU and specific sectors of the third state will be addressed and used as a

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conceptual basis for gauging the dynamic of the EU-Ukraine co-operation as well as the EU’s role in the ongoing reform process in Ukraine.

Limitations

Only slightly more than three years have passed since the Euromaidan events which have marked the beginning of the extensive and still ongoing reform process in Ukraine. Therefore, the key limitation of this research is the recency of the discussed events in Ukraine. It is still quite early to gauge the efficacy of the reforms and their impact on the domestic environment. For the reforms to bring tangible results, more time is needed. On the other hand, assessing the reform process at its early stage can help to identify its strengths and weaknesses: what has been achieved so far and what still needs to be done to improve the domestic situation and to ultimately bring the reform developments to a point of no-return. Another important limitation is the subjectivity of the primary sources used for the thesis: the EU’s progress reports as well as interviews with the EU officials working on Ukraine tend to present the European vision of Ukraine’s reform achievements, which is just one way of assessing the reform process and can differ from the opinions of other actors. At the same time, the Ukrainian civil society actors approached in Brussels might pursue their own interests (e.g. to get access to EU funds) and hence could be more supportive of the EU and its vision of the reform development than those who are working exclusively within Ukraine. Thus, the fact that the research was conducted outside the country and focused on the EU’s role in Ukraine’s democratic transformation may have constrained the depth of the findings and the conclusions being made.

Chapter 1

Theoretical framework/ Literature review

The EU is widely known for the expansion of a vast set of norms and regulations beyond its immediate borders as a means of its power projection. The following chapter will, first, provide a brief overview of the EU’s role as an international actor: its identity and the instruments the Union uses to exert its external influence, which will be followed by a review of the literature on EU external governance as a strategy of the Union’s democracy promotion in the neighbouring region.

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1.1 The EU as an emerging international actor in the aftermath of the Cold War

During the Cold War years, power and its external projection were conceptualised predominantly through the realist lenses, i.e. to defend and maximise states’ national interests (Barbé and Johansson-Nogués 2008, p. 82). Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet system, which marked the end of the East-West divide, the discourse of human rights with a moral duty to protect them came to the forefront and began to dominate state behaviour in the international arena. This, in turn, created a favourable environment for the EU (at that time the European Communities) to emerge as a full-fledged foreign policy actor who prioritised the defence of fundamental principles – e.g. human rights – and thus made them a focal point of its bilateral agreements with the third countries (Ibid. p. 82). With the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, or the Treaty on the European Union (TEU), on February 7, 1992 (came into force in 1993), a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) was created which constituted a second-pillar of the new three-pillar EU (Angelescu and Bindi 2012, p. 26). The TEU was aimed at strengthening the EU’s role as a foreign policy actor through its emphasis on preserving the EU’s internal and external security and the promotion of “democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms” (Pace 2009, p. 40).

Moreover, with the demise of the Soviet rule, the United States (US) turned out to be a sole winner in this ideological battle and a main agenda-setter of the new liberal world order. The EU’s high dependence on the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) for its security and defence made the Union particularly vulnerable to American interests and foreign policy orientations. Moreover, the Yugoslav crisis of the second half of the 1990s, which had taken place on the European soil, proved the EU’s weakness and incapacity to act decisively and cohesively (Hyde-Price 2006, p. 227). The crisis underlined the EU’s inability to act as a full-fledged international actor and pointed out to the limitations of the Union’s ‘soft’ power in managing conflicts (Ibid., p. 227). Furthermore, the US’s unilateral involvement at Dayton and in Kosovo in a way that contradicted the EU’s ‘civilian’ identity presented a challenge for the Union and made it re-consider its foreign policy role (Ibid., p. 228). For this reason, the Declaration of St. Malo in 1998 stated that the EU had to undertake an active role on the international stage to be able “to respond to international crises” (Kaplánová 2015, p. 51). Besides, the Balkan crisis also acted as a catalyst for the creation of

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the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), which has laid the basis for European military potential (Ibid., p. 228).

Furthermore, the tragic events of December 11, 2001, in the US followed by increase of American unilateralism acted as a further impetus for the EU to present itself as a distinct foreign policy actor, who relies on norms and values as the basis of its external policy projection. Therefore, in 2003, as a response to the new geopolitical challenges in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the European Security Strategy (ESS) was prepared with a goal to turn the Union into a self-sufficient and independent foreign policy actor capable of managing international crises and protecting its borders. The ESS (2003) emphasised the role of security as a “precondition of development.” It stated that “conflict prevention and threat prevention [could not] start too early,” implying that purely military capabilities were not sufficient in tackling global instability (ESS 2003). In contrast to the Cold War international environment with its threat of nuclear destruction, contemporary threats are multi-dimensional ranging from terrorism to failed states whose bad governance and weak institutions cause political instability, which could, ultimately, spread to neighbouring countries and regions, undermining their peace and security (Kaplánová 2015, p. 53).

According to the ESS, the best guarantee for international security is a “world of well-governed democratic states” (2003). The EU’s own example with its capacity to maintain peace on the continent since the World War II through economic and political integration could act as a basis and a reference point for less stable states and regions. Therefore, the EU’s own history of violence and war pushed it to commit itself to dealing peacefully with disputes and rely on the institutional framework in dealing with the external world (ESS 2003).

1.2 Conceptualisations of the EU’s foreign policy actorness

Multiple concepts have been introduced to describe the EU and its external role: the EU as a ‘civilian power’ (Duchêne 1972), the EU as a ‘normative power’ (Manners 2002), the EU as an ‘ethical power’ (Aggestam 2008), the EU as a ‘market power’ (Damro 2012), the EU as an ‘empire’ (Zielonka 2008), the EU as a ‘regional normative hegemon,’ (Haukkala 2008), and the EU as an ‘ideal power’ (Cebeci 2012). Duchêne’s, Manners’ and Damro’s concepts tend to portray a ‘soft,’ value-based dimension of the EU’s power projection, which is based on norm diffusion, political, economic, social and cultural co-operation and which is carried out

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predominantly through civilian means. While Duchene’s (1972) concept of Civilian Power Europe (CPE) stresses the civilian, i.e. non-military, dimension of EU’s power which rests on ‘soft’ instruments for its power projection, Damro’s (2012) concept of Market Power Europe (MPE) is more focused on the Union’s economic resources as a basis of its power.

Manners’ (2002) Normative Power Europe (NPE) concept, in turn, has been presented as a novel way of framing the EU’s ‘soft’ power, which in contrast to the CPE and MPE concepts combines civilian (including economic) and military means of power projection, but which stresses the ‘normative’ identity of the EU compared to other international actors. According to Manners, the EU does not only act normatively, but it is normative by its very nature (2002, p. 242). Due to the Union’s historical context, its hybrid policy and political-legal constitution, it is a unique – normative – power on the international stage (Manners 2002, p. 242). Manners mentions the nine substantive normative principles which both constitute and are promoted by the EU, such as “sustainable peace, freedom, democracy, human rights, rule of law, equality, social solidarity, sustainable development and good governance” (2008, p. 46). He goes further and argues that the EU’s normative identity stems not only from a mere fact of projecting these norms, but also, and more importantly, the way the Union does it (Manners 2002, p. 245). Manners identifies six mechanisms of EU norm diffusion: contagion (a spread of norms by “virtuous example”); informational diffusion (through various policy declarations and initiatives); procedural diffusion (when the EU institutionalises its relationship with third parties and includes normative elements in such dialogues and agreements); transference (political conditionality); overt diffusion (the physical presence of the EU in non-member states); and cultural filter (“interplay between the construction of knowledge and the creation of social and political identity by the subjects of norm diffusion”) (2002, pp. 245-246). All these mechanisms are non-coercive and have four basic strategies at their core: persuasion, invocation of norms (when the norms are laid down in formal legally-binding agreements), construction of a discourse of normativity, and ruling by example (Forsberg 2011, p. 1197).

However, the NPE concept has been widely criticised by scholars and students of International Relations due to its subjectivity, ambiguity conflating contradicting terms of ‘normative’ and ‘power’, and a lack of analytical value (Ibid., p. 1187). Manners’ key argument, that due to its normative identity the EU has a right “to shape what is normal” in the international system, makes the NPE concept synonymous to the EU’s being an “ideal-type” power, which, in turn, “normatively idealises” the EU and its external role to fit the

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NPE description (Ibid. p. 1199). This emphasis on ‘idealism’ could end up being a “dogmatism,” which can make the analysis of EU’s external relations analytically poor and biased (Ibid., p. 1199).

In his neorealist critique of the NPE concept, Hyde-Price argues that the EU (as all states/state-like foreign policy actors in an anarchic international system) has been guided by its own security considerations and thus interested in “the stability of its external milieu” (2006, p. 226). He proceeds with his argument stating that the EU’s actions in its ‘near abroad’ are in stark contrast with the EU’s ‘normative’ identity (Hyde-Price 2006, p. 227). In line with Hyde-Price’s argument, the EU’s ‘civilising,’ or transformative, power is reflected in the projection of the common values and principles of its most powerful member states (MS) on its neighbourhood (Ibid., p. 227). In this manner, the EU is trying to “shape its external milieu” according to its own preferences and hence uses its power in different ways: imposing political conditionality of “economic carrots and sticks,” offering political association or membership, or, on the contrary, threatening by exclusion (Ibid., p. 227). Thus, the EU’s declared identity as a ‘force for good,’ or a ‘normative power,’ when meeting the EU’s strategic and security interests loses its relevance in describing the EU’s external role. On the other hand, Aggestam, (2012) with the Ethical Power Europe (EPE) concept, Zielonka (2008) with his vision of Europe as an empire, and Haukkala’s (2008) view of the EU as a “regional normative hegemon” try to combine both civilian, or normative, and material dimensions of EU’s power projection.

Aggestam focuses her attention on the “purposes and intentions” behind EU’s actions, which are meant to be driven by ‘ethical’ considerations and thus bring ‘good’ to others (Aggestam, p. 3). Ethics is a relational concept, and, therefore, a “shared understanding” should be established between a norm-enforcer and a norm-taker with the former’s actions’ being perceived as legitimate by the third side (Barbé and Johansson-Nogués 2008, p. 85). In other words, the EU’s policy vis-à-vis others can be recognised as ethical when all parties – EU member states (MS) and EU non-members - accept it and see it as being “just,” disregarding cultural and normative differences between the EU and its non-candidate partner states (Ibid., p. 85). The “preference equilibrium” – a balance between interests and preferences of the EU and the third states – is needed for the Union to be legitimately considered as an ethical power, or a “force for good” (Ibid. p. 86).

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Zielonka and Haukkala tend to portray the EU’s foreign policy as being guided primarily by the Union’s own interests, rather than of the EU’s partner countries, and hence, in their eyes, the EU is not different from other, classical, actors in international politics who tend to expand their power and maximise their gains. As Zielonka argues, the EU is not an empire in a classical sense, since it does not have a centralised authority and does not possess formidable military resources, but at the same time it represents a vast territorial unit and is an economically and politically powerful actor (2013, p. 36). Exactly this makes the EU be and act as an empire through the asymmetrical projection of its norms and rules beyond its borders, which can be considered as “informal domination” (Zielonka 2013, p. 36). Although the EU’s ‘civilising mission’ may rest on ethical connotations, a huge material asymmetry between the Union and its neighbours deprives the relationship of equality and ‘joint ownership’ (Ibid., p. 38). Furthermore, it is evident that some of the norms of the EU’s partner countries are strikingly different from the ones the EU shares, which, in turn, imposes domestic constraints on the countries and makes them bear high compliance costs in order to get a stake in the EU’s internal market or achieve closer political association. The fact that the EU’s most powerful instrument of coercion lies in the field of economics means that the Union possesses a strong leverage over its partner countries, which is not as obvious as military dominance with its potential of invading the incompliant other, but which can be, instead, exercised through trade restrictions (Ibid., p. 38). That is exactly what makes Zielonka claim that the EU is an empire, albeit not a classical one, but which, in promoting its norms and values (no matter how ‘good’ they are), still relies on the imposition of domestic constraints on the third countries (2008, p. 484).

Haukkala (2008) tends to avoid the term ‘empire’ and, instead, compares the EU to a “normative hegemon” emphasising the Union’s substantial economic and normative capabilities which, by creating power asymmetry, allow the EU to impose its norms and values on the third countries. Although the authors use different terms, they both emphasise the EU’s ambition to exercise domination over the third countries with Haukkala’s focus on the EU purely as a regional actor.

Cebeci’s post-structuralist account of the EU’s foreign policy role leads her to a concept of an “ideal” power Europe, by which she criticises all the previously established discourses on EU’s power: the discourse on post-sovereign/post-modern EU, the EU-as-a-model discourse and the NPE discourse (2012, p. 566). By de-constructing these conceptualisations of the EU’s external identity, Cebeci draws a conclusion that these “meta-narratives” tend to

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legitimise the EU power projection in a specific way, representing it as a ‘force for good’ (Ibid., p. 582). In this manner, this “ideal” narrative of the EU power leaves room for ambiguity about the EU’s real intentions as well as legitimises the Union’s unilateral imposition of its own norms and principles upon others (Ibid., p. 583).

However, one thing is certain that the EU is a “principled” actor, quoting Haukkala (2017, p. 79), and its behaviour is shaped not purely by ‘possession’ goals, such as territorial expansion or access to natural resources, as in the case of classical empires, but rather by more ambitious ‘milieu’ goals, which rest on the promotion of key EU norms - democracy, good governance, the rule of law, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms (European Commission 2013). According to Cebeci (2012), these norms and values are inherently EU-centric and thus are not necessarily applicable to other cultures. However, in line with Aggestam’s argument, the EPE as well as the CPE, and NPE are “relational concepts,” and, therefore, how the EU power is seen depends on perceptions (Aggestam 2008, p. 9). Therefore, the EU’s partner countries’ visions of the EU power and the extent to which their norms and values resonate with those of the EU should be taken into consideration when analysing the EU’s external role (Ibid., p. 9).

In contrast to traditional state actors, the EU is a highly complex legal entity which relies on legally binding agreements and strictly defined laws and regulations in its relations with the partners, which makes it less flexible (Haukkala 2017, p. 81). Furthermore, due to its historical past, the EU prefers multilateral institutions when dealing with external actors and finding solutions to regional and international challenges (Ibid., p. 81). Thus, although playing a superior role vis-á-vis other countries in the neighbourhood due to its economic and political clout, the EU does not rely on coercion and domination to make its partners comply with EU rules and regulations, rather it uses its ‘power of attraction’ as a tool to bring the neighbours closer to the Union (Ibid., p. 84). The recent events in Ukraine during the Euromaidan protests (2013-2014) featured the EU’s normative aptitude: the ardour for democratic change of the ordinary Ukrainians and the new Ukrainian government has been driven by the desire to be part of an EU-style society characterised by its respect of liberal, democratic values and the pursuit of dynamic economic development, which could eventually drive Ukraine away from Russia and its corrupt mentality.

Before the 1990s, the EU had been primarily “inward-oriented” and concerned with economic integration, while the end of the Cold War with its geopolitical changes witnessed

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the EU which was becoming more “outward-oriented” and more politically engaged (Smith 2005). The emergence of new independent states in the EU’s east following the collapse of the Soviet Union made the EU take a leadership role as a norm-maker and norm-enforcer in the region, thus turning it to a “normative hegemon by default rather than by design” (Haukkala 2017, p. 80).

The EU’s identity as an international actor can be best analysed through its regional role, since it is within the EU’s immediate neighbourhood where the Union’s influence can be best exerted. Thus, the enlargement policy is one of the primary instruments of the EU to promote its normative agenda and advocate its attractiveness as a regional integration project (Haukkala 2008, p. 1603). Through enlargement, the EU can, first, secure a peaceful and stable environment around its borders and, second, promote its norms and values in a way that is both effective and legitimate (Ibid. p. 1604). From the civilian and normative perspective, the EU enlargement process depicts the EU as a legitimate promoter of its norms and values, which can facilitate political stability within third countries. However, the EU’s leverage lies in the material incentives it can offer to countries through its membership: a stake in the internal market and full participation in EU institutions (Schimmelfennig et al 2003, p. 497). It has been argued that the accession ‘carrot’ is the strongest incentive the EU can offer to third countries to make them comply with the Union’s legal requirements. The European Agreements which the EU had signed with the newly independent Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) in the late 1990s acted as a strong motivation for the countries to implement required reforms and adopt the EU’s normative agenda in line with the Copenhagen criteria.

As Schimmelfennig et al argued, it was material benefits and a clear prospect of EU membership with which the EU could promote institutional and democratic change within third countries (2003, p. 497). Societal links and transnational co-operation were considered at that time to be weak and ineffective in making EU’s partner countries embark on a path of gradual reform. However, as it will be argued further in the thesis, it is not only a membership prospect that can drive reforms within a third state. EU external governance through its emphasis on functional cooperation between the EU and relevant stakeholders within a partner state as well as intensive development of societal links can accelerate democratic change within the countries. Considering the current European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s statement of no further enlargement under his term, the debate on EU’s further institutional expansion sounds hypothetical (European Commission

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2014). Therefore, the governance mode of EU democracy promotion through its emphasis on sectoral integration and incremental change is a more viable and reasonable framework for analysing EU external integration strategies. The case of contemporary Ukraine, which will be discussed later in the thesis, is a good example which can shed light on this process as well as point out to its major strengths and weaknesses.

1.3 Strategies of EU democracy promotion in the ENP: leverage, network governance and linkage

The EU is an economic giant, a powerful political actor, and, more importantly, a highly complex value-based legal entity. Although major ‘carrots’ the EU has offered to its non-candidate partner states via the AAs and DCFTAs are a stake in the EU’s internal market and closer political association with the Union without a prospect of EU membership, at least “in the medium-term,” these processes are underpinned by the partner countries’ extensive regulatory convergence with the EU acquis communautaire and the adoption of the key EU norms, such as democracy, the rule of law, good governance, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms (Commission of the European Communities 2004). To promote these democratic governance norms, the EU relies on a wide set of instruments ranging from traditional diplomatic and foreign policy tools (e.g. declarations and resolutions) to more ambitious association and free trade agreements with the EU’s partner countries (Pace 2009, p. 41). Through these legally-binding agreements and political dialogues, which the EU conducts with its partners, the Union aims at externally projecting a value-based dimension of its power (Ibid., p. 41).

According to the EU governance literature, there are three mechanisms through which the EU can promote its democratic governance norms: leverage, network governance and linkage (Lavenex and Schimmelfennig 2010/2011; Schimmelfennig 2009; Freyburg et al 2015). Leverage, or political conditionality, is a top-down approach to democracy promotion which is based on the EU’s strict conditionality reminiscent of enlargement. Although the benefits the EU offers might be substantial, e.g. the association or free trade agreements, the effectiveness of leverage can be undermined by high adoption costs for the partner country who is not offered EU membership.

According to Schimmelfennig, leverage is likely to be effective and bring the desired change only when “the target actors share a common identity with the democracy promoters” and when the EU norms are considered legitimate (2012, p. 222). However, the weakness of the

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EU “bargaining power” (due to the lack of a membership prospect) and the tendency of (semi-)authoritarian regimes of the ENP states to protect the status-quo in the country to ensure their survival hamper the reform process and thus undermine the effectiveness of leverage (Ibid., p. 224). In this manner, the EU leverage within the ENP has been weaker than in the case of the Union’s previous enlargement to the CEECs, and hence accession conditionality turned out to be a less effective tool to build the EU relationship with the non-candidate ENP MS, including Ukraine.

In contrast to leverage and its reliance on the full transportation of the EU acquis, the governance model is concerned with “partial and progressive alignment” with the EU laws (Schimmelfennig 2009, p. 17). The external governance literature does not see the EU as a unified foreign policy actor but rather adopts a more institutionalist approach, which is focused on “norm diffusion and policy transfer” (Lavenex & Schimmelfennig 2010, p. 4). It is an indirect way of democracy promotion which is aimed at building “horizontal trans-governmental networks between the EU and specific sectors of the third state” (Lavenex and Schimmelfennig 2011, p. 896). The governance model addresses trans-governmental networks where administrative officials from the EU and the target country are involved in co-operation in a specific field of public policy (Schimmelfennig 2012, p. 224). In this manner, the governance model does not target the general institutions and is not aimed at challenging the status-quo, but operates at the sectoral level, and hence is less politicised and less risky for domestic actors (Schimmelfennig 2009, p. 18). Schimmelfennig argues that this apolitical, technical nature of democratic governance constitutes the strength of this model of democracy promotion, since it is less likely to provoke state opposition and lead to repression (2012, p. 220). The political elites in the target country can see an opportunity to extract short-term benefits from their co-operation with the EU on a sectoral level, since the adoption costs are lower than in the case of political conditionality, and the EU requirements are less strict (Schimmelfennig 2012, p. 226). It is a more “horizontal, partnership-oriented approach based on trans-governmental networking and inter-administrative co-operation,” and thus it does not address only official governments of the ENP partner countries, but is aimed at “political socialisation” involving the broader administrative staff (Freyburg et al 2015, p. 69).

The external governance approach relies on rules “as [its] points of departure,” instead of treating countries or regions as “[its] units of analysis,” as has been common currency in classical foreign policy approaches (Barbé et al 2009, p. 381). This sectoral approach allows

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for the use of comparative research methods and for the identification of issue-specific forms of policy convergence, thus making the analysis of EU’s policies towards its neighbourhood more focused and less politicised, reflecting the interplay between the EU and neighbouring countries (shaped by interests, legitimacy and coherence) and less the result of unilateral EU rule transfer (Ibid., p. 392).

However, the effectiveness of ‘network governance’ depends, first, on the sectoral interdependence between the EU and the partner country, but also on the “institutionalisation and the density of trans-governmental networks” (Schimmelfennig 2009, p. 225). Since ‘network governance’ addresses the administrative officials from specific policy areas, it still risks stabilising the (semi-)authoritarian political structures rather than inducing change by undermining their autocratic agenda (Ibid., p. 220). Furthermore, if sectoral incentives are not strong enough, the governance model can suffer from poor implementation process of EU-prescribed rules.

There are, however, two alternative modes of external governance: social learning and lesson-drawing (Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier 2004, p. 673). The effectiveness of these modes of the EU-rule transfer does not directly depend on the credibility of the EU-offered incentives, but rather relies on a less rationalist approach and is concerned with how the EU is involved in a process of socialising the partners into its norms and values, how receptive the societies of the third countries are in accepting those norms, and to what extent they are ready to embrace and, ultimately, turn them into an integral part of their lifestyle (Ibid., p. 673). However, for these modes to be successful, the presence of EU-centred networks of experts and officials within the third countries as well as local societal actors aimed at institutional and democratic change is crucial (Ibid, p. 674).

Therefore, the governance model is a more effective tool for inducing change within the ENP states, since it is based on “horizontal, process-oriented, participatory, flexible, and inclusive structure” (Lavenex 2008, pp. 940-941). Socialisation is a key part of the governance model, since trans-governmental policy networks bring specialists from the administrations of both the EU member states and neighbouring countries (Freyburg 2011, p. 1004). From the governance perspective, the EU tends “to extend,” rather than impose, its norms to third countries, thus “creating joint regulatory structures” (Ibid., p. 943). Though democratic governance promotion initially remains at the sectoral level and – in the case of success – leads to the democratisation of sectoral governance, it may spill over into the general polity

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by inculcating democratic values, norms and habits on societal and bureaucratic actors and creating a demand for far-reaching democratisation of the entire political system (Schimmelfennig 2009, p. 19). However, since the governance model involves a vast set of stakeholders in its process, its timeframe can be long and indefinite.

Finally, linkage is a bottom-up mode of EU democracy promotion which targets a larger society and is conveyed through transnational channels (Schimmelfennig 2012, p. 218). Linkage addresses civil society actors directly through the “dissemination of values, norms, and best practices” and hence is the best way to approach the topic of the EU’s engagement with civil society within the EU neighbourhood and particularly in Ukraine (Ibid., p. 228). The result of linkage is the establishment of a “democratic, ‘civic’ culture” capable of holding its government to account and promoting the reform agenda (Freyburg et al 2015 p. 71). In this case, the role of the EU is to empower relevant civil society actors and work in close co-operation with them to further the EU’s democratic governance norms with a goal of making democratic change within a partner country (Ibid., p. 71).

Chapter 2

The EU and its new neighbours: what role for the Union?

2.1 The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP): “less than enlargement but more than partnership”

Following the EU’s 2004 ‘Big Bang’ enlargement, the EU acquired new neighbours and faced a need for closer integration. The EU’s eastern enlargement forced the Union to overcome its decade-long neglect of its eastern neighbours and create a framework for closer co-operation (Whitman and Wolff 2010, p. 27). Thus, the ENP was launched in 2003/2004, which was to become an institutional framework for bringing the EU’s new neighbours closer to the Union through enhanced political association and economic integration (Ibid., p. 27). The novelty of the ENP lied in its ambitious nature comprising two discrete regions, the sixteen countries of the Eastern European and the Mediterranean areas: Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia (Aliboni 2005, p. 2).

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Russia was not included in the ENP due to its own reluctance and a desire to be treated as an equal in its relationship with the EU. As a result, the EU-Russia relationship took an alternative path of development through the agreement on the creation of the Four Common Spaces (a Common Economic Space, a Common Space of Freedom, Security and Justice, a Space of Co-operation in the Field of External Security and a Space of Research and Education) concluded at the EU-Russia Summit in Saint-Petersburg in May 2003 (Haukkala 2010, pp. 134-135). The EU’s decision to treat Russia separately from other states in its Eastern neighbourhood and adopt a more privileged approach to the country indicated, on the one hand, the EU´s pragmatic approach and its desire to preserve a peaceful and stable environment around its extended borders for which maintaining a good relationship with Russia through taking its preferences into account was crucial. On the other hand, it signalled the EU’s weakness reflected in its ‘Russia-first’ strategy, whereby the EU´s strategic interest in sustaining a friendly relationship with the Russian government superseded the EU’s commitment to assist its new neighbours in their quest for democratic reforms and resistance to Russia’s interference. To cite an instance, the German and French disposition towards Russia prevented the EU from playing a more active role in resolving the secessionist conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia (especially following Russia’s military invasion) as well as between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Moreover, the establishment of the ENP and Russia’s self-exclusion from it created a situation where the two partners shared a common neighbourhood (Aliboni 2005, p. 13). The fact that Russia has always perceived the region as its ‘near abroad,’ which has given it a right, in its own eyes, for legitimate interference, created the environment of possible future confrontation between the EU and Russia (Ibid., p. 14). Thus, although the ENP was designed to bring more stability to the EU’s neighbouring region, the fact that the region was shared with Russia with its own, distinct, vision of integration, has, in the end, turned out to be counter-productive, which will be discussed later in the thesis.

Initially, the ENP had been driven by the EU’s own security considerations reflected in Jack Straw’s, the British Foreign Secretary at that moment, letter to the then European Commission President, Romano Prodi, in the early 2002, where he warned Mr Prodi of potential risks of illegal migration and cross-border trafficking following the EU’s biggest Eastern enlargement and encouraged the EU to develop a policy, which would be specifically aimed at addressing the EU’s new challenges in its enlarged Eastern neighbourhood (Straw in

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Barbé and Johansson-Nogués 2008, p. 86). Before the ENP, the EU’s relationship with its Eastern European and Central Asian countries developed through Partnership and Cooperation Agreements (PCAs), which had laid the foundations for broader political, economic and trade relationship between the Union and its partner countries in the Eastern neighbourhood. In turn, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP), launched at the Barcelona Conference in 1995, addressed the EU relationship with the countries of the South Mediterranean region (Khasson et al 2009).

When the countries moved closer to the Union and became its immediate neighbours sharing common borders, the EU’s goal was to form a more ambitious relationship with them. In this manner, in the words of the then External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner (2004), the ENP was launched, first and foremost, to “prevent new dividing lines in Europe” and create a “ring of friends” around the enlarged EU. Through the ENP, the EU aimed at addressing the three challenges that the 2004 enlargement had created: first, how to avoid the alienation of the EU’s new neighbours; second, how to incentivise the countries to embark on a path of European integration with an absence of an EU membership ‘carrot’; and, finally, how to prevent the EU’s external border’s becoming “a line of exclusion and negative othering” (Browning and Joenniemi 2008, p. 530).

In this manner, using Browning and Joenniemi’s geopolitical-model-typology, the EU had initially pursued the ‘imperial’ logic through the ENP and had thus been primarily concerned with its own security considerations through the promotion of peace, stability and well-being across the neighbourhood countries (Ibid., p. 524) Therefore, one could argue that the ENP was driven mainly by the EU’s own interests but not those of the ENP member states, since it was the EU’s concerns with internal security, immigration, and stability which had driven the creation of the Neighbourhood Policy (Pace 2009, p. 45). In the ‘Wider Europe- Neighbourhood’ policy, the EU refers to the importance of close cooperation with its neighbours to provide security and welfare to its citizens as well as the effective control of borders, which is considered as a ‘common interest’ (Del Sarto and Schumacher 2005, p. 23). At the same time, the EU has tried to address the topic of security in a positive-sum way, arguing that closer co-operation could not only bring benefits to the Union but also to its partner countries (Barbé and Johansson-Nogués 2008, p. 86). Indeed, as Khasson et al point out, most of the EU’s neighbours had a nominal GDP per capita of less than €2,000, hence reducing poverty, which has been considered one of the major causes of instability, was a

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moral duty for the EU (2009, p. 224). Thus, the EU´s own security interests corresponded to the needs of the ENP partner countries, since integration in the EU could accelerate economic growth and create favourable conditions for democratic transformation, thus helping the countries break away from their authoritarian legacy.

However, it would be misleading to look at the ENP exclusively through the lenses of security. Besides, ambitious aspirations of the EU’s eastern neighbours to become future EU members made it harder for the Union to keep its new neighbours at bay without any prospect of deeper integration (Browning and Joenniemi 2008, p. 537). At the core of the ENP lies the external governance approach which “takes place when parts of the acquis communautaire are extended to non-member states” (Lavenex 2004, p. 680). As Kelley (2006) puts it, the ENP relies on the process of “mechanical borrowing from the enlargement strategies,” and specifically enlargement conditionality: the EU grants benefits to the partner countries in exchange of their compliance with the EU’s regulatory requirements. The Policy’s resemblance of EU enlargement and its adoption of enlargement practices are understandable: the initial ‘Wider Europe – Neighbourhood’ scheme was designed within the Directorate General (DG) for Enlargement under the auspices of former Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen (Del Sarto and Schumacher 2005, p. 27). However, compared with EU enlargement, the biggest difference is the lack of a membership prospect for the ENP partner countries, which makes this “reinforcement-by-reward” mechanism conceptually flawed due to the lack of balance between rewards and conditions imposed upon the ENP member states, which could discourage the partner countries to implement EU-prescribed rules and regulations (Casier 2012, p. 110). As Lavenex argues, with the ENP the EU is expanding its legal boundary but preserving its institutional boundary (2004, p. 684). The same idea was reinforced by Mr Prodi who stated that the ENP offered the EU’s neighbours “everything but institutions” (European Commission 2003). As Haukkala puts it, the ENP represents “both the avoidance and continuation of enlargement by other means:” first, to avoid institutional overstretch due to the ‘enlargement fatigue’ after the 2004 ‘Big Bang’ enlargement, but, at the same time, it is based on the same logic of enlargement and uses political conditionality as an instrument to induce change within the countries (2008, p. 1616).

With the ENP, the EU showed its ambiguity and a lack of a clear strategy vis-á-vis the neighbourhood: the ‘Wider Europe – Neighbourhood’ communication paper (2003) argued that “the aim of the new Neighbourhood Policy [was] to provide a framework for the

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development of a new relationship which would not, in the medium-term, include a perspective of membership or a role in the Union’s institutions,” thus leaving room for various interpretations and, more importantly, a hope for a long-term prospect of EU membership within the partner countries (Commission of the European Communities 2003, p. 5). The EU’s vagueness under the ENP and uncertainty about the Policy’s finalité were considered as major weaknesses of the Neighbourhood Policy for which the Union has received manifold critique from both academics and governments of the ENP member states. Due to its vagueness and ambiguity, the ENP was described as “politics of the half-open door’’ (Timmermann 2003, p. 8). The ENP’s frontrunners in the East, Moldova and Ukraine, announced European integration with an ultimate prospect of EU membership to be their countries’ strategic objectives and thus perceived the Policy as a temporary framework, which could in the end lead them to accession (Delcour 2007, p. 132). According to the TEU, any country, which shows commitment to European norms and values and successfully meets the Copenhagen criteria for accession, cannot be denied access to the European club (Angelescu and Bindi 2012, p. 35). Thus, by leaving a membership prospect off the ENP’s agenda for the aspiring countries of the Eastern neighbourhood, the EU was considered to have weakened its leverage over the countries, which undermined the reputation of the ENP as a tool of European integration (Browning and Joenniemi 2008, p. 537).

The broad scope of the ENP comprising both EU’s eastern and southern neighbours with different foreign policy preferences was the policy’s major limitation (Del Sarto and Schumacher 2005, p. 30). The EU’s tolerance of the authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and its close cooperation with them can be explained by the EU’s security concerns following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, its fear of illegal migration flows from the region, the risk of drug trafficking and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Therefore, while the EU has been explicitly pursuing its security goals in its relationship with the South Mediterranean countries and thus preferred cooperating with the (semi-)authoritarian regimes in the area rather than challenging their status-quo and pushing them towards reforms; the Union’s relationship with the Eastern neighbourhood has gone beyond mere security considerations and touched upon deeper aspects of integration, such as economic interdependence, closer political association, and active promotion of the EU’s normative agenda across the countries. Among the most important short-term instruments of the ENP are the Action Plans (APs) signed between the EU and its ENP partner states, which include a list of reforms each country must undertake in order to reach closer economic integration and political association

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with the Union. As Sasse argues, the EU’s conditions and requirements stated in the APs are often vaguely formulated and the benchmarks are not always clear, thus making it harder for the partner countries to comply with the EU’s expectations (2008, p. 302). This ambiguity also undermines the EU’s capacity to incentivise the countries and make them adopt the EU’s norms and values.

On the other hand, according to Sasse, the ENP should be perceived as a “process rather than a clear-cut causal or intervening variable” (2008, p. 296). This interpretation bears much in common with the governance framework widely discussed by Lavenex and Schimmelfennig. According to this process-based vision of the ENP and its conditionality, the Policy’s functions are: first, to act as an “external reference point” for the partner countries if they want to ultimately move closer to the EU; and, second, to facilitate socialisation of both the ENP countries and the EU (Ibid., p. 296). Thus, this approach, which is premised on the principles of ‘differentiated bilateralism’ and positive conditionality central to the ENP is in line with the functionalist logic of integration: the pace and quality of EU co-operation with each of its non-candidate partner states depends on the level of progress achieved by each individual country, which can be more easily measured on a sectoral level (Ibid., p. 298). To illustrate, the EU has clearly laid down its provisions in its co-operation in the sectors of justice and home affairs with the EU’s partner countries (Barbé and Johansson-Nogués 2008, p. 86). The EU is actively involved in assisting the ENP partner countries in migration management (e.g. document security and border control capacity are one of the major priority areas) (Ibid., p. 87). Moreover, judicial independence, police training and anti-corruption reforms have been regarded as crucial for the possibility of liberalizing the Schengen visa regime and facilitating travel to the EU from neighbouring countries, and the EU has extensively supported the partner countries with this (Ibid., p. 87).

The migration sector illustrates the essence of EU external governance as a strategy of EU external rule- and norm-transfer: that is the promotion of functional, mutually beneficial co-operation between the EU and its non-candidate partner states, which is less unilaterally-imposed but more based on dialogue and financial as well as technical assistance programmes, and hence less costly and risky for the third countries and thus more effective for the EU to make its partners, ultimately, implement the EU’s legal requirements (Ibid., p. 88). The introduction of the European Neighbourhood Policy Instrument (ENPI) (later transformed to the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI)) in January 2007, which replaced the Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States (TACIS) (for

The EU's role in reforming Ukraine : what has changed since Euromaidan?

Graduate School of Social Sciences

MSc Thesis in Political Science, track: European Politics and External Relations