A search for harmony in Europe's neighbourhood

The EU's stumbling responses to the troubles in Libya, Syria and Ukraine underline the need to recast what the 28-nation bloc calls its European Neighbourhood Policy. The ENP was established in 2004 with the aim of promoting prosperity, good governance and closer relations with Europe in an arc of countries on the EU's eastern and southern borders.

Neither the methods chosen nor the results achieved give cause for satisfaction. Too often the EU has looked ineffectual and ill-informed as it scrambles to cope with political turbulence, social upheaval and armed violence in former Soviet republics to the east and Islamic countries across the Mediterranean.

Not before time, the European Commission, which is the EU's executive arm and operates the ENP, has launched a comprehensive policy review. The idea is to set out concrete proposals, before the end of this year, for making the ENP more coherent and flexible. To be of use, this review must not flinch from making bold recommendations, including if necessary the abolition of the ENP in its present form.

From the start, the ENP's chief drawback was that it tried to apply a rigid, one-size-fits-all formula for partnership to a diverse array of countries. The ENP covers 16 neighbours: six ex-Soviet republics, of which Ukraine is the largest; five north African states, from Morocco to Egypt; and five in the Middle East, including Israel and the Palestinian territories. Even in these three subgroups, most countries differ greatly in their domestic circumstances and in the type of partnership they seek with the EU.

These differences have widened since the Arab uprisings of 2011 and Ukraine's revolution in February 2014. Nowadays it makes no sense to treat Tunisia, an emerging democracy, in the same way as Syria, the scene of an unspeakably vicious civil war. Nor is it useful to link Moldova, which has aspirations to EU membership, though the EU does not formally recognise them, with Azerbaijan, which does not.

In Ukraine's case, the ENP's mechanical approach blinded EU policy makers in 2013 to the impact their policies would have on relations with Russia. While there is no excuse for the Kremlin's annexation of Crimea and military intervention in eastern Ukraine, it remains a fact that the EU was so focused on its ENP-inspired offer of a free trade deal with Kiev that it paid too little attention to Russia's likely reaction. To avoid such mistakes, it will be essential for foreign policy experts in EU governments and diplomatic services to be more closely involved in setting neighbourhood policy.

The ENP's guiding principles are, by and large, those the EU preached to central and southern Europe between 1980 and 2013, and is preaching today in the western Balkans - democracy, the rule of law, human rights, economic development and solidarity among member states. With these countries, however, the EU's trump card was and is an explicit promise of EU entry in return for the embrace of EU values.

No ENP country has any such promise. Their world is often framed not by the EU's virtuous principles but by political, ethnic and religious tensions, economic distress, territorial conflict, foreign interference and even the breakdown of the state.

The EU's standing as a foreign policy actor rests on it serving as a force for stability and progress. In revising the ENP, the EU must stop pretending that its neighbours are all on a similar path to democracy and prosperity. It must put more emphasis on preventing and halting conflicts. Above all, it must integrate these approaches into its dealings with the wider world.

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