EU neighbours could get greater access to the internal market

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European commissioner for external relations, will next week announce a revision of the EU’s policy toward its neighbours to the south and east, promising them greater participation in the Union’s internal market.

Ferrero-Waldner will also ask EU member states to back the creation of a €700 million fund to provide starting capital for projects funded by international investment banks, as well as a separate €300m to improve governance.

According to a senior Commission official, the commissioner will, on Wednesday (29 October), stress the need for the EU to boost trade, energy and economic ties with the 16 countries that participate in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).

"We need to offer a clear perspective, to the east and the south, of deep trade and economic integration with the EU," said the official.

The proposals, set out in a Commission paper on the ENP, will focus on giving the EU’s neighbours a "stake in the internal market", including "comprehensive regulatory convergence".

The ENP was devised in 2004 to create a ring of stable and democratic countries on the EU’s periphery, but critics say the policy has failed to deliver.

A division has emerged between countries such as Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, which would like to join the EU, and those which would not.

But according to some diplomats, this latest plan to revise the strategy is unlikely to eliminate these divisions.

"This is absolutely nothing new," said one Ukrainian diplomat who called for Ferrero-Waldner’s proposals to go further. "We don’t accept the ENP as it is because it is considered an alternative to enlargement. Even the title is wrong; we are not a neighbour of Europe."

The Commission’s report will come just weeks before Germany begins its six-month chairmanship of the European Council, when it hopes to get agreement on a new "reinforced" neighbourhood policy.

Germany had proposed creating separate policies for Mediterranean and eastern European countries, but the idea faces opposition from the EU’s southernmost members who lobbied to have both regions treated equally.

"It was a weather balloon to test the interest of member states," said one EU diplomat who described the plan as "dead". Following opposition, Germany is likely to water down the plan.

Suspicions that the new ENP is a surrogate for future enlargement are likely to be further enflamed by the Commission’s proposals to increase regional co-operation in eastern Europe, replicating the EU’s efforts to link its southern neighbours via the Euromed process. This brings together the EU25 plus ten countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean.

"We need to extend…to the eastern neighbours some of the advantages already enjoyed by southern neighbours," said the Commission official.

The Commission proposals will also address the EU’s growing focus on energy.

During a high-level energy conference on Tuesday (21 November), Ferrero-Waldner said the paper would also propose the creation of a fund that could help finance energy and transport infrastructure investments.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European commissioner for external relations, will next week announce a revision of the EU’s policy toward its neighbours to the south and east, promising them greater participation in the Union’s internal market.