Pioneer Europe? The ENP as a Test Case for EU’s Foreign Policy

Abstract:
This article uses the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) as a case study to conceptualize and to define further the characteristics of the European Union as an international actor in the making. It builds upon discourse analysis and field research to argue that the European Union can be best understood as a ‘Pioneer Europe’ looking for new ways of doing foreign policy, thus experimenting its policies abroad and constantly learning from the successes and failures of its own policies. The article highlights in particular the discrepancies between a policy discourse mainly developed around the notion of the EU as a ‘soft power’ and implementation in the field reflecting the various tensions inherent to a policy which, at the image of the EU, still encounters difficulties to define itself.