Human Rights and Democracy in Eu Foreign Policy: The Cases of Ukraine and Egypt by Rosa Balfour

Author:Rosa Balfour [Balfour, Rosa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Democracy, Political Ideologies, Comparative Politics, Political Science, General, Human Rights
ISBN: 9781136495731
Google: LMKBS47cWzgC
Goodreads: 17544059
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2011-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

7.4.3 The European Neighbourhood Policy

The recognition of the need to differentiate among countries rather than tie them to a regional framework can also be found in the European Neighbourhood Policy developed between 2003 and 2004. Although initially conceived with the East European countries in mind, the Mediterranean partners were soon included in the ENP, as a consequence of the preoccupation of the Southern EU states that with enlargement, resources and political attention would move further east at the expense of the Mediterranean.236 The failures and problems encountered in the regional framework of the Barcelona Process, largely but not exclusively due to the downward spiral of the Middle East Peace Process, also strengthened the rationale in favour of introducing a more country-specific approach towards the Southern neighbours. With regard to some EMP partners, the ENP represented a chance for those countries most willing to strengthen relations with the EU to do so at bilateral level, disengaging themselves from the regional format that for some represented a setback, given the diversity of countries involved and the high level of conflict in the region. The ENP added a further layer to EU policies towards its South rather than a replacement of existing structures.

The Action Plan negotiations with Egypt were extremely long compared to those carried out with the other ENP countries (the Country Strategy Report was published in March 2005 while the Action Plan was approved in January 2007), and the biggest hurdles were over political matters, with human rights as the hardest obstacle.237 Initially, the EU attempted, without success, to include lifting the emergency laws in the aims of the Action Plan (see Table 3 in the Annexes).238 Later, the major controversy emerged over the EU proposal to set up a sub-committee on human rights (as had been done with Morocco and Tunisia), which Cairo opposed. Eventually, the sub-committee was given the broader mandate of ‘political matters: human rights and democracy and international and regional issues’, on the model of the one established with Israel (Council of the EU 2007b). These issues will be discussed at greater length in chapter 8.

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