The Making of the European Neighbourhood Policy

This work represents the first detailed account of the genesis of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), from its very inception to its launch in 2004. It finds the ENP to be a remarkably coherent and hence also successful example of EU foreign policy-making. The focus of the study lies on the policy-making process within the EU. It traces the political objectives of the principal actors involved, namely European Union institutions and members states governments - five of which are studied in detail here as a representative sample – and shows to what extent and how they were able to influence the outcome of the policy. Using the concept of coherence as its principal analytical tool, the study reconstructs the decision- and negotiating-process related to the ENP within the European Union and assesses its overall performance.