EU ANTI-COVID POLICY IN THE WESTERN BALKANS

The pandemic generated by COVID-19 has brought new challenges for global politics. For this reason, the EU has been changing its policy towards the Western Balkans. The entire region is known to be engaged in the European integration process, which has received new issues associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the «Team Europe» package was launched on April 2020 to support EU partner countries in response to coronavirus and its consequences. This programme includes the most vulnerable countries of the European Neighborhood Policy, Africa and the Western Balkans. The core task was to back the health system and the socio-economic recovery of the partner states. In addition, the distribution of vaccines against COVID-19, called as «vaccine diplomacy», has become a peculiar policy area. The EU is vigorously involved in this process, especially allocating funds to the COVAX program and its internal distribution mechanisms. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of the EU anti-crisis policy in the Western Balkans. The article deals with the initial measures implemented by the EU to aid the countries of the region. Moreover, the author touches upon the issue of the launching of the EU’s vaccine distribution process.

Where Economic Development Meets the Rule of Law? Promoting Sustainable Development Goals Through the European Neighborhood Policy

The 2030 Agenda and pertinent EU law and policy are marked by an emphasis on the interlinkages between the Sustainable Development Goals. With this in mind, this article explores whether the Agenda and the respective EU law and policy offer a conceptually clear and instrumental vision of the interlinkages between economic development (Goal 8) and the rule of law (Goal 16). It is argued that both the Agenda and relevant EU policies view the rule of law both as an independent value and as an instrument of economic development, without distinguishing the components that rule of law is comprised of. The article discusses the Eastern dimension of the European Neighborhood Policy as a case study to contextualize the analysis. Based on its findings regarding the interlinkages between the rule of law and economic development in the 2030 Agenda and relevant EU policy, the article also sets out certain policy recommendations for creating a sustainable development-oriented design of the Eastern dimension of the European Neighbourhood Policy.

European Neighborhood Policy

In 2004, the European Union proposed a project entitled the European Neighborhood Policy as a new strategic option. The project had been adopted by the European Council one year earlier in a proposal to the concerned states. The European Neighborhood Policy proposes the development of the scope of cooperation between the European Union and the southwestern Mediterranean countries through several political, economic, social, and cultural fields. Yet, the sphere of security is set at the top of its priorities. It is based on the principles of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, as well as on establishing security and stability between the countries on the two shores of the Mediterranean neighboring Europe. This would be based on a common framework and a larger volume of mutual cooperation that is embodied in a genuine partnership that would confront common challenges. The study explores and provides an answer to the following question: To what extent can the European Neighborhood Policy be considered a representation of regionalism and the embodiment of a genuine European desire through which it would be able to build a “security group” in the Mediterranean basin?

FOSTERING RESILIENCE IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE 2015 EUROPEAN NEIGHBORHOOD POLICY REVIEW׃ EVIDENCE FROM JORDAN

Resilience has become a priority for the EU in its 2015 European Neighborhood Policy review (ENP), It refers to building state and societal resilience of the Union as a whole, its members and the EU׳s neighbors including Jordan, a strategic southern partner of the EU. In this regard, the EU Building resilience in Jordan in response for crises as the Syrian refugee crisis seems workable but the EU needs to foster it. Thus, this paper’s question is How can the EU foster resilience after it has become a priority in its 2015 (ENP) review in case of Jordan? While many scholars like David Chandler argues that the EU could foster resilience in its neighboring countries by making it a local self-governing project and not an external imposed project where the EU has the mission of monitoring and assessment, in this paper, based on document analysis from official websites for the EU and Jordan including their official bilateral and multilateral agreements and textual analysis of the current literature on building resilience I argue that fostering resilience requires both presenting resilience as a self-governing project with a greater engagement of the Jordanian government, local community and its civil society, at the same time , it needs a better mechanism for the EU in monitoring and assessment, and more importantly helping Jordan to establish the best institutional design that could foster state and societal resilience in Jordan.

History of the European Neighborhood Policy and Eastern Partnership

The European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) was designed in 2004 to create closer ties between the EU and its eastern and southern neighboring countries. In 2009, the Eastern Partnership (EaP), a joint initiative between the 28 EU Member States and 6 Eastern countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine), was launched on the same basis of supporting area of prosperity and good neighborliness. To understand how the EU engages its neighboring countries in the southern Mediterranean and northern borders and fulfills the EaP in its requirements of security and stability, a history of the ENP and EaP is provided. The following chapter shall also explore the ENP and EaP framework and challenges linked to consequentialism and appropriateness between 2005 and 2017, including new approaches in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and 2015 migration crisis.