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Issue
Paper
Conflict Resolution Dimension
of the European
Neighbourhood Policy:
The
Cases of Abkhazia and South Ossetia
June,
2005
A
confluence of internal and
external factors makes the European Union take a closer interest in the
resolution
of the conflicts in its neighbourhood. The European Security Strategy
states
that enlargement brings the EU closer to “troubled areas” and that it
“is in
the European interest that countries on [EU’s] borders are
well-governed.
Neighbours who are engaged in violent conflict, weak states where
organised
crime flourishes, dysfunctional societies … all pose problems for Europe.”
Enlargement not only brings the Union closer to such conflicts, but
also
strengthens the EU foreign and security policy capacity as it brings in
new
states with a greater knowledge, interest and urgency to deal with such
conflicts. Moreover, with the development of the European Security and
Defence
Policy (ESDP) the EU has not only the interest to deal with these
conflicts, but
also the military and civilian capabilities to do that. In Javier
Solana’s
words the EU is “the only regional organisation with such a wide range
of
political, diplomatic, humanitarian, economic and financial, police and
military instruments”,
and the resolution of the conflicts in EU neighbourhood requires an
integrated
approach to conflict resolution. The EU is the right actor to do that
because “in its neighbourhood and
beyond,
the EU cannot… confine itself to the economic and political spheres; it
also
needs to be able to guarantee stability, prevent conflicts and manage
crises on
its own doorstep”.
In such
a context the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has been developed
with
conflict resolution as one of its priorities.
A
number of unsolved conflicts in EU neighbourhood are posing a
problem for the stabilisation of the regions that the EU borders. These
include
the conflicts over Western Sahara, Palestine, Abkhazia, South
Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and
Transnistria. All these are issues with which
the EU will have to deal with if the objectives of ENP are to be
attained. As
noted in an International Crisis Group report if the EU “fails to become more effective at
conflict prevention and management, it will ultimately be failing to
protect
itself”.
This happens because many of the effects of such conflicts spillover
from the
domestic to the international scene.
The IPF paper will discuss the possible use of
the ENP in the efforts to support conflict resolution in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Apparently, there is no urgency in
dealing with these conflicts. They are relatively far from the border
of the
enlarged EU and there is almost no violence in these conflicts at this
stage.
However, these conflicts matter for the EU as a foreign policy actor
and its
credibility in the greater European neighbourhood. To reflect this the
EU appointed
a EU Special Representative for Southern Caucasus, launched a Rule of
Law
mission to Georgia Eujust-Themis - the first ESDP mission, however
limited, in
an ENP country and has been raising the two conflicts in the EU-Russia
dialogue
on the creation of a common space for external security.
The proposed research is primarily concerned
with the possible use of existing ENP instruments in the conflicts in
Abkhazia
and South Ossetia,
as well as ways to better coordinate and integrate the political,
economic and
security dimensions of ENP in order to contribute to conflict
resolution in the
EU’s vicinity. The paper will look at the security instruments at EU’s
disposal
as well as into how increased economic relations and political
cooperation
under ENP can impact on conflict resolution patterns in the EU’s
neighbourhood.
<>
Communication from the Commission to the Council and the
European
Parliament, “Building our common Future: Policy challenges and Budgetary means of the Enlarged
Union 2007-2013”, 26.2.2004, COM (2004) 101
final/2,
page. 24.
International Crisis Group, “EU
Crisis Response Capabilities
Revisited”, Europe Report 160, 17 January 2005, Brussels,
page 3.