Statement - 16 February 2024
Since 2021, the College of Europe has adopted, also thanks to the input of students, a revised Code of Conduct that guarantees transparent and rigorous procedures to ensure that each member of the...
On 14-15 November 2013, the Department of EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies at the College of Europe, Bruges campus, has organised a conference to discuss the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in a comparative perspective. The conference was organised with the financial support of the European Commission.
In order to sustain and further improve the ENP it is crucial to understand the proliferation of the EU’s neighbourhood policies in a wider sense. The conference focused on a comparison of different co-operation schemes that the European Union has in place with third countries in order to put the ENP into context. It aimed at a comparative assessment of the various frameworks such as the pre-accession strategy, the EU-Turkey customs union, the Stabilisation and Association Process in the Balkans, the European Economic Area (EEA), the EU-Swiss bilateralism, the EU’s Northern Dimension, the EU-Russia Strategic Partnership and others.
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Based on the call for papers, the two-day conference was organised in four panel sessions comprising three presentations each to which discussants reacted before the general debate was opened. The panels ranged from the EEA as a potential model for the ENP, to bilateral approaches (Switzerland, Turkey, Russia), to the enlargement and association processes and other multilateral neighbourhood relations.
The conference hoped not only to shed light on different models of co-operation between the EU and its neighbours, but also on the question to what extent the ENP is really a sui generis policy in the EU’s external relations, and what lessons can be drawn.
The conference language was English. Participation was free of charge but registration was required.