Evaluating EU Policies in South Caucasus

The European Union (EU) is reviewing its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), launched in 2003 and last reviewed in 2011. The Arab spring and continued unrest in several of Europe’s southern neighbours, plus recent EU-Russia tensions over Ukraine, demand a serious overhaul of EU policies in its neighbourhood. Even though a complete change of course is unlikely, through a recent ‘green paper’ the European Commission has launched a consultation – both in-house and externally – about the ENP, including its policy for the six East European and Caucasus countries – the Eastern Partnership (EaP) – with a view to reviewing ‘the principles on which the policy is based as well as its scope and how its instruments should be used’. This article will focus on the EU’s relations with the three South Caucasus countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Time for a Reality Check

Launched in 2009, the EaP has offered new opportunities for South Caucasus countries to develop their relationship with the EU. On a bilateral basis, the main accomplishment of the EaP in the region has been the conclusion of an Association Agreement (AA) including a Deep and Comprehensive Free-Trade Areas (DCFTA) with Georgia. Moreover, all three countries are aiming for (albeit at different speeds) visa liberalisation, which also requires substantial reforms in key areas such as migration management or the fight against corruption.

With the EaP, the EU has emerged in the South Caucasus as an agent for domestic change (at least in Georgia, to some degree in Armenia and to a much lesser extent in Azerbaijan). But EU-inspired change has its limits, as the EU is only as influential as South Caucasus states allow it to be. Reforms often remain shallow and local elites carefully calculate the high short-term costs against longer-term (and vaguer) benefits. At the same time, by making its AA/DCFTA offer the main bilateral ‘take-it-or leave-it’ package, the EU has put itself in a difficult situation. So far, no plan B has been developed for countries that seek deeper relations with the EU but not AA or DCFTA.

The EaP’s multilateral track is also in need of revision as it is incapable of handling the growing differences between South Caucasus countries in their relationships with the EU. At the political level, the work of the multilateral track is affected by regional tensions and conflicts. For instance, the work of the EaP’s parliamentary dimension (Euronest) has often been paralysed by divergences between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Standard bilateral European Parliament Delegations with South Caucasus (or East European) countries would be more practical as is already the case with Moldova, Ukraine and soon Georgia.

At the technical level, thematic ‘platforms’ are mainly EU-driven and their content primarily reflects EU concerns. The platform on economic integration is a blatant example of this. The emphasis on approximation with EU trade regulations is relevant to Georgia, but less so to Armenia and Azerbaijan. Other platforms (for example, on democracy, good governance, and stability) also inspire uneven interest among the three partners.

However, the multilateral track does offer a useful framework for representatives of the three EU partners to meet. Regional tensions and conflicts feed into high-level meetings, but thematic platforms and panels provide fora where officials from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and East European states can discuss their respective reform experiences. In addition, the non-governmental formats (the Civil Society Forum, the Business Forum) have fostered contacts between South Caucasian societies. Meanwhile, the EaP’s six flagship projects – from integrated border management to environmental governance – need careful evaluation. Fruitful projects should be continued and strengthened, while those that have not produced results after five years should be either reformed or scrapped.

The Way Ahead

It is in the EU’s interest that the Caucasus becomes a stable and democratic region. But the EU has little influence to make this happen without two currently missing ingredients: a much more substantial engagement on security challenges and a clear finalité for its Eastern partners. The Russian authoritarian model will keep traction as it pretends to solve the short-term worries of some of these states and to safeguard the incumbent regimes. At the very least, the EU should be ready to fully support those countries that do opt for in-depth political and economic reforms. Such an approach would not prevent the EU from setting democracy and human rights benchmarks with authoritarian states such as Azerbaijan.

The EU should also increasingly focus on linking EU member-state societies to those of the South Caucasus. This requires shifting its policy paradigm from narrow legal and technical approximation to broader societal integration, for instance through people-to-people contacts. Europe’s attractiveness remains high – also in Armenia and Azerbaijan – and in the long run will be more influential than short-sighted Russian propaganda. Civil society cooperation, visa liberalisation policies, and support to educational exchanges have been overshadowed by the EU’s focus on AA/DCFTA negotiations. However, societal links should be turned into both a key priority in current relations and a basis for a deeper long-term partnership.

The EaP sought to help stabilise the EU’s South Caucasus neighbours but lacked a security component from the outset. Neither a harder security posture from the EU, nor success in settling protracted conflicts in the South Caucasus (without Russian involvement and agreement), are on the table. The current EU engagement in security matters is largely confined to the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) border monitoring mission in Georgia (EUMM) and the participation of an EU Special Representative in the Geneva talks between Georgia and Russia. Besides stepping up EU engagement through NATO and the Organisation for Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) at the Minsk talks concerning Nagorno-Karabakh, there is little more the EU can do. Specific Caucasus security strategies by the EU would seem overambitious since member states – for a variety of reasons – will likely not support heavier involvement in the region’s security. Nonetheless, the region’s protracted conflicts remain volatile and inflammable.

However, the EU could more strongly support the reform of the security sectors of those countries willing to engage, for instance by assisting in reforming partners’ police, border guards, judicial systems, and democratic oversight mechanisms. This should be possible in Georgia (and already undertaken to some degree), and it could be worthwhile to investigate such options with Armenia and Azerbaijan, perhaps by linking it to confidence building measures between both adversaries. Furthermore, there are elements of security sector reform (SSR) in the EU’s visa liberalisation policies with Caucasus countries as these affect some aspects of the police, border guards and judicial systems; this can potentially be an entry point for broader SSR engagement.

The EU cannot fix the Caucasus region, but it can have a positive bearing on its development, provided that it can design a clearer and firmer long-term vision. The EU should seek to play a responsible and more active security role in the South Caucasus by being prepared for further problematic relations with Russia, and being ready to cope with a shifting, complex, and uncertain domestic and regional environment. Also, the EU will need to adopt a more flexible bilateral approach complemented by renewed multilateral cooperation formats via the EaP. Last but certainly not least, given its attractiveness to South Caucasus societies, the EU should place societies and people-to-people contacts at the core of its policies in all three countries.

This article is based on a longer document entitled ‘A broken region: Evaluating EU policies in the South Caucasus’, FRIDE Policy Brief 193 (28 January 2015), published under the Cascade project.

 

About the authors:

Jos Boonstra is head of the Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia programme at FRIDE

Laure Delcour is scientific coordinator and research fellow of the EU FP7 Cascade project at the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme