EP report on ENP

The countries of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in Eastern Europe and the Southern Mediterranean respectively need to be dealt with in quite different ways, MEPs stated this week.

On Thursday 15 November, the European Parliament adopted a report assessing the ENP which “expresses doubt about the meaningfulness of the ENP's geographic scope, as it involves countries which geographically are European together with Mediterranean non-European countries.” For this reason, it advocates that “the unified implementation of the policy take as much account as possible of the differing identities of all the countries covered by the ENP.”

Speaking in the debate on 14 November in Strasbourg, Rapporteur Charles Tannock acknowledged that “So far the European Neighbourhood Policy is proving to be a valuable tool” but he stressed the importance of “shared values and in particular reinforcing democracy, the rule of law and human rights as our main priority.” The report notes wide differences on these issues between the countries of the East and the South, referring to “democratic neighbours who are clearly identifiable as European countries” to the East while regretting that “no substantial progress has been made in terms of democracy or human rights since the beginning of the European-Mediterranean Partnership” as regards the countries of the Southern Mediterranean.

The report proposes the setting-up of an “EU Neighbourhood-East Parliamentary Assembly” to strengthen parliamentary cooperation and a parallel relaunch of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly (EMPA), with a serious look at its difficulties of the past few years. MEPs also underline that “respect for universal human rights and fundamental freedoms is the core principle of EU policy,” and say that civil society and a free media must be supported everywhere, “regardless of the degree of willingness of partner countries' governments to cooperate and to share in these values.”