About this project:
The policies designed by the EU to manage its relations with its neighbouring countries have aimed to promote not only cooperation with these countries, but also their integration in certain policy areas as well as the gradual Europeanization of their domestic structures towards greater convergence with the EU. Although these policies are based on the same conceptual and instrumental approach, their impact is very uneven depending on the neighbouring country and the sectoral area in question. EUPROX (2006-2009) analysed in depth and from a comparative perspective the causes of the varying EU impact and the effectiveness of its policies in neighbouring countries. It thus created a framework for analysis to explain the variation of the EU’s impact on its neighbouring countries, focusing on models of coordination, integration and Europeanization between the EU and these countries. The neighbouring countries selected were Morocco, Algeria, Turkey, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia, chosen for their representativeness and relevance. The sectoral areas selected were trade, energy, environment, foreign policy, migration policy and good governance.
The cases studied in the EUPROX project were collected in the volume La Unión Europea más allá de sus fronteras. ¿Hacia la transformación del Mediterráneo y Europa oriental? (Tecnos 2010). The conclusions of the project were also presented systematically in prestigious international scientific meetings and generated scientific exchanges with other international projects, such as EU-GRASP and MERCURY. The group published its results in prestigious national and international publications, including ‘Which Rules Shape the EU’s External Governance? Patterns of Rule Selection in Foreign and Security Policies’ by Barbé, Costa, Herranz and Natorski in the Journal of European Public Policy (2009), ‘Climate Change Changing the EU? The Second Image Reversed in Climate Politics’ by Oriol Costa in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs (2008), ‘Drawing the Neighbours closer… to What? Explaining Emerging Patterns of Policy Convergence between the EU and its Neighbours‘ by Barbé, Costa, Herranz, Johansson, Natorski, Sabiote in Cooperation and Conflict (2009) or ‘The EU as a modest ‘force for good’: The European Neighbourhood Policy’ by Barbé an Johansson in International Affairs (2008). The results were also published in a Special Issue of Mediterranean Politics (2010), ‘Region Building Dynamics in the Euro-Mediterranean Space’, coordinated by Esther Barbé and Anna Herranz.