The ENP and multilateralism

Abstract

Multilateralism is at the heart of the EU’s external mandate. The TEU directs the EU, working in partnership with countries and organisations which share its principles and values, to ‘promote multilateral solutions to common problems, in particular in the framework of the United Nations’ and to ‘promote an international system based on stronger multilateral cooperation and good global governance.’ This helps us to understand the two roles which multilateralism plays in EU external policy-making: as a principle underpinning its own policy choices (how the EU prefers to act at a global level), and as an objective of its external policy (what it is trying to achieve). The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) clearly demonstrates both these dimensions. The focus of this chapter is on the interplay between the regional (represented by the ENP) and the multilateral in EU external policy-making. In particular, it examines three aspects of this relation. The first reflects the Treaty injunction to ‘promote multilateral solutions to common problems’, the ENP as a policy framework within which, and with which, the EU seeks to address common problems and shared threats through law. This includes promoting the ratification of key international conventions by ENP partners; supporting international institutions; and enlisting the support of the ENP partners for the EU’s own multilateral legal agendas. The second dimension involves collaboration to ensure effective enforcement of the law. This includes supporting the implementation and enforcement of ratified conventions; collaboration with the Council of Europe and other international bodies and organisations; the use of the EU’s sanctions regimes to enforce international anti-corruption conventions. The third dimension involves building active support among the ENP partners for the EU’s own multilateral security agenda. Here the EU is building relationship with the aim (inter alia) of ‘safeguard[ing] its values, fundamental interests, security, independence and integrity’. These mechanisms include seeking support from the ENP partners for the EU’s sanctions regimes; and seeking the participation of ENP states in EU-led crisis missions.