EU neighborhood policy: Economics, not membership

The message from the European Union is clear: economic cooperation - yes; membership - no.

And for those countries that might have fancied their membership chances, there was another clear signal: all European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) members are to be treated the same.

A high-level conference on the EU's Neighborhood Policy opened in Brussels on 3 September, bringing together ministers and senior officials from all 27 EU member states and the 16 ENP countries and marking a revival in EU interest in its eastern and Mediterranean neighbors.

In the morning, country representatives took to the floor in no set geographical order. In the afternoon, workshops on themes like "Connecting Neighbors" and "Governance and Stability" were styled to apply equally to all.

This drive to display uniformity hides a key rift among the neighbors, as well as the EU member states. It papers over differences between the southern, Mediterranean countries who've been disqualified from EU membership, and eastern ex-Soviet states, most of whom still aspire to join the bloc.

However, those membership aspirations may not be enough.

'All neighbors equal'

A key component of the opening speech of the conference, made by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, was a rejection of regional differentiation.

"By focusing attention on the wider European and Mediterranean area, the ENP has leveraged more support from [the] European Union's member states than [if] we looked at each of our neighbors in isolation," Barroso said.

"And that was the first goal of our policy - [in order] to leverage more support, to attract more attention, to focus, also, more resources," he added. "Political resources, but also financial resources -- let's be frank [about that]."

Barroso explained that without regional distinctions, the ENP remains free from the vagaries of the "special interests" of different EU members as they rotate the bloc's presidency among them.

The evolving consensus within the EU is clearly skewed against further accessions, partly as a result of previous enlargements.

Correspondingly, the EU is now putting less emphasis on political reforms and rights standards, which are crucial for candidate countries. Political standards were not raised by any of the EU headline speakers today.

Economic focus

Instead, the EU is keen to capitalize on practical matters of mutual interest. Its current priorities for cooperation with the neighbors are economic integration, energy cooperation, increased travel and work opportunities, and increased financial and technical assistance.

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner underlined the bloc's economic ambitions. "Our vision is of an economically integrated area, which spans the whole of the European Union and its closest European and Mediterranean partners," she said. "An area where goods, services, and capital move freely."

With the EU as the world's largest importer of natural gas and oil, a key part of this vision is energy cooperation.

Both Barroso and Ferrero-Waldner highlighted energy agreements already reached with Ukraine and Azerbaijan and about to be concluded with Algeria and Egypt.

Ukraine, Moldova disappointed

But not all the neighbors are happy with the way things are going. Ukraine conspicuously failed to dispatch its foreign minister to the conference, only being represented by its EU ambassador, Roman Shpek.

EU officials downplayed the slight, attributing it to Ukraine's upcoming parliamentary elections, but the bloc's diplomats privately acknowledge its significance.

Ukraine has repeatedly made it clear that it only participates in the ENP reluctantly, and does not consider it an "appropriate" framework for its relations with the EU - as it believes it is a European country and not a neighbor.

Ukrain