Europeanizing or Securitizing the 'outsiders'? Assessing the EU's partnership-building approach with Eastern Europe

This project investigates the ENP’s effectiveness in Eastern Europe (EE), in the light of a growing tension between Europeanisation and Securitisation. Although Europeanisation is seen as better suited for building a sustainable partnership with EE, being linked to the wider process of modernisation, its validity has been progressively challenged by Securitisation, which prioritises the EU’s immediate security concerns over the long-term promotion of democracy in EE. The existing conceptual tension may not only affect the ENP’s successful implementation, but also hinder the development of a constructive dialogue with the ‘outsiders’ – Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova in particular.
The project will seek to establish the following:

How are Europeanisation and Securitisation defined in the key ENP documents?
Is there a growing tension between the aims and the means of these discourses?
To what extent do these discourses correspond to those adopted by EE?
What implications may the tension have on achieving stability, security and well being in the wider Europe?
The project methodology will include content-analysis of official documents across the border; elite interviews; published data in the EU and national surveys in EE; ‘school essays on Europe’ and focus-groups in EE to allow individual-level analysis of public responses.