‘Which Friends? The Content of EU’s Democracy Promotion in its Neighbourhood’

Democracy promotion is today at the centre of the debate in international politics. While the issue is not new, neither in the practice of international relationsnor in academic debates, it has dramatically reached the top of the agenda due to recent events. the EU emerged as one of the main international actors engagedin this effort: in the last fifteen years, strategies have been devised, instruments have been created, and resources have been mobilized in order to establish a solid policyof democracy promotion. Undoubtedly, the double transition of the former sovietsatellites of eastern and central Europe, sanctioned by the historical enlargement of May 2004, represents the most spectacular success of this policy.However, membership is a limited resource and EU’s strategy of democracy promotion cannot remain confined to the democratisation through integration model .Indeed, while the enlargement process was reaching its limits, the EU had to confrontwith two imperatives: on the one hand, in line with its ambitions, it had to devisenew instruments and a new strategy, in order to strengthen its role as a global actor of democracy promotion; on the other hand, there was the urgency to address thechallenges emerging in the post-enlargement scenario . The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), launched by the Commission in 2003, lies just between these two goals.