Re-Negotiating Europe's Identity: The European Neighbourhood Policy as a Form of Differentiation

Abstract

The contribution sets out to probe changes in the essence of the European Union through the lens of neighborhood. It rests on the claim that the advent of the concept of 'neighbor' in the context of the Union's new policy of neighborhood (ENP) testifies to an altered EU-identity. It argues that approaching the concept as foundational rather than seeing it merely as something functional and instrumental reveals crucial changes not just in the EU's vicinity but first and foremost in the EU itself.