The idealism that engendered the European ​​Neighbourhood Policy in 2004, later codified in the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, has since been reviewed to adapt to the turbulence that has befallen the EU and its neighbourhood. The ENP is now little more than an elegantly crafted fig leaf that purports to take a soft power approach to the EU’s outer periphery, argues the author, but in effect it inclines more towards Realpolitik. By prioritising security interests over liberal values in increasingly transactional partnerships, the EU is atomising relations with its neighbouring countries. And without the political will and a strategic vision to guide relations with the neighbours of the EU’s neighbours, the ENP remains in suspended animation.

15 European Union or Eurasian Economic Union? A dilemma for the Eastern Partnership countries -- 16 Markets versus morals? Assessing EU arms exports to autocratic regimes in its closer and wider neighbourhood -- 17 A comparative analysis between pre-accession and ENP reforms in the agricultural sector of the EU neighbouring countries -- 18 The EU's other neighbours: lessons for the European Neighbourhood Policy -- Index