Политика соседства ЕС: инструменты сотрудничества для Украины, Молдовы, Беларуси

Abstract

Widening of the EU, acquiring new neighbours, Russia, in particular, emergence of new Western independent states (Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus), as well as of states of South Mediterranean required new approaches to cooperation with these countries. The documents determining this cooperation of the EU with new neighbours are the conception of "a Wider Europe — Neighbourhood: New Approach Towards Cooperation with our Eastern and Southern Neighbours" or the conception of "neighbourly" cooperation of the EU, the document "About New Instruments of the Neighbourhood Policy", the strategy "The European Policy of Neighbourhood". The declared policy of neighbourhood is called upon to promote harmonizing national legislations with the European one, to enhance economic integration and free movement of people, goods, services and capital, though it does not see the membership of new neighbours in this organization as a middle-term prospect. The EU emphasizes the difference in the approach to each neighbouring country due to different levels of bilateral relations and the extent of the wish to strengthening coperation between the European Union and each country. The neighbourhood policy implies cooperation on different levels and at different speeds depending on results achieved in the process of application of neighbourhood policy instruments. The article stresses that despite certain historical similarities of Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova in the early 1990s, they had their specific features which later were reflected in the heterogeneity of the processes of formation and development of the policies of these countries and the EU.