The European Neighbourhood Policy as a Process of Democratic Norms Diffusion in Ukraine. The Case of the EU Act Beyond Conditionality?

This paper is then focused on the European Neighbourhood Policy and democracypromotion in its Eastern neighbours. Can the EU act beyond ‘hard conditionality’ experiencedduring the enlargement process in order to succeed in democratizing its neighbourhood? Whatare the obstacles to democratisation and political change within the neighbours? At the heart of the analysis lies the question of efficiency of the ENP without hardconditionality linked with adhesion. Conditionality, i.e. linking the granting of benefits to thefulfilment of some conditions, has been at the core of the EU policy when dealing withaccession candidate countries. During the enlargement process, ‘hard conditionality’(describing measures a country must meet in order to access any money or politicalretribution) was the key means for democratic norms diffusion. By contrast, neighbourhoodpolicy uses conditionality in a more flexible way, which is tantamount to ‘soft conditionality’,destined to influence policies but not to propose a one-fits-for-all policy. It is often arguedthat because of the lack of an effective or ‘hard’ conditionality, the EU cannot pretend to amajor role as a promoter of democratic norms.