The double character of EU's Neighbourhood policy and the Ukraine crisis

In a situation where EU enlargement is already saturated, because of the last big bang enlargement of 2004, the European Union created its Neighbourhood policy with the aim to continue the successful projection of its values and principles towards neighboring countries ‘sharing everything but institutions’. However, even if de jure this policy does not forecast any membership perspectives, de facto actors of the European Foreign policy, number of times have recalled the carrot of EU membership, in their communication with countries from the neighborhood. This because, membership bait as an instrument of EU’s Foreign Policy, has proven to be the most powerful and effective instrument in order for the Union to influence reformative processes in neighboring states. Nevertheless, the misuse of this policy instrument in the Neighborhood policy, besides adding the adjective of ‘incoherent’ to the Union’s Foreign Policy, in concrete, influenced Ukraine’s domestic policy, which in its turn contributed to the happening of Ukraine’s crisis and the events that followed. Thus, this paper will speak about the ambivalent and double character of EU’s Neighborhood Policy, in reference to the abuse of the membership clause in EU – Ukraine relations and its influence in Ukraine’s domestic policy, and it will also speak about the reasons of the ambivalence of EU’s Foreign policy towards Ukraine.