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Author’s Workshop for the edited volume „Neighbourhood and Accession-Europeanization – A comparison in Practice”

On July 14–15, 2011, eight young experts met in Berlin to discuss the first drafts of their contri­bution to the edited volume on “Neigh­bourhood and Accession-Europeanization – A comparison in Practice”.

The workshop, which was organized jointly by the Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP) and the Kolleg-Forscher­gruppe “The Trans­for­mative Power of Europe”, took place both at the Freie Univer­sität Berlin and at the IEP and was made possible through funding by the Otto Wolff Foundation and the Deutsche Forschungs­ge­mein­schaft (DFG). At the beginning of the workshop, Prof. Dr. Tanja Börzel and Dr. Katrin Böttger empha­sized the fruitful combi­nation of university and think tanks, which collab­orate on this book project. The young researchers submitted drafts for papers based on primary research conducted in the framework of their academic careers, which focus on topics of enlargement and the European Neigh­bourhood Policy (ENP). The discussion was especially timely during a phase where new responses to the Neigh­bourhood are sought in reaction to the Arab Spring and where the negoti­a­tions of a new Multi­annual Financial Framework (MFF) are ongoing. The policy papers deal with condi­tion­ality, assis­tance and political dialogue as tools of policy change, and cover a variety of instru­ments such as democracy promotion, diver­si­fi­cation of target groups including civil society and regional and private economic actors, as well as policies (environment, economy, minority rights). They include recom­men­da­tions focused on policy changeand target EU actors including the European Commission and Members of the European Parliament as well as NGOs that are active in the relevant policy fields. 

During the workshop the paper presen­ta­tions were comple­mented by experts who commented on the papers and how they could be made even more acces­sible for specific target groups, as well as whether the thematic prior­ities were well chosen. These commen­tators included Pirkaa Tapiola from the Strategic Planning Division of the External Action Service (EEAS), Jörn Griesse from the European Commission, Natasha Wunsch from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (DGAP) and Markus Meckel, former foreign minister, who enriched the workshop with their ideas and work experience. The partic­i­pation of the commen­tators, proofed to be a productive addition to theoretical background of the authors. This dialogue helped to develop both policy recom­men­da­tions and policy options, which are the main focus of the book.