''Neighbourhood'' as an international energy policy concept

Since 2002, the concept of ''neighbourhood'' has been central to the EU thinking about the emergence of a European foreign and security policy. The relations between the EU and the countries that share - or could share in the future - a border with it, but have little or no prospects for full membership, are supposed to be structured by the emerging ''European Neighbourhood Policy'' (ENP). On the receiving end of this policy proposal are a number of countries on the Eastern edge of the Union, in the South Caucasus, East and South of the Mediterranean. The ENP is very much a ''transformationist'' agenda, with very ambitious goals of bringing about long term political and economic reforms in the neighbour countries. The ultimate goal is to promote stability and prosperity on the edges of the Union. The means for that is to exchange gradual integration into the EU common market and direct economic aid against verifiable commitments of political and economic reforms. Many neighbour countries are of great significance as energy producers, energy exporters, or transit countries to the EU. Hence the following two questions: 1) Is there an explicit energy security component - or energy motive - in the ENP. If yes, how is it structured. 2) What are the potential energy security implications of the ENP. In other words: To what extent, and through which mechanisms, would EU energy security be served by a process of economic and political reforms in the neighbour countries. It's worth extending the questioning to the study of the ''neighbourhood'' dimension in the existing EU international energy policy. It appears that the energy security thinking of the EU Commission has long been structured by the concept of ''neighbourhood''. It is then of some importance to study how the development of this policy will be affected by the implementation of the ENP. Beyond that, we develop a critical assessment of ''neighbourhood'' as a concept for energy security policies. Based on a comparison between the EU and US approaches to international energy policy, we contrast global and regional approaches at ''market-building'' in the energy industries. (Author)