Neighbourhood Policy and the Construction of the European External Borders

This book looks both backward and forward with regard to the European Union’s political strategies towards its neighbouring countries. By bringing together the perspectives of critical geopolitics, policy studies and border studies, it presents a comprehensive review of the European Neighbourhood Policy and how it impacts the ongoing construction of the EU’s external frontiers.

Is the EU committed to promoting integration in a ‘wider’ European space, or is a “fortress Europe” emerging where the strengthening of internal cohesion is coupled with the militarisation of its external borders? The book aims to problematize this question by showing how the EU’s external policies are based on a mixture of openness and closure, inclusion and exclusion, cooperation and securitisation. The European Neighbourhood Policy is a controversial strategy where regionalization and bordering, homogenisations and differentiations, centrifugal and centripetal forces proceed side-by-side, in an explicit attempt to construct a selective, mobile and fragmented border.

A specific focus is devoted to the diversity of geo-strategies the EU is pursuing in its neighbouring countries and regions, macro-regional strategies and cross-border cooperation initiatives as new scales of cooperation, and the role of other global players.

Filippo Celata, Master degree in Economics and PhD in Economic Geography (2004), since 2006 he is lecturer in political and economic geography at the University of Roma La Sapienza, Dept. Memotef (Methods and Models for the Economics, Territory and Finance). At La Sapienza, he teaches advanced economic geography and introduction to spatial data analysis, and is responsible for the 7^th framework programme projects Euborderregions (European regions, EU external borders and the immediate neighbours) and Tess (Towards European societal sustainability: community-based initiatives). His research interests include regional development processes and policies, European spatial politics, critical border studies and cultural-relational perspectives in human geography. He has professional experiences in the technical assistance to public authorities for the design, implementation and evaluation of local development and strategic planning initiatives. He is chief editor of theRivista Geografica Italiana and subject editor in geography for the journalScienze del Territorio.

Raffaella Coletti, Master in International Cooperation for Development (2002) and PhD in Economic Geography (2009). Since 2003 she collaborates with the Centro Studi di Politica Internazionale (CeSPI), an International affairs think tank based in Rome, specialized in policy-oriented research on EU external relations, territorial cooperation and paradiplomacy. Since 2011 she is Research Fellow at the University of Rome La Sapienza, Dept. Memotef, within the 7th Framework Programme Project Euborderregions about the European Neighbourhood Policy, cross-border relations and policies at the EU’s external frontiers, with a special focus on the Mediterranean basin. Her recent research interests include the interpretative approaches to the study of public policies; relational approaches to regional development; Europeanisation, external governance and policy transfers; regionalization processes within and across EU’s external border. She is member of the Italian Geographical Society, the Regional Studies Association and the Association for Borderland Studies.