Россия и европейская политика добрососедства (стр. 6 )

What should the ENP derive from these three models? First, that they all constitute valuable tools to achieve the paramount goal of the EU Neighbourhood Policy. As controversial as Prodi’s ‘more than a partnership, less than a membership’ adage may sound, this is precisely what regional cooperation is meant to contribute. Regionalism does not ‘call on’ actors, but is about inviting them to decide upon their degree of participation. Regionalism provides a flexible format to blur divisions between inside and outside, and places the onus on the partners to decide the pace of their own transition towards the inside, with no EU conditionality pressuring them to comply. Equally obvious is that all three models have the advantage of bypassing specific, and often sensitive, questions that the ENP is faced with in the hub-and-spoke bilateral dynamic. Regionalism is less burdened by conditionality than the mainstream bilateral component of the ENP framework, and therefore is a good tool to provide aid without compromising the EU's firm stands in some specific bilateral situations.

In other words, no matter which of its three regional recipes the EU should test in the ENP, the basic rationale is that regionalism should be regarded as one part of a three-level strategy for the ENP. First, there is the bilateral Action Plans based on conditionality through which the EU aims to steer the partners’ transition to democracy and market economy. Then, there is the overall single ENP structure, which provides cohesion and gives a more strategic outlook to the policy. In between, there is regionalism, which softens the obligations given by conditionality, facilitates their realisation, and constitutes a valuable stepping-stone to enhance the ENP’s ‘holism’.

There is no ideal model the EU can follow when considering how to support regionalism in the ENP. Each region faces specific challenges and it may well be that a outside-in ‘dimensionalist’ model proves valuable in one region, while the support for ‘inside-out regionalism’ is more appropriate in another. For instance, the idea of an institutionalised Eastern Dimension could turn against the very idea of pushing regionalism in the Western NIS, because Russia would most likely oppose the EU-centric logic behind it. There are, however, five broad considerations that can be made to ponder a sound EU regional strategy in the neighbourhood.

1) The region should be as inclusive as possible. The broadest range of actors – nongovernmental, business, local authorities, international institutions and donors – and all potential partners, including those who have normally proven more hostile to EU-centrism, should feel encouraged to participate and not be threatened by exclusion. This is in line with the ENP’s original inspiration that stresses the importance of joint ownership and shared values. In this sense, whenever inside-out regionalism emerges, the ENP should substantially put its weight behind it.

2) The EU should support the ‘generous core’ of member countries willing to push for certain regions. ‘Generous’ states in a region play a crucial role and usually have the lion’s share in: defining priorities and putting issues of common interest on the agenda; gathering consensus among regional players; keeping up the momentum of the cooperation over time; fundraising; supporting the creation of regional institutions; and promoting the ‘added value’ of the region in and outside Europe. As noted, the problem with these ‘leaderships’ is that the existence of contrasting local interests within the EU has in the past led member states to obstruct each other: the need to find a balanced consensus or at least a tacit understanding within the European Council that all regions needs EU support, proportional to their needs and their strategic importance, is thus imperative.

3) Regionalism in the EU neighbourhood should value the role of Russia. In the Russian case, what is at stake is not limited to the EU’s quest for stability, or to the strengthening of its neighbourhood relations. When it comes to Russia, a strategic dimension is also at stake, because Russia plays a defining role in at least three of our five regions: the Northern, Eastern and Black Sea regions. Despite Moscow’s fading influence on what it used to call its ‘near abroad’, Russia can still heavily affect developments in a number of *****ssia still has troops in Georgia and Moldova and claims to play the role of mediator in the frozen conflicts in these two countries; it continues to support Lukashenka’s authoritarian

regime in Belarus, and to represent a social and political force in Ukraine, despite the debacle on the occasion of the Orange Revolution; its outpost in Kaliningrad is a source of security concerns for the surrounding countries and the EU; not least, Russia is a major oil and gas supplier to the EU. The combination of these crucial questions naturally makes Russia’s role in Europe’s neighbourhood very important. The European Commission initially envisaged the ENP as a new pillar of the bilateral strategic partnership. This proposal, however, was rejected by *****ssian Deputy Foreign Minister V. A. Chizhov accounted for the reasons of this opposition, explaining that Russia has a neighbourhood doctrine of its own and that the ENP has the ‘inherent conceptual deficiency’ of grouping very different countries and has a too wide geographical reach.24 Brussels responded to these objections by suggesting that “Russia be offered support for implementing relevant parts of the strategic partnership from the proposed European Neighbourhood Instrument, in addition to existing forms of support.” This is a rather common-sensical suggestion, especially because the ENPI will replace TACIS, from which Russia has benefited so far. This proposal, however, does not amount to a satisfactory answer when it comes to understanding ho the EU plans to step up its relations with CIS countries, while ignoring Russia’s enduring role in these regions. Brussels could go ahead with enhancing its engagement with Ukraine, Moldova and the Southern Caucasus without involving Russia. Yet, a genuine EU commitment in these countries cannot be achieved without seriously tackling major outstanding issues, especially those relating to conflict resolution. In this context, the creation of well-funded regional dimensions could represent a low-profile, winwin strategy to engage Russia, which declares itself concerned with “the future of existing formats of regional cooperation where the EU is a participant – the Northern Dimension, the Council of the Baltic Sea States, the Barents/Euroarctic Council, the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, just to mention a few – as well as the future EU policy towards them, including the financial aspect”.26 An upgrading and further support of regional activities in the ENP could thus provide a further channel of dialogue for the EU-Russia strategic partnership.

4) Regionalism in the EU neighbourhood should initially focus on soft security. The case of Northern Europe is instrumental to explain this fourth recommendation. This case, in many respects, provides a remarkable example of the potential of regionalism, but also suggests that political and military aspects (e. g. the case of Kaliningrad and the question of the Russia-speaking minority in the Baltic States) have not been dealt with at the regional level and have tended to coalesce in the wider European framework. The regional framework of cooperation did remarkably well in defusing tensions, building confidence among actors and ‘desecuritising’ the handling of the issues at stake. Yet, it has proven fruitless in tackling ‘hard’ security questions, which have been mainly dealt with in the context of the EU-Russia bilateral cooperation. In this sense, military and political security has somehow perpetuated two of the more traditionalist logical dictums of European security: that of the centralising ‘concentric circle’ and the EU-Russia ‘othering’ one. On the other hand, as noted, regional cooperation has proven momentous to tackle soft-security matters like environmental security, public health, organised crime and economic cooperation. The recommendation for the other four regions is to follow the same path. The political and security basket has been the most unsuccessful one in the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.

Likewise, a regional dimension could hardly contribute to resolve the Transdniestria or the Abkhazia questions, and it may well be unproductive to bring about domestic changes in Belarus or Libya. Yet, by providing an inclusive milieu dealing successfully with environmental, economic and civil security matters, regionalism could build the kind of confidence and favour people-to-people contacts also in the rest of the neighbourhood. The Northern European experience suggests that although regionalism may not solve the most sensitive and thorny military and political security issues, it brings about the kind of dialogue and inclusion that is conducive to a more politicised – and less securitised – approach by actors that can in the long run spill over to hard-security matters by other means.

5) The EU should elaborate a new generation of regional Action Plans. Besides the more conceptual considerations on their social construction, it was argued that the existence of common interests is also what drives the emergence of regions. The existence of functional types of regional sectoral dialogues that address these common interests thus constitutes a fundamental pillar on which to structure regionalism in the ENP, especially at the level of management and implementation. In most cases, the EU has already identified in which regions and in which sectors these more functional concerns reside. Financial instruments currently addressing regionalism in the EU neighbourhood, such as MEDA or TACIS, follow such a rationale. The ENP will replace existing financial instruments with the ENPI, which fits nicely with the regional thesis expounded here especially in relation to the possibility to finance both inside and outside the EU. Yet, the Commission has so far not explained in detail how the ENPI will replace the regional component of existing instruments, or create new ones for that purpose. In principle, the so-called ‘Second Window’ within the ENPI will be devoted to multilateral projects within the ENP. This study recommends that a more marked regional focus is given to this second window.

Susanne Milcher, Ben Slay

“THE ECONOMICS OF THE 'EUROPEAN NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICY': AN INITIAL ASSESSMENT.”
Paper prepared for "Europe after the Enlargement” conference (Warsaw, April 8-9, 2005)

Possible impact of ENP

Can the ENP help to replicate the Central European transition successes in the new neighbour countries? Will the ‘market access for reform’ bargain implied by the ENP lead to dramatic Improvements in market access, export-oriented FDI, restructuring, and modernisation?

Optimists on these points must face two key questions. First, the neighbourhood countries are poorer and more heterogeneous than the Central European countries. This is apparent both in economic issues (per-capita GDP levels, overall size, structural characteristics) and political terms. A successful ‘market access for reform’ bargain for Moldova would ecessarily look different than one for the Russian Federation. Second, the ENP is unlikely to be seen as a fully satisfactory substitute for eventual EU membership – particularly by reformist governments (e. g., Ukraine after the ‘orange revolution’) who are most likely to desire accession. Both of these factors are likely to weaken to the stabilising effect of the ‘European anchor’.

For the ‘market access for reform’ bargain to work, the economic benefits of the ENP must be seen to be positive and significant. Previous experiences with the extension of the single market to non-EU countries, such as Norway, Switzerland, or Liechtenstein, offer hope in this respect. However, the neighbourhood countries have lower quality infrastructure, lower per-capita GDPs, and much greater political risk. This increases the importance of other elements of the ENP, particularly financial assistance and infrastructure development especially in the energy and transport sectors)19. Likewise, European integration for these economies could have some downsides, particularly in terms of trade diversion, but also (particularly for Azerbaijan) the possibility of further specialisation in the export of raw materials that can mean heightened vulnerability to terms-of-trade shocks, as occurred in 1998.

Economic policy, trade and the single market

The ENP could bring substantial efficiency and welfare gains to neighbouring countries via liberalized access to the single market. Legal changes in the areas of customs and financial services should promote trade facilitation and business creation. Better market access, ombined with enhanced dialogue and cooperation on social and employment policies, could encourage reforms directed at reducing poverty and increasing the effectiveness of social assistance.

The bilateral EU association agreements concluded with the Central European countries in 1991, which provided asymmetric access to the single market for Central European exporters, may be instructive in this respect. In addition to encouraging rapid growth in trade overall and towards the EU in particular, the association agreements (combined with ambitious privatisation programmes) promoted significant FDI inflows, attracted by ‘export platform’ possibilities.

While this pattern seems now to be taking hold in Southeast European countries now negotiating for EU membership, it may be less replicable in the countries of the Western CIS and the Caucasus. Thanks to their accession and SAP agreements with the EU, the Southeast European countries already enjoy preferential access to the single market (relative to CIS countries). During the past few years the Southeast European countries have attracted significant FDI inflows, many of which came from EU –focused companies. However, recent increases in FDI in the Western Balkans appear to be largely due to progress in privatisation programmes. This also means that FDI in the Western Balkans is likely to involve restructuring and hence job contrast, most FDI in the new EU member states is of the green field variety, and hence more likely to be job-creating. The Southeast European economies have the opportunity to experience this phase in the next few years. In Romania, thanks largely to FDI, the share of machinery and transport equipment in total exports (22%) now exceeds the share of textiles and clothing in total exports (20%)22. On the other hand, intra-Balkan trade remains heavily dependant on local developments, since intra-regional trade accounts for a large share of exports in this contrast (c. f. Figure 5), privatisation in CIS countries has generally been focused on sales to domestic investors, and Russian capital or ‘round tripping’ domestic capital typically plays a large role in the relatively small FDI that has come in. Perhaps for this reason, significant changes in the commodity composition of exports have yet to be registered. In Moldova, for example, food products and textiles account for almost 50% of total exports, while mineral products and machinery and equipment take up almost 40% of total imports23. The end of preferential access to markets in Poland and other Central European countries that came with their May 2004 EU membership will result in at least some trade diversion: losses for Ukrainian producers are estimated at about 1% of exports in . Whether improved market access and greater support for market reforms that could come with the ENP will be sufficient to generate a breakthrough in this respect remains to be seen.

The ENP’s focus on energy safety and security (as is explained in the Communication on the development of energy policy for the enlarged European Union, its neighbours and partner countries) is a potential opportunity for the new neighbours, both energy producers (Russia, Azerbaijan) and energy transporters (Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan). The national action plans will build on existing bilateral or regional energy and transport initiatives, such as the EU-Russia Energy Dialogue, the Inogate Programme dealing with the Caspian basin, the TRASECA transport project, and the South-East Europe Regional Energy Market. These initiatives have helped establish a roadmap for institutionalised partnership, with concrete measures to harmonise the legal and regulatory framework for energy sectors. Increased energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy, and cooperation in energy technologies are also promoted by these programmes.

Cross-border issues

The ENP seeks to improve the transport infrastructure connecting the enlarged Union with neighbouring countries, to develop the information society (in keeping with the Lisbon Agenda), to include the neighbouring countries in the EU’s research area, and to promote good environmental governance in neighbouring countries. This is particularly important in the case of river and other ecosystems that overlap the EU’s new eastern frontier, and in light of the new neighbours’ inexperience in effective trans-border environmental governance. For example, the Tisza river basin, which connects Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine and the Union of Serbia and Montenegro, has well-preserved rural landscapes, vast complexes of natural forests, and important biodiversity resources. It also suffers from numerous pollution hotspots, declining heavy industry, lagging economic development, high unemployment levels, emerging patterns of regular flooding, and other tensions linked to the legacies of communism and problems of transition. The ENP could facilitate better trans-national management of the Tisza river basin.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic that is emerging in the Western CIS countries (particularly in Ukraine and Russia) – as well as in Estonia – is another serious cross-border challenge that is not addressed in the ENP.

Prevalence rates by the end of 2001 in these countries were at about 1% of the adult opulations – the level at which the epidemic began to spin out of control in some African countries. (By contrast, prevalence rates in Western Europe at the end of 2001 averaged 0.3%, and were below 0.1% in Central European countries. UNAIDS estimated that some 1 million people were living with HIV in Russia at the end of 2003 and the virus continues to spread rapidly in Belarus and Moldova. In addition to the high prevalence rates already recorded in Estonia, there is evidence that HIV incidence is also growing rapidly in Latvia and Lithuania25. HIV/AIDS trends are trans-boundary and the enlarged EU cannot avoid facing this problem.

Instead, it should promote the same values and reforms that helped the new member states to effectively respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. These include democratisation, the modernisation of state structures, and the empowerment of individuals and NGOs, which have promoted the good governance and the grass roots social and behavioural changes needed to combat the epidemic.

Governance

The ENP could help to strengthen political dialogue in the areas of security, conflict prevention and crisis management, border management, migration, visa policies, and organised crime. The ENP offers a possible framework for greater international involvement in Moldova’s Transnistria. Likewise, the inclusion of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia in the ENP could increase the EU’s role in the potential resolution of the disputes in the Caucasus.

In addition to political stability, institutional capacity is key to development. The new neighbours still face major challenges in modernising state institutions, particularly in terms of decentralisation and public administration reform. Imperfections in governance in turn prevent the emergence of the market friendly state structures needed for improved business and investment climates. Major obstacles are associated with taxation systems and high corruption levels (cf. Table 1), which generate large informal sectors. Migration, which can be a key engine of European growth, is now receiving growing attention in the European Union. Some studies have found that immigrants in the US produce 4.5 times more in the US than in their country of origin with the same skill level. They benefit from extra and more advanced physical capital and capable institutions that allow them to perform at higher levels of productivity. Remittances from migrants can contribute to development in the home country if they are used locally to start-up small enterprises without providing long-term finances27. Remittances also make major positive contributions to the balance of payments in virtually all the new neighbour and West Balkan countries, rivalling (if not exceeding) levels of official development assistance (and in some cases FDI).

Conclusion

The impact of the European Neighbourhood Policy will ultimately depend on its influence on economic development in the new neighbours. So far, it is easier to find reasons for skepticism than optimism. Although the ENP seeks to ease trade restrictions through the implementation of legislative approximation and convergence with EU standards, prospects of access to the EU’s single market seem rather far away. The same would therefore apply to the FDI needed to transform the economies of the Western CIS and the Caucasus. The lack of measures to promote increased labour migration between the new neighbours and the enlarged EU may also be something of a missed opportunity. On the plus side, access to the single market could improve significantly under the ENP. Likewise, the new European Neighbourhood Instrument can add more coherence in technical assistance, and provide more financial support for creating capacities for trade infrastructures and institutional and private sector development. Whether these benefits will be sufficient to push recalcitrant reformers to adopt robustly European policy agendas remains to be seen. Government interest in reforms seems likely to depend largely on eventual prospects for EU membership. The ENP does little to remove fears in this respect. Indeed, its emerging role as substitute for EU membership could make the ENP ineffective–if not counterproductive.

It is not clear that the countries of the Western CIS and the Caucasus will be motivated by prospects of an eventual stake in the single market, or of some easing of visa restrictions.

Fundamentally, the neighbourhood policy has yet to show what it is meant to be. It could be a modest mechanism for mitigating the unfavourable effects of the enlargement for border regions. It could also be an attempt to motivate a serious ‘Europeanisation’, in the sense of political, economic and societal transformation of neighbouring states. As one observer noted: ‘the optimist can say that this is a case of a glass half full, rather than half empty. At least the glass has been constructed, it is reasonably transparent, and more can be poured into the container in due course.

СЕВЕРНОЕ ИЗМЕРЕНИЕ ЕС: КОНЦЕПТУАЛЬНАЯ МОДЕЛЬ ИЛИ РЕГИОНАЛЬНАЯ ВАРИАЦИЯ?

Pertti Joenniemi, Alexander Sergunin

RUSSIA AND THE EUROPEAN UNION’S NORTHERN DIMENSION. ENCOUNTER OR CLASH OF CIVILISATIONS?
Nizhny Novgorod, 2003

Conclusions

The NDI has experienced a relatively slow start. It is still quite far from the initial ideas expressed by the Finnish Prime Minister in the context of launching the initiative. This does not imply, however, that region-building, network governance and various bottom-up type of processes would come to a halt in Europe's northern contrast, they are quite likely to continue.

This is so, among other things, as the role of the EU and its NDI has been that of enabling rather than one of driving and directing to start with. The European Union stands out as an important co-actor and facilitator being thereby able to link in and make use of the energy and creativeness entailed in the process but there are also significant region-specific actors with policies and aspirations of their own. The contest that has emerged in the context of the recent encounter between the EU and northern Europe has forced the EU to develop various new ideas. Most recently they have emerged, for example, in the form of an e-Northern Dimension, the environmental partnership, schemes for region-wide energy policies, formulating joint terms of trade for Europe's North or ideas pertaining to the transforming of the Baltic Sea into a 'fast lane' in the sphere of shipping. More generally, processes have been set into motion that in the longer run are bound to lead to the creation of a region-specific agenda as well as endeavours to implement it.

The Union has provided encouragement and has worked as a model in the post-bipolar era due to its magnetism and attractiveness, but this does not seem to imply that the Union itself would have had a single policy and a well co-ordinated determination aiming at transforming the previously rather non-regionalised and strictly delineated northern Europe into an increasingly 'fuzzy' or 'postmodern' political landscape. Intermediate spaces abound and there is considerable fluidity in the region, although much of this has seen the light of the day without any distinct EU leadership.

The EU constitutes an important player and one interested in the European North but it may yet be noted that the pursuance of region-building has been challenging also for the Union. There are distinct limits to its actorness in the sphere of 'foreign affairs' in general and in particular in view of developing and pursuing innovative policies of networking governance. An improved performance and the distilling of a distinct line would require, it seems, essential modifications in the very nature of the Union. They include measures such as a co-ordination between the different pillars, settling a variety of institutional rivalries, establishing clearly more horizontal departures and a further blurring of the boundaries between internal and external policies. These are highly difficult matters to sort out, and this notwithstanding that the Union is, as such, based on multilevel governance and it is meant to be a post-sovereign polity. Already the complexities inherent in the cross-pillar formulation require a price, one that is also visible in the pursuit of subregional integration and the shortcomings of the NDI. The institutional rivalries between the Council of the EU and the Commission over competencies in the sphere of external relations imply, in some of their aspects, that the mandate of the Commission is bound to remain unclear, including also the relationship to and actorness in entities such as the Council of Baltic Sea States, the Barents Euro-Arctic Council and Arctic Council. There are restrictions in the delegation of power, establishment of relations beyond the bilateral ones as well as problems entailed in the usage of financial instruments that in some cases hamper rather than promote the spurring of subregional co-operation.

All this provides substance to that the Union's engagement tends to be short term, ad hoc and often inconsistent (Johansson, 2002:390). Instead of a firm visions there appears to different constellations of interests and concerns (Hyde-Price, 2002:58). There is ground for accusations pertaining to passiveness and half-heartedness or the claim that the Union's potential in northern Europe remains underutilized (Haukkala, 2001:20). The list of problems, shortcomings, matters to be remedied and failed endeavours is actually rather long. It purports the image that the Union has fallen short of expectations, and the fate of the NDI might be seen as bringing this out with particular clarity. To a large degree the Union remains built on compartmentalised thinking: the tree pillars, the sectored DCs and the individual programmes devised mainly on regional basis but without engagement in the type of horizontal coordination that would be required by the NDI (Haukkala, 2001:114). In general, it seems that the EU has acquired a significant role in contributing to regionally in the European North but at the same time it remains profoundly challenged by such a development.

Yet the Union has achieved, despite a variety of difficulties, a leading role and Europe's North stands out as an area where subregional co­operation has been taken, over a short period of time, exceptionally far. The development has its ups and downs but the unfolding of intermediate spaces, networking and bottom-up configurations is bound to continue. In a sense, the lack of a coherent policy and the abstention from riding on one logic only are part of the endeavour. Integrating the European North into the Union's normal policies would bring with a number of benefits in terms of clarity, legal status, degree of commitment etc., but it would not suffice and meet the needs of the region itself. The northern 'laboratory' requires and mandates experimentation. It challenges existing institutional, legal, transactional and cultural boundaries within the Union and calls for policies beyond the ordinary. An ability to modify a number of established boundaries - without extending formal membership - would furnish the Union with additional actorness in the sphere of network governance. It would further bolster the ethos underlying the NDI for example in the form of allowing actors external to the EU to participate in various processes in which policies relevant also for the Union itself are being discussed and formed.

In fact, it is possible to argue that network governance has been taken so far in northern Europe that the various boundaries, limitations and constraints also within the EU itself have turned clearly visible. A variety of contradictions and paradoxes stand out. The requirement for success is often - and this comes out with particular clarity in the dealings with Russia and Russia's North-western regions - that there exists an ability to compromise and go beyond departures that are a 'must' seen from the perspective of the EU's standard policies. Without such ability there would be no true dialogue, an encounter between equals, or a subregional form of multilevel governance in any other form than one strictly subordinated to the EU's leadership. The division between policy-making and policy-taking prevails if the EU's only approach would consist of formulating programmes of its own. In some ways, it would be rather tempting to apply to the North the programmes similar to those pursued in the Mediterranean and in the context of the Barcelona process. They would for many observers make more sense than the NDI, an initiative plagued by considerable vagueness.

Yet it is obvious that resorting to a more ordinary strategy would bring with it standardisation, a weakening of a multilevel approach and perhaps also loosing touch with a broad variety of non-governmental actors. It would constitute a projection of pre-set policies and demands of homogeneity placed upon actors and spheres not yet within the EU's domain. This is to say that the lack of coherent policies also has its positive sides. The Union stands to benefit from that it is not perceived as an ordinary political actor and a regional 'major power1 furnished with a ready-made set of interests and policies but one that is more in tune with the special requirements of Europe's North. The 'fuzzy' features of the region may be conducive to the pursuing of a flexible form of integration that allows the application of different policies in different regions, including the transcending of important boundaries by allowing for solutions that are more than association but less than membership applied in a region-specific context. This goes against a modern logic calling for clarity, harmony and unambiguous co-ordination, but it is perhaps precisely this modern logic that has to be dethroned also in sorting out the paradoxes of the EU's policies to the North and in the context of the NDI. The approaching enlargement may imply that the position of regionality is in general strengthened within the Union, and that would in turn imply the Europe's North gains feature's of a region from which to learn about mistakes as well as achievements on the road towards a kind of Europe of 'Olympic Rings'.

It is in any case obvious that the spatial markers defining Europeanness have been blurred. They have turned more dispersed than previously and even peripheral actors seem to be able insert some influence. In addition to two previously dominant markers of the East and the West, space has been opened up for a third one. Markers of space such a northernness are no longer centrally controlled. They are not as strictly predefined as before. It seems that there is no single, dominant authority legitimised to 'draw' the map - or to propose a check-list of criteria that will assure entry into 'Europe'.

Instead there appears to be a miscellaneous polyphony in respect to the "northern sphere" (cf. Jukarainen, 1999). This constitutes the opening that Finland has utilised in launching its Northern Dimension initiative, an opening which also bolsters the position of Russia in allowing to join in, if it so wants, as one of the voices part-taking in the dialogue that frames the post-Cold War Europe. In addition to consolidating its position in the post-Cold War context, Russia is offered the option of contributing and getting engaged in the forging of an increasingly regionality-based politico-economic landscape. This has not been easy, taking into account that Russia has for some time viewed such processes with suspicion. The reading has sometimes been that such endeavours are there to further marginalise Russia's influence and stir difficulties in the relationship between the core and the more peripheral areas. However, more recently a more positive approach to regional co-operation has become *****ssia has been able to coin at least some initiatives of its own, and has in general turned into a subject with a variety of views and positions. It clearly endeavours at being engaged and • not excluded from the current that essentially influence the new Europe.

It has turned evident, within that context, that staying with the promise of the EU not to create new borders but to knock down the existing ones, constitutes a rather demanding task. The 'partnership' outlined within the NDI has not been as extensive as it initially sounded, although the initiative operates mainly in an inclusive manner. The previous bifurcated discourse casting the North as something quite different than - and perhaps even opposite to - 'Europe' has by and large come to a halt. Both the concepts of 'North' and 'Europe' are in the midst of considerable change. They have been imbued, in the more recent discourse, with new meanings. Northernness seems - due to a conceptual metamorphosis - to expand, assume a more autonomous position and increase in political relevance as a signifier of 'Europe'.

In being de-bordered, the North may reach beyond its previous boundaries. It may acquire new meanings and turn less entrenched. The dominant images pertain to connectedness rather than isolation. It does not shrink and turn into a image of the more central areas - as might be expected on the basis modernity conquering and covering ever larger parts - but expands by regaining lost ground. It is hence something rather difficult to discipline and co-opt. Images of the North are not just coloured by the short summers and darkness, i. e. some negativities if the conditions are to be compared with those prevailing at the more southern latitudes, but also by long winters with plenty of snow. It is these deviants and somewhat undefined features that now often attract interest and may even invite a positive reading. Being linked to northernness carries with it the promise that there might still be something adventurous, unexplored and new to be discovered also within the EU and Europe itself.