Security
The ENP addresses areas where the EU and its partners can enhance their dialogue and exchange information on foreign and security policy matters on issues including:
- international and regional questions,
- conflict prevention and crisis management and
- common security threats such as terrorism and trans-national organised crime, customs and taxation fraud, nuclear and environmental hazards and communicable diseases.
Domestic measures and intensified bilateral and multilateral actions are indispensable to fighting organised crime. Particular attention is given to drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings, smuggling migrants, fraud, counterfeiting, money laundering and corruption. The ENP offers assistance in the implementation of all relevant international instruments in the field of combating terrorism, notably those developed in the United Nations. The ENP also enhances the cooperation between the EU and neighbourhood countries on judicial and police cooperation. It encourages the development of mutual legal assistance.
Conflict Resolution
Challenging the threats to stability is one of the chief objectives of the political dialogue with ENP partners. A high number of regional conflicts in its neighbourhood undermines EU efforts to promote political reform and economic development. Regional escalation, unmanageable migratory flows, disruption of energy supply and trade routes, the creation of breeding grounds for terrorist and criminal other activity threaten the security of the European Union itself.
With its history of peace and stability through regional integration, the EU can extensively support the efforts of individual states in this region. It tries to make overtures toward stabilisation by way of sustained promotion of democracy, human rights and the rule of law throughout the neighbourhood. Shared values, strong democratic institutions and a common understanding of the need to institutionalise respect for human rights encourage closer and more open dialogue on the European Union’s Common foreign and security policy and the development of the European Security and Defence Policy.
The European Union’s institutional involvement in conflict settlement mechanisms varies widely. It is a full participant in the Quartet (Middle East Peace Process) and it has observer status in the 5+2 negotiations for seeking a solution to the Transnistria problem. The European Commission has observer status in the Joint Control Commission (South Ossetia). Individual member states participate only in the Minsk Group (Nagorno-Karabakh) and the UN Friends of Georgia (Abkhazia).
