Research Papers

This paper makes a contribution to the reflection on EU relations with its neighbouring countries, focusing on security dynamics. The paper looks at how the EU perceives its two biggest neighbours, Russia and Turkey, and their foreign policies towards the so-called overlapping neighbourhoods. It then tackles the visible impact of these perceptions in the EU’s policies towards three neighbouring regions: the Black Sea, the Middle East and the South Caucasus. Therefore, the paper assumes that the way in which the EU perceives Russian and Turkish “neighbourhood policies” towards these regions is a crucial element in the definition of security relations in the EU’s neighbourhood. The paper uses the constructivist approach to security, especially the concept of securitisation, as the main tool to map these perceptions. Securitisation processes of the neighbourhood will be assessed from a pragmatic securitisation perspective, looking at the role of agents, language and context. By focusing on how the European Neighbourhood Policy’s security dimension comes to be defined, and the role of Russia and Turkey in this process, the paper makes an important contribution to map the triangulation of perceptions, discourses and practices.