European Foreign Policy Challenges in the South Caucasus: The Limits of a Normative-Based Geopolitics

Abstract

This article analyses EU relations with the South Caucasus countries, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, within the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). The analysis centers on the interaction between the export of governance models and European norms and the security and geopolitical ambitions of the Union. The central argument states that the security action of the EU, namely in the positive transformation of the armed conflicts in the region, has been limited by a depoliticized approach that the ENP promotes and that would benefit from an approach where the political dimension of the regional stabilization model of the EU would be acknowledged.