Policy Adaptation from the Enlargement to the Neighbourhood Policy: A Way to Improve the EU's External Capabilities?

This article argues that the experience of the Eastern enlargement of the European Union (policy ideas, philosophy, new policy mode inspired by the open method of coordination and assistance policy) represented a basis to launch the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in 2003. In showing that the ENP corresponds to a process of adaptation of the EU’s internal policies to the external context, via the experience of enlargement, sheds new light on the debate over the nature of the EU’s external power and capabilities on an international stage.