Since its inception in 2003/4, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has attracted the interest of many research analysts across a wide spectrum of disciplines. The academic and policy oriented literature has proliferated in many languages, spurred by the dramatic changes in the EU’s Southern and Eastern neighbourhoods and following the 2011 and 2015 official reviews of the ENP. However, there has been no attempt to systematically analyse this vast body of the literature. The added value of the project was in its attempt to review the post-2011 ENP literature (published and grey) that has a strong empirical foundation (evidence-based).
More specifically, this literature review contributed to the existing knowledge at three interconnected levels:
• It provides an assessment of the ways in which the literature conceptualises the effectiveness and coherence;
• It identified the extent to which the literature considers the ENP effective and coherent;
• It identified the factors informing the ENP’s effectiveness and coherence.
Going beyond an analytical contribution to the understanding of the effectiveness and coherence of the ENP,the study added practical value. The assessment of the ENP, which was published in the form of a book and made available online for free downlaoding, could be used:
• To improve the overall effectiveness and coherence of the ENP; and
• To assess and improve the effectiveness and coherence of member states’ contributions to the ENP.
