Poli 733: European Integration

Since its inception after World War II, the European Community has consistently promoted the values of political and economic stabilization in Europe. After decades of deeper and wider integration, the goal of stabilizing the European region has grown in importance as the region has expanded. In 1993, the European Community became the European Union (EU), and it has since increased its membership extensively. Following recent waves of enlargement, the EU has come to realize that its new territorial boundaries present a range of complex geopolitical relations. In order to spread European values in its neighboring region, the EU offers economic incentives to a “privileged partnership, ” through the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP). Established in 2004, the ENP is a democratization tool of the EU with the goal of “avoiding the emergence of new dividing lines between the enlarged EU and [its] neighbors and instead strengthening the prosperity, stability and security of all ” (Europa Online, 2011). The goal of this paper is to dissect a new feature of the neighborhood policy, the “advanced status ” program, which was established in 2008. The paper is divided into two parts: the first part explores both the background of the ENP and its “advanced status” program, then applies European integration theories to explain the development of the policy. The second part uses EU-Moroccan relations as an example of this program in practice. This part briefly reviews Morocco’s history with the EU through the present, and follows with an analysis of the application and the effectiveness of the “advanced status ” program in Morocco. The status was given first only to Morocco, as a sign of the EU’s close relationship with the North African nation. However, it has since been extended to Jordan, and has also been considered in Israel (negotiations postponed in 2009), Egypt and Tunisia (both still under negotiation) (El Fegiery, 2010). Althoug