Migration, Energy and Good Governance in the EU's Eastern Neighbourhood

The literature on European Union enlargement has identified misfit and membership conditionality as two factors that decisively shape the effectiveness of EU policy transfer to the Central and Eastern European accession countries. Thus, European neighbourhood countries would seem to be less likely cases of EU-induced policy change. Yet, rather than inertia or resistance, we find that European neighbourhood countries comply with some but not with other EU policies. Our essay investigates such policy-specific variation in the compliance patterns of Georgia and Armenia that give rise to differential policy change. Comparing the fight against corruption, migration and energy policy, we argue that policy-specific conditionality and preferential fit are the main factors accounting for the EU's differential policy impact in European neighbourhood countries.