The European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) aims to develop closer relations between the EU and its neighbouring countries (6 in Eastern Europe and 10 in North Africa and the Middle East). To that end, the ENI evaluation was designed to assess whether ENI was fit for purpose to deliver EU resources towards EU’s external policy, both at the start of the planning period (2014) and currently, and considered the place of ENI –its complementarities and synergies – within the wider set of external financing instruments (EFIs). Together with other independent evaluations of each EFI, the ENI evaluation will feed into the Mid Term Review Report of the EFIs required by the Common Implementing Regulation (CIR) by end December 2017.
The specific objectives of the ENI evaluation were to 1) provide the relevant external relations services of the European Union and the wider public with an independent assessment of the ENI instrument, including complementarities/synergies between ENI and the other EFIs; and 2) to inform the future programming and implementation of the current EFIs, as well as the next generation of the EFIs.
The evaluation used a mixed methods approach blending quantitative and qualitative methods, with a focus on the latter. The main analytical tools consisted of rigorous assessment of documentation (policy documents, evaluations, etc.), statistical information and consultation of stakeholders (via interviews, group consultations, a telephone survey focusing on EU Delegations and the Open Public Consultation- OPC; key issues are additionally addressed by a joint-EFI survey managed by the chapeau contract). Country case studies were prepared for Egypt, Georgia, Lebanon, Tunisia and Ukraine. With the exception of Lebanon, these case studies were backed by short country visits.
The report is available at:
https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/sites/near/files/final_report_eni_evaluation.zip