EU Relations with European Micro‐States. Happily Ever After?

• Published date: 01 January 2008
• Date: 01 January 2008
• Author: Dániel Dózsa
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0386.2007.00403.x

EU Relations with European Micro-States.

Happily Ever After?

Dániel Dózsa*

Abstract: The last decade has seen the EU striving to bring uniformity into its relations

with its immediate neighbours. Such endeavor has led the EU to adopt the European

Neighbourhood Policy towards countries with no immediate prospects of accession and to

follow more or less similar pre-accession strategies towards candidate and to-be candidate

countries. However, European micro-states (Andorra, Liechtenstein, San Marino and

Monaco—the Vatican not being the subject of this article) have always occupied an

exceptional position in the EU’s web of external relations. This article provides a brief but

concise overview of the international legal framework governing the bilateral relations of

the EU with these small countries. Through the examination of their peculiar historical,

social, geographic and economic attributes, it is argued that the advantages that micro-

states have been able to reap so far from the unique position they enjoy in the EU and the

global economy may not be easily reconcilable in the future with the EU’s ever-increasing

appetite to unify, standardise and harmonise.

I Introduction

The examination of the framework governing the relationship of the EU with the

European micro-states (Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino)1reveals

that EU strategy towards these small non-member countries has not been a one-size-

fits-all policy. Although size has been undeniably a factor taken into account in a

majority of the agreements concluded in the area (for instance the Preamble to the

agreement establishing a customs union between the EEC, on the one hand, and the

Principality of Andorra, on the other, states that ‘[o]wing to geographical...factors,

Andorra’s exceptional situation justifies special arrangements’),2the unique historical

context seems to have been predominant in shaping the bilateral relations between

the Community and the micro-states. Indeed, the history of these states displays a

* Trainee lawyer, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP Budapest. The original version of this article was inspired

by the lecture of Prof Dr Marc Maresceau (Director of the European Institute at the University of Ghent)

held on 21 May 2006 under the auspices of the Honours Programme ‘The European Union and its

Neighbours’, organised by Prof Christophe Hillion at Leiden University, the Netherlands. I would like to

thank Prof Marc Maresceau for his criticism, Prof Harvey Armstrong (Sheffield University) for his help,

and Kornélia Nagy-Koppány for her support. I dedicate this article to her.

1The relations between the State of the Vatican and the EU will not be discussed.

2Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Principality of Andorra [1990]

OJ L374/14.

European Law Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, January 2008, pp. 93–104.

© 2008 The Author

Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK

and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA