European Political Economy Review ISSN 1742-5697 No. 9 (Autumn 2009), pp. 5-23. www.eper.org Discursive Constructions of the EU’s Identity in the Neighbourhood: An Equal Among Equals or the Power Centre? Petr Kratochvíl* Abstract 1 Using critical discourse analysis, this article explores the discursive self-representations of the EU in its official documents related to the European Neighbourhood Policy. Its main claim is that the EU’s position towards its neighbourhood basically oscillates be- tween two contradictory positions – that of a power centre, asym- metrically dominating its neighbourhood, and that of an equal among equals, thus offering a more benign face to its neighbours. Two discursive areas frequently mentioned in the documents are analysed: the notion of joint ownership and the EU’s stance to- wards the frozen conflict, showing that each of the two facets of EU’s identity may become dominant under particular circum- stances. Keywords: EU, European Neighbourhood Policy, critical dis- course analysis, identity constructions. * Petr Kratochvíl, Ph.D. is the Deputy Director of the Institute of International Relation (IIR) in Prague, Czech Republic. “This publication is financed by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (re- search grant no. 407/08/1741, Social Constructivism and the EU´s External Re- lations: The European Neighbourhood Policy)” 1 A similar contribution was already published in: Delcour Laure, Tulmets Elsa, Pioneer Europe? Testing EU Foreign Policy in the Neighbourhood, Baden- Baden, Nomos, 2008. I thank Nomos for authorising me to publish it as a jour- nal article.