INTRODUCTION TO
EUROPEAN POLITICS
Dr Simona Guerra
simona.guerra@nottingham.ac.uk
EU ENLARGEMENT
 WHAT and WHEN: From 6 to 27
and theories of European Integration
 PERSPECTIVES: What if (MS or CC)
 HOW: Analysing enlargement policy
 HOW: Impact of enlargement
 WHY: Why is the eastward enlargement
different?
most difficult chapters, conditionality
 WHAT NEXT
FROM 6 TO 27
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UK, DK and EI (1973) (NOR)
GR (1981)
POR and SP (1986)
AUT, FIN, SWE (1995) (NOR)
CYP, CZ, EE, HU, LV, LI, MA, PL, SLK,
SLO (2004)
 BG and ROM (2007)
 HRV, MAC, TURK
http://europa.eu/pol/enlarg/index_en.htm
© European Communities: http://europa.eu/abc/maps/index_en.htm
Licensed for REPRODUCTION ONLY: http://europa.eu/geninfo/legal_notices_en.htm
WHY ENLARGEMENT
 UK - (already French rejection in 1962) – Irish
and Danish economies tied to the UK
 GR, POR, SP – consolidation of democracy
(Mediterranean enl.)
 AUT, FIN, SWE – tradition as stable
democracies, no longer ‘bound by the post-war
political settlement’ (EFTA enl.)
 2004/7 -End of historical division (Eastern enl.)
Cini 2007: 421-423
WHY ENLARGEMENT
 Enlargement by groups of states together
 UK – ‘bias to ‘big states’’?; rapid economic growth
between industrialised countries, high rates of growth in the
EC, late 1950s failure of a trade agreement, US pressure
 Mediterranean enl. – out of dictatorship,
consolidation of democracy
 EFTA enl. – more difficult to explain why…
1979 oil crisis and the ‘1992 project’
(economy); end of Cold War (geopolitics)
What can theories explain?
THEORIES AND THE EFTA
ENLARGEMENT
 Sweden as case study – social-democratic
gov’ts rejected membership, social-dem
neo corp. type of state
LI or not? (globalisation pressure?)
 Neo-Gramscian analysis (Bieler 2000,
2002)
 Eastern enlargement and theoretical
debate – ‘return to Europe’ or ‘passive revolution’?
Bache and George 2006: 535-553
PERSPECTIVES
 The enlargement policies of the applicants
(candidate countries, CC)
 The enlargement process of the existing
member states (MS)
 The enlargement policies of the EU
 The impact of enlargement
Bache and George 2006: 538-539
APPLICANTS, MS and the EU
 UK- pol./ec. reasons; MS – political reasons; EU –
acceptance of the acquis communautaire
http://europa.eu/scadplus/glossary/community_acquis_en.htm
 Mediterranean enl. – pol.; MS – stability in southeast Europe; EU – when ec. conditions are not
ideal
 EFTA enl. – ec.?; MS – Germany (Kohl), France
(Mitterand); EU – from EES to EEA, perspective
towards the next enl.
 2004/7 – see debate; MS – Germany (Kohl),
geostrategic, security, economic reasons; EU –
Copenhagen criteria
Bache and George 2006: 535-553
HOW
 Simply agreement between the Six in the first
enlargement, acquis
 Importance of stability over economic reasons
with the Mediterranean enlargement
 Institutional architecture after enlargement –
Council, QMV and size of the Commission
(EFTA)
 Copenhagen criteria – with the Eastern enl.
Bache and George 2006: 535-553
THE EASTERN ENLARGEMENT
 In no previous enlargement have EU applicants been so
far from EU norms, both in terms of their different levels
of economic prosperity and development and the structure
of their economies
 The acquis communitaire
the entire body of European laws, which includes all the
treaties, regulations and directives passed by the
European institutions as well as judgements laid down by
the European Court of Justice
was more complex than ever before as the Single
Market developed and the EU took on additional tasks in
the fields such as economic and monetary union, and
justice and home affairs
THE EASTERN ENLARGEMENT
 The relationship between the EU and the postcommunist candidate states was characterised by a
lack of trust, exemplified by their (unprecedented)
insistence upon the monitoring and verification of
the candidates’ implementation of the acquis
 There was a lack of popular (and in some cases
elite) enthusiasm for EU eastward enlargement in
the existing Member States
THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL
CHAPTERS (and solutions)
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AGRICULTURE
THE BUDGET
REGIONAL AID
ENVIRONMENT
JUSTICE AND HOME AFFAIRS
FREE MOVEMENT OF PERSONS
FREE MOMENT OF CAPITAL
COMPETITION POLICY
Chapter
Main problems
Solution
Agriculture
Extending the existing level of
subsidies to the post-communist
states not possible within the EU
Budget
Extending its current scope would
have been extremely costly but
reducing it might have made some
current beneficiaries into net Budget
contributors.
Phasing in full agricultural subsidies over nine years
Environment
None of the applicant states could
afford to finance all the environment
measures
required
to
achieve
compliance with the acquis.
Giving post-communist states transition periods over some aspects of
the environmental acquis.
Justice and Home Affairs
The member states did not trust the
post-communist states to adequately
control the EU's external frontiers.
Temporarily excluding post-communist states from the ‘Schengen’
zone of free travel across borders.
Free
movement
persons
Political concerns (especially in
Germany and Austria) that Western
labour markets would be flooded by
cheap labour from Eastern Europe.
Allowing existing Member States to deny East Europeans access to
Western labour markets for up to seven years.
Free movement of capital
Sensitivities about the sale of land to
foreigners
in
some
candidate
countries (such as Poland).
Allowing post-communist states to restrict sale of land to foreigners
for up to twelve years.
Competition policy
The EU’s demanded that postcommunist
governments
remove
subsidies to loss making firms.
Giving post-communist states transition periods to phase out state
aids.
The Budget
For post-communist states, the fact
that their governments would have to
pay budget contributions from the
first day of membership while aid
went
to
individuals
or
local
authorities
(and
often
required
matching funding) could have placed
their national budgets under strain
and even meant that they became net
contributors.
Shifting the date of accession to May; moving some money regional
funds into a budget rebate; and giving a guarantee that postcommunist states would not get any less income from the EU in the
first year of membership than in their last year as candidates.
Regional aid
of
Capping the amount of regional aid given to no more than 4% of their
GDP
CONDITIONALITY
 The effectiveness of EU external
governance depends on the initial
conditions of the candidate country
 EU CONDITIONALITY WAS
SUCCESSFUL IN LOCKING-IN
DEMOCRACY (once in?)
AN EXAMPLE:
KOVAC-MECIAR
The most well known dispute is the feud that ran for five
years between Slovak prime minister Vladimir Meciar
and Slovak president Michal Kovac.
They started out as close allies. Kovac was at Meciar’s
side during the long negotiations that led to the breakup
of Czechoslovakia, and he was the last speaker of the
federal parliament. In March 1993, Kovac was elected
the first president of independent Slovakia. Within
months, however, he was arousing Meciar’s displeasure
by refusing two of the prime minister’s nominations
to sensitive government positions: the head of the
security intelligence service, and the privatisation
ministry. Kovac then began to criticise publicly
Meciar’s illiberal style of government, and brokered
the alliance that brought Meciar down in March 1994.
KOVAC-MECIAR cont’ed
From that point onward, Slovakia was ensnared in revenge politics.
Meciar, back in power from the end of 1994, maneuvered repeatedly to
oust the president from office. Since he lacked the three-fifths majority
needed to vote Kovac out, he tried to drive him out by making life
unpleasant:
- slashing the budget for the president’s office,
- attacking him every day through the pro-government media, and
- having his son abducted by the security service.
Kovac, though not a remarkable man by any definition, stood his ground
and served out his term, until March 1998. The Slovak presidency then
remained vacant until direct elections held in the spring of 1999.
 In 1997 Slovakia fails the political criteria
(Helsinki 1999)
ACQUIS CONDITIONALITY
 The key condition for the success of EU
rule transfer is whether the EU sets its
rules as conditions for countries with a
credible membership perspective (once
in?)
 Costs do not provoke the loss of office
(policy areas)
 Salience and timing
WHAT NEXT FOR THE NEW
EU MSs
 Role of ‘policy-makers’ during the accession
negotiations
 ‘Conditionalities’ are not binding as full member
state
 Acquis conditionality could have affected
democratic conditionality – electoral competition
and policy choices (not dependent on the
parties, but on the acquis conditionality)
 Successful at the national level (anchoring
democracy), but undermining them at the
supranational level?
WHAT NEXT FOR THE EU
AND ENLARGEMENT
 ‘Development gap between existing members
and potential candidates has widened’
 ‘Post-enlargement decision-making needs to be
effective’
 ‘Limit to the size of the EU’, where does the EU
end?
 The more the EU expands, the more regional
issues emerge? More inward looking?
Cini 2007: 438