Eastward Enlargement by the European Union and Transnational Parties
| Published date | 01 July 2002 |
| Date | 01 July 2002 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512102023003004 |
| Author | Giorgia Delsoldato |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Eastward Enlargement by the European Union and
Transnational Parties
GIORGIA DELSOLDATO
ABSTRACT. In this article, the Ostpolitik of European transnational parties
is examined as a “process within the process” of the eastward
enlargement of the European Union. First, the Eastern politics of major
European transnational parties is analyzed within the framework of their
development and institutionalization processes. Then, the European
transnational party-level dimension is examined as part of the
development of party systems and party politics in the postcommunist
candidate countries, with specific references to the EU enlargement
policy and a focus on Central Europe.
Keywords:• Central Europe • EU enlargement • EU institutions •
Euro-parties • Transnational parties
Introduction
The prospective enlargement of the European Union towards the East has made
for a number of important developments in party politics, especially at the
transnational level. European political families have promoted partisan affiliation
in the transition countries of Eastern Europe, where emerging political forces
have been solicitous recipients of Western partisan acknowledgement and
practical assistance. Since the mid-1990s, there has been a division of labour
between European transnational parties (formerly European party federations)1
and party Internationals (inter-state, representative partisan organizations for
political-ideological exchange and dialogue) in their relationships with political
parties in non-member countries. While the European transnational parties have
assumed the management of relationships with sister parties from EU candidate
countries, the party Internationals have dealt with the political parties from non-
candidate countries in Europe.
This article focuses on European transnational parties and their “enlargement”
International Political Science Review (2002), Vol 23, No. 3, 269–289
0192-5121 (2002/07) 23:3, 269–289; 023898 © 2002 International Political Science Association
SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
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towards the East, which is seen as a “process within the process” of Eastward
enlargement. Of primary interest in this discussion are the major European
transnational parties—the European People’s Party (EPP), the Party of European
Socialism (PES), and the European Liberal, Democratic, and Reform Party
(ELDR)—whose ideological characters can each be reasonably associated with
potential member-parties from the current candidate countries.
This transnational party integration process is examined with two main
objectives. The first is to advance the study of European transnational parties in
general; the second is to shed some light on the development of political parties
and party systems in postcommunist candidates to the European Union.
The first hypothesis I advance is that since the earliest elections to the
European Parliament by universal suffrage, the evolving context of the EU’s
Eastward enlargement has provided a most favourable environment for the
institutionalization of European transnational parties. The European trans-
national parties’ progress in achieving institutional growth has been tightly linked
to the EU enlargement process and, more specifically, to their links with the
political forces of EU candidate countries.
Recently, in fact, the European Commission has given increasing attention to
the role of political party integration at the European level since the Maastricht
Treaty. Indeed, it has been presented as the motivation for a new system of
European level party financing in the Commission’s proposal for a Council
regulation on the legal status and financing of European political parties.2But
despite this growing interest, the short- and long-term de facto implications of the
approval of a legal statute and an independent financial regime for European
transnational parties remain fairly ambiguous. For while European transnational
parties and their sister parties in candidate countries seem to have attained some
of their political objectives, the future distribution of the benefits of greater
transnational linkages among the various actors is still open to speculation. That
said, at the Community level “transnational” institutions and practices are more
likely to be interested than intergovernmental bodies and procedures by the
institutional implications of widening transnational party integration at the
national level, instead these are likely to be of greater relevance to the candidate
countries than to current member states.
Ultimately, the purpose in illustrating the current relationships between
European transnational parties and their member parties in postcommunist
countries is to explore the points of convergence, distance, compatibility, diversity,
and even friction within an enlarged EU political system. To these ends, the Central
European countries provide excellent case studies because of their shared
regional area and their advanced status among the postcommunist candidates for
EU accession.
First, I introduce the European party system and European transnational
parties, and then briefly discuss the main approaches in the literature. Second, I
discuss the implications of the Eastward enlargement of European transnational
parties in relation to the EU political system, the framework of EU Eastward
enlargement and, also, in relation to the candidate countries themselves. Finally, I
examine the stages of the EU Eastward enlargement process and the role of
transnational parties in the phases of postcommunist democratization. The role
of party Internationals is also examined since it preceded and affected that of
European transnational parties, sometimes paving the way for, and sometimes
overlapping, with their own activities.
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