Emerging Patterns of EU Membership: Drawing Lessons from Slovakia's First Two Years as a Member State
| Published date | 01 June 2007 |
| Author | Darina Malová,Tim Haughton |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9256.2007.00281.x |
| Date | 01 June 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Research Article |
Research Article
Emerging Patterns of EU Membership:
Drawing Lessons from Slovakia’s First
Two Years as a Member State
Tim Haughton
University of Birmingham
Darina Malová
Comenius University
The 2004 enlargement of the European Union has provided political scientists with 10 additional
cases to examine national preference formation and behaviour in the EU. The first two years of
Slovakia’s membership suggest that while unique historical experiences and size contribute to
explaining Slovakia’s stance on further integration, ideology, powerful societal interests and the
opportunities of membership (as opposed to accession) hold the key. These findings not only feed
into broader debates surrounding preference formation and related theories of European integra-
tion, but also cast light on the behaviour of new Member States following the period shaped by
accession conditionality.
Introduction
What determines a country’s stance on European integration? Scholarly explora-
tions into the national preference formation of Member States have generated a
number of different explanations including unique historical experiences, size,
societal interests and ideology (e.g. Archer and Nugent, 2006; Aspinwall, 2002),
many of which feed into the grand explanatory theories of European integration
(e.g. Moravcsik, 1998). But what of the 10 new Member States which joined the EU
on 1 May 2004? To what extent do these cases provide ammunition for the
adherents or opponents of the different schools of thought?
Two years of EU membership is an insufficient period of time to arrive at definitive
conclusions. Moreover, given Mark Aspinwall’s (2002) and Dionyssis Dimitrako-
polous and Hussein Kassim’s (2004) argument that Intergovernmental Conferences
(IGCs) provide the best indications of countries’ preferences, the lack of an IGC in
the 2004–2006 period would appear to pose problems. The new Member States did
participate in the Convention on the Future of Europe, but at the time they were
still in the process of accession. Nonetheless, an examination of governments’ stated
priorities and behaviour at summits enables preferences, priorities and red lines to
be identified and analysed. Indeed, this point highlights that we need to explore
POLITICS: 2007 VOL 27(2), 69–75
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Political Studies Association
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