When does the EU Make a Difference? Conditionality and the Accession Process in Central and Eastern Europe
| Author | Tim Haughton |
| Published date | 01 May 2007 |
| Date | 01 May 2007 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1478-9299.2007.00130.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
When Does the EU Make a Difference?
Conditionality and the Accession Process in
Central and Eastern Europe
Tim Haughton
University of Birmingham
A number of recent studies examining the accession of states from Central and Eastern Europe into the
European Union have provided a much more sophisticated understanding of when, why and how the EU
shaped, directed and occasionally determined change in the region since 1989. Although acknowledging
the EU was at times a motor of change, its power was limited to particular points in the accession process
and varied significantly across policy areas. Even in cases such as Slovakia, often used to demonstrate the
power of EU conditionality, the influence of the EU on domestic actors and policy change has been
exaggerated. The EU’s ‘transformative power’ is at its greatest when deciding to open accession nego-
tiations, a finding which has implications for the EU’s ability to enact change in Croatia and Turkey.
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has witnessed enormous changes in the past
decade and a half. In addition to the fall of the communist regimes and the triple
transition of democratization, marketization and state-building (Offe, 1991), eight
countries from the region joined the European Union (EU) on 1 May 2004, with
two more scheduled to join in 2007/8.To what extent, however, can we see the
European Union as a key driver of change in the region since 1989? Thanks to
a number of recent studies including books by Grabbe (2006), Hughes et al.
(2004), Jacoby (2004), Kelley (2006), Pridham (2005) and Vachudova (2005) and
a volume edited by Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005), we now have a much
more sophisticated understanding of when, why and how the EU shaped, directed
and occasionally determined change in CEE. Although this article acknowledges
that the EU ensured some specific changes, building on some of the key
arguments made in these accounts and an example of a country (Slovakia) often
thought to demonstrate the impact of EU conditionality, it maintains that the
EU’s ‘transformative power’ (Grabbe, 2006) was limited.
A large slice of the literature exploring change in CEE has employed the concept
of Europeanization (e.g. Grabbe, 2001; Hughes et al., 2004; Schimmelfennig and
Sedelmeier, 2005). Moreover, the term has become flavour of the month for many
scholars writing on European politics more broadly, often to very good effect (e.g.
Bulmer and Lequesne, 2005), although even scholars who employ the term
recognize that it remains undeveloped (e.g. Bache and Jordan, 2006). Indeed,
Europeanization has ‘many faces’, having been used by different scholars in very
different ways, referring, for example, to the internalizing of European values and
policy paradigms at the domestic level, or a process by which domestic policy
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areas become increasingly subject to European policy-making (Olsen, 2002). At
times the term is employed to describe developments, on other occasions to
explain the causal mechanisms of change, and elsewhere the descriptive and
explanatory are blended together.
In terms of explaining changes brought about by the EU in applicant states, Helen
Wallace (2000) introduced a distinction between ‘Europeanization’ and ‘EU-
ization’ (change driven by the demands of EU membership).With a few excep-
tions (e.g. Malová and Haughton, 2002), the latter (admittedly rather inelegant)
concept was not taken up by scholars despite the obvious advantages of disen-
tangling the broader process of replication of what are deemed to be European
norms from the narrower process of changes brought about explicitly by the
demands of EU membership. Indeed, with the notable exception of
Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005), the best accounts of the impact of the
EU on CEE marginalize use of the term ‘Europeanization’, preferring instead to
introduce new terminology into the political science lexicon. Moreover, the very
label ‘Europeanization’ harbours a slice of value-laden superiority when applied
to CEE, implying that territories where such changes or phenomena have not
occurred are somehow less or non-European.This article, therefore, eschews use
of the term Europeanization, preferring instead to examine the impact of
EU-ization on CEE through an examination of the contributions mentioned
above, especially ‘passive’ and ‘active leverage’ (Vachudova, 2005).
Attempting to assess the causal role of the EU in shaping domestic developments
raises significant methodological problems (Haverland, 2006). Unlike our col-
leagues from chemistry, as political scientists we are not afforded the luxury to
isolate and remove individual ingredients and then rerun experiments to see if the
results change.We cannot remove the EU from the equation and rerun the history
of CEE from 1989 to prove or disprove causality. Nonetheless, we can attempt to
disentangle the impact of different variables by studying a variety of countries and
policy areas, and pose the counterfactual as to what would have happened had the
EU not existed.
Recent contributions to the debate vary in their focus and geographical spread.
Whereas, for instance, Milada Anna Vachudova’s (2005) monograph provides an
analysis of developments in six CEE states, incorporating an account of macro-
political trajectories, the behaviour of political actors and policy change, Wade
Jacoby’s (2004) and Judith Kelley’s (2006) books have a narrower focus. The
former is largely an account of policy emulation in the Czech Republic and
Hungary, the latter an examination of minority policy. Common to many of the
accounts, especially Frank Schimmelfennig and Ulrich Sedelmeier’s (2005),
Vachudova’s and Kelley’s, is a recognition that the EU’s impact varied signifi-
cantly over time, thanks in no small part to the incentives on offer.
Indeed, the process of joining the EU can be disaggregated into three stages:
pre-accession, the accession negotiations and, sandwiched between these two,
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Political Studies Review: 2007, 5(2)
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the decision phase when the EU decides whether to open accession negotiations
or not. I argue the EU’s transformative power varied across these phases, being at
its strongest during the decision phase of whether or not to open accession
negotiations. Secondly, the EU’s power varied across issue areas. While in some
areas, such as the single market, the EU demonstrated its power to transform, in
others, such as minority protection, the EU’s power was much more limited,
especially in policy implementation.
Assessing the EU’s ‘Transformative Power’
The ‘transformative power’ of the European Union (and in its previous incarna-
tion the European Community)1 rests largely on what Vachudova (2005) terms its
‘active’ and ‘passive leverage’. Passive leverage refers to the attraction or magnetism
of EU membership, especially the expected economic benefits of joining the
club. Active leverage, in contrast, refers to the criteria for membership, starting
with those laid down at the Copenhagen European Council in 1993. These
include the requirement for states to be democratic, to function according to the
rule of law and to respect minorities, while possessing a functioning market
economy able to withstand the competitive pressures of membership of the single
market and having the ability to take on the obligations of membership including
adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union. These rather
broad conditions were fleshed out at the Madrid European Council in 1995 and
in the numerous Commission reports charting the aspirant states’ progress (or lack
thereof). States wishing to join the EU have to meet the Copenhagen criteria and
then transpose the EU’s body of law (acquis) into their domestic law with no
opt-outs allowed.
At first glance, therefore, the EU seems extremely powerful. Not only did it act
as a powerful magnet in the early post-communist years, it then also acted as a
gatekeeper at a number of points on the path to EU membership, allowing only
those it deemed to have performed the required tasks through the gates. More-
over, there was a clear power asymmetry during the process of accession, when
the accession states of CEE were expected to transpose into domestic law the
80,000 pages of the acquis to a standard acceptable to the Commission and
European Council (a condition which was not necessarily met by the existing
member states). Indeed, the term ‘accession negotiations’ is in many respects a
misnomer, as there was very little left open to negotiation beyond the odd
temporary transitional arrangement (derogation). Nonetheless, this article argues
that the EU’s power was limited to particular points in the accession process and
varied significantly across policy areas.
When Does the EU Make a Difference? The Temporal
Dimension
What political and economic reforms would have been undertaken in the
countries of CEE if the EU had not existed? Would we still have seen the
© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Political Studies Association
Political Studies Review: 2007, 5(2)
236
T I M H AU G H TO N
democratization and marketization that we witnessed in CEE? Although ‘Return
to Europe’ was a prominent clarion...
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