The Eastern Enlargement of the European Union

John O'Brennan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781134234394
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In May 2004, eight former communist states in Central and Eastern Europe acceded to the European Union.

This new book examines the Eastern expansion of the EU through a tripartite structure, developing an empirical, conceptual and institutional analysis to provide a rounded and substantive account of EU enlargement, with new theoretical insights. The foreword is by written by Pat Cox, former president of the European Parliament.

John O'Brennan also explores:

• why the EU decided to expand its membership

• 
  
  

• what factors drove this process forward?

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• how did the institutional environment of the EU influence enlargement outcomes?

In this context he comprehensively covers the role of the European Council, Commission and Parliament.

This important volume will of great interest to students and scholars of European politics and European Union studies.

1 Introduction

On 1 May 2004 at a historic, if understated, signing ceremony in Dublin the European Union (EU) formally recognized the accession to the Union of ten new states.¹ These were Cyprus, Malta, and eight Central and Eastern European (CEE) states – the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia – which, for more than forty years, had been cut off from the European integration process by virtue of their geopolitical imprisonment behind the Iron Curtain. The history of European integration had been one of successive and successful enlargement rounds. Indeed, there is some evidence that there existed among the founding fathers an ambition to enlarge to continental scale. For more than three decades after World War Two, the Cold War stood in the way of the realization of that ambition. But with the demise of the Soviet Union and the loosening of its post-war grip on its Central and Eastern European satellite states in the wake of 1989’s so-called ‘geopolitical earthquake’, Jean Monnet’s ambition of a European construction stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals suddenly seemed possible. Thereafter, enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe gradually made its way to the top of the European Union’s political agenda. On 1 May 2004 the ambition was finally realized.

Although most commentators describe the eastern enlargement as the fifth EU enlargement, it would be more correct to describe it as the fourth such expansion. In the process of expanding eastwards the EU has completed a geographic sweep that first embraced western Europe, then the south and north in succession. The first (western) enlargement came in 1973 with the accessions of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom. This was followed by the second (southern or Mediterranean) expansion that saw the accessions of Greece in 1981 and Spain and Portugal in 1986. Although most commentators treat these as separate it is more correct to consider them as part of a single process underpinned by the same structural dynamics. The third (northern or EFTA) enlargement occurred in 1995, with the accessions of Austria, Finland and Sweden. Thus eastern enlargement should be considered the fourth such round of EU expansion and not the fifth.²

The eastern enlargement has frequently been depicted as the culmination of a series of processes that has reunified Europe. This judgement is one that derives from an understanding of Cold War Europe as one of artificial geopolitical division of a previously indivisible civilizational unit, imposed by the strategic competition of the Cold War. It overlooks the fact that previous to the Second World War there existed many different ‘Europes’. At no time could one identify a genuine collective governed by common rules and legal norms. Where particular forms of political unity had emerged that was usually as a result of coercion and territorial aggression and acquisition. In addition, as William Wallace attests, one of the defining characteristics of earlier ‘European projects’ was that, although most started in Western Europe, they usually spread only some way eastwards. This was as true of Immanuel Kant’s perpetual peace plan as it was of the Duc de Sully’s proposals for a European federation in the early sixteenth century. In the nineteenth century Prince Metternich famously proclaimed that ‘Asia begins at the Landstrasse’.³ The idea of a European collectivity binding together western and eastern Europe was not taken seriously, partly because of the divisive structural environment emanating from Great Power rivalries but also because of western perceptions of the east as exotic, inferior and ‘oriental’.

The 2004 accessions are much better understood as part of an ongoing contemporary process, which has created the foundations of a genuinely trans-European political community, built on shared values, reciprocal obligation and institutionalized rule-following. In that sense eastern enlargement constitutes one of the key building blocks of the post-Cold War European integration process. But if in time eastern enlargement is viewed as a critical advance in moving the EU towards genuine political unity, the emerging Europe is a very different entity to those which emerged from previous efforts of European unification. There are four reasons for this.

First, the decisions made by sovereign governments to accede to the EU were voluntary and not coerced. These governments made their decisions on the basis of national interests and perceptions of common or European values, which linked them solidly to each other and to the collective. The decisions of those sovereign governments were then given formal popular sanction through the accession referendums held in each accession state in 2003. Second, the European Union which the CEE states joined is a political community with defined supranational, national, and regional competences and autonomous institutions, which are delegated responsibility by the member states in a range of policy areas deemed to be of common interest. For all of the focus on the putative loss of sovereignty that accompanies entry into the club, member states retain a formidable capacity for independent action.⁴ Third, the EU is also supported by a loose but nevertheless identifiable socioeconomic system, which is highly regulated through supranational legislation and the Union-wide writ of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Finally, the enlarged EU is developing a collective approach to foreign and security policy that increasingly seeks to give expression to the values that underpin the European integration process. Thus the Europe of the early twenty-first century can manifestly be understood as the first voluntarily enacted transnational political community in the history of international politics. And eastern enlargement, facilitating as it has the transfer of EU norms on everything from human rights to environmental legislation, has contributed as much to that process of European unification as any constitutional or political project that preceded it. If a further enlargement to the Balkans helps to embed democracy in modern Europe’s most conflict-prone region then the process of enlargement will in the future stand as the most significant contribution to the pacification and transformation of Europe.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the eastern enlargement was its scale and magnitude, and the transformative effect it has had on the shape of the European Union. From a membership of six countries and 185 million people in the late 1950s, the EU expanded gradually to 15 member states and a population of 375 million people after the 1995 EFTA enlargement. With eastern enlargement the Union expands to 25 member states with a combined population of 450 million.⁵ Nor does this represent the culmination of even the eastern enlargement process. In the latter part of 2004 Bulgaria and Romania completed negotiations for membership and are expected to become members of the EU on 1 January 2007. Croatia is expected to be next to open negotiations with the EU and, although in the course of 2005 there arose significant difficulties that temporarily postponed the opening of negotiations, that country is still widely expected to accede with Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 or soon after.⁶ EU strategy on southeastern Europe has been closely modelled on eastern enlargement and seeks to gradually integrate all of the states of former Yugoslavia including Serbia, for long Europe’s pariah state. The Brussels European Council of December 2004 formally committed the EU to the opening of accession negotiations with Turkey. And with the ‘roses revolution’ in Georgia in 2003 and the ‘orange revolution’ in Ukraine in 2004, the prospect of those countries moving closer to and seeking membership of the EU appeared much closer. So it is clear that the 2004 enlargement, although of great significance for both the EU and the accession states, may end up constituting but the first important part of a much larger process of expansion to eastern and southeastern Europe.

In developing arguments about the nature and content of the eastern enlargement process the book draws upon a variegated literature that expanded in tandem with the political process it sought to depict. In the first place there are the general texts that describe and analyse the main features of and important challenges thrown up by eastern enlargement. Two types of approach in particular stand out. The first includes empirical work that sought to describe the evolution of the enlargement process and the development of EU relations with the CEE states. This literature also includes the contributions of EU insiders such as Graham Avery, Fraser Cameron, and Peter Ludlow.⁷ These books contain valuable accounts of the internal EU deliberation on enlargement and especially the inter-institutional context in which enlargement politics were played out. A second type of general text presented comprehensive studies of important parts of the EU policy process and the likely impact which eastern enlargement would have in specific policy domains.⁸ The number and diversity of these studies increased steadily as the negotiations on eastern enlargement moved toward conclusion.

A second stream of literature analysed eastern enlargement from the perspective of country studies, especially of the candidate states in Central and Eastern Europe. These included consideration of negotiation strategies, domestic enlargement debates, the impact of ‘Europe’ on domestic institutions and institutional choice, and studies of public opinion.⁹ Where some of these studies provided important information and analysis of developments in the candidate countries, increasingly also they sought to engage with ongoing debates in EU studies in different subdisciplines of political science, cultural studies, sociology and economics. On the EU side there were a smaller number of studies, which analysed the implications of enlargement for specific member states, some of a general nature, others focused on specific areas of public policy, élite contestation and public attitudes to enlargement. The question of domestic institutional adaptation and policy choice featured strongly in these studies, especially in those countries where enlargement threatened the privileges of important interest groups.¹⁰

A third important stream of analysis flowed from scholars of economic integration. These studies included a range of macroeconomic analyses of the different ways in which eastern enlargement would impact on key EU policies such as agriculture and structural funding, and others which analysed such issues as investment flows into Central and Eastern Europe and the transnational restructuring of European industry which developed in parallel with the enlargement process. Perhaps the most influential of these contributions was that of Alan Mayhew, whose Recreating Europe analysed the political economy of eastern enlargement and bridged the divide between academic analysis and policy-making.¹¹

A fourth stream of literature examined the constituent elements of EU enlargement policy, highlighting the importance of various capacity-building programmes and compliance strategies employed by the EU in its efforts to transfer its policymaking apparatus and institutional culture to the candidate states. As the enlargement process developed, and measurement of EU ‘successes’ and ‘failures’ became possible, a growing number of scholars sought to analyse the use of various types of conditionality, and especially political conditionality, by the EU. In this respect studies of the application of the Copenhagen criteria within the enlargement process were increasingly foregrounded as scholars sought to determine the extent to which Central and Eastern Europe was becoming (alternatively) ‘Europeanized’, ‘modernized’, and ‘democratized’ through the enlargement process.¹²

Finally, somewhat belatedly a theoretical literature began to develop, which drew on two juxtaposed bodies of thought from the subdiscipline of International Relations (IR), and conceptualized eastern enlargement from those perspectives. In the first place, a rationalist literature grew up around the study of the constitutional and institutional dimensions of the enlargement process. The study of national decision-making and supranational bargaining that accompanied specific aspects of the eastern enlargement framework drew attention to a part of the process which was at least as important as the inside–outside bargaining between the EU and the candidate states.¹³ In addition, scholars sought to determine the likely impact of enlargement on EU decision-making by focusing on changes to the rules governing the use of Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) within the Council and the general costs of institutional adaptation. Perhaps the most important theoretical template for analysing enlargement from a rationalist perspective was Andrew Moravcsik’s The Choice for Europe, which offered a view of the European integration process as one characterized by intergovernmental bargaining and dominated by the powerful economic interests of the larger member states. The Choice for Europe had very little to say about eastern enlargement (or indeed any previous enlargement of the EU), but in other contributions Moravcsik applied his liberal intergovernmentalist framework to argue that enlargement did not fundamentally re-order any of the important features of the integration process and that the EU bargaining which accompanied the enlargement process resulted in typical compromises which protected the structural interests of the larger member states whilst buying off potential losers with compensatory ‘side payments’.¹⁴

The second strand of theoretical literature developed around the importance of identity, norms, and social interaction within the eastern enlargement process. This literature, although itself increasingly diverse, sought to highlight the normative importance of different features of the process, and especially the transposition of EU values and identity on to Central and Eastern Europe. One school of thought focused on EU motivations deriving from a sense of historical obligation, such as ‘uniting Europe’, or ‘undoing the historical injury wrought on the CEE states at Yalta’.¹⁵ Another approach analysed eastern enlargement from different identity perspectives.¹⁶ A final stream focused on the content and role of norms and normative transposition within the enlargement process.¹⁷ Where rationalist scholars highlighted so-called ‘logics of consequentiality’ which allegedly governed enlargement decision-making, sociologically-grounded scholars instead argued for ‘logics of appropriateness’ as the key cognitive templates which informed and guided the behaviour of decision-makers. This disciplinary clash was both a product of and contributed significantly to the rationalist/constructivist divide which had come to define a large part of the academic conversation on EU public policy-making.

This book contributes to that debate in a number of ways. First it embeds the evolution of the eastern enlargement process in both conceptual and institutional analysis. The focus is exclusively on the internal EU dimension, on the deliberation and decision-making process, and how enlargement unfolded from the new dawn of 1989 through to accession day on 1 May 2004. Second, the narrative that runs through the book is a normative one. Its main claim is that normative and ideational factors rooted in issues of identity, norms and values drove the eastern enlargement process forward and proved decisive in determining its content and form. The EU used the eastern enlargement process as the main instrument supporting its efforts to ‘democratize’ and ‘Europeanize’ Central and Eastern Europe and transform the geopolitics of Europe. Notwithstanding the criticisms of those who point to the flawed fabric of democratic practice in many of the existing member states, and those on the CEE side who rightly point out that the democratic revolutions in CEE were local and spontaneous, it is clear that a successful transition to EU democratic norms, involving the entire reconstitution of political life in the candidate states, was the major objective of EU policy. This is of a pattern in that democracy promotion has ‘gone mainstream’ not just in EU practice but on a global level, over the past two decades, with the UN, the OSCE, innumerable NGOs and even the World Bank and IMF vigorously promoting best democratic practice in their activities.¹⁸ It is in and through the EU, however, that the most explicit forms of democracy promotion are pursued. And nowhere more than in the eastern enlargement process has that desire to effect positive and society-enhancing democratization been as vigorously championed as by the European Union.

The norms which the book focuses on as decisive in shaping the eastern enlargement are not all exclusive to the European Union. Indeed, many are universal in their scope. But the European integration process has encouraged the development of a specific norm set that has seen the salience of these norms increase in the member states over time. The norms of reciprocity, multilateralism, respect for fundamental freedoms and minority rights, and transparency of administrative, judicial, and political institutions are now firmly rooted in both the domestic legal systems of the member states and the cognitive templates that guide decision-makers. In fact these norms are so deeply embedded that they have a ‘taken for granted’ quality about them. And although one of the most important debates occupying scholars of EU studies in the current period is that which focuses on the diffusion, interpretation, penetration and resonance of these norms within individual member states, it seems clear that the EU sought to use as many and as varied a range of instruments as possible within the framework of its eastern enlargement process so as to ensure the successful transposition of these norms in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe.

The EU’s attachment to its political norms was highlighted again and again in the course of the eastern enlargement process. Indeed it seems clear now that while the Union was prepared to overlook deficiencies in the economic preparedness of candidate states it would not do so with respect to the political criteria for membership. This was especially evident in the case of negotiations with Bulgaria and Romania and even more so in the decision to open negotiations with Turkey. The norms of transparency of democratic institutions and fundamental freedoms for all took precedence over those of market capitalism in every case. That is because these norms most cogently represent what the European Union is in the international political system – a transnational pluralistic security community, founded on the principles of peaceable interstate relations, and dedicated to institutionalizing both market relations and political problem-solving among its member states.

In outlining how the eastern enlargement came on to the EU agenda, and thereafter how the contours of EU policy developed, the book does three things. First, it examines the evolution and unfolding of the eastern enlargement process, beginning with the heady days of peaceful revolution in 1989 and ending with the historic signing ceremony at Aras an Úachtaraan in Dublin on 1 May 2004. In future years historians will no doubt provide a large range of narratives, which will, of course, much more fully and satisfactorily explain the events, people and processes at the heart of the enlargement story. The pol...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Tables
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• Part I: The Unfolding of Eastern Enlargement 1989–2004
• Part II: The Institutional Dimension of Eastern Enlargement
• Part III: Conceptualizing Eastern Enlargement
• Notes
• Bibliography