The process of EU enlargement towards south-eastern Europe: current challenges and perspectives (original) (raw)
Prospects for Further (South) Eastern EU Enlargement: from Divergence to Convergence?
2003
This paper looks at the experience of South East Europe which -- for the purposes of this paper -- includes the former states of Yugoslavia except for Slovenia (i.e. Croatia, Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia), Albania, and the two EU candidate countries, Bulgaria and Romania. For all these economies, accession to the EU will be the overriding driving force of the policy-making agenda for the foreseeable future, albeit with widely different time horizons in the individual economies. In Part One we describe the South East European (SEE) 'region' as one which has over the 1990s significantly 'fallen behind' in the process of economic development relative to the group of Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies which will join the EU in 2004. While developments are somewhat heterogeneous, there is, in particular, an abysmal employment record which has not even started to turn around, as well as an extremely bad productivity and export performa...
Two steps forward one step back: what shapes the process of EU enlargement in South-Eastern Europe?
Journal of European Integration, 2016
Which factors shape the process of EU enlargement in South-Eastern Europe? This question continues to be a puzzling subject of scholarly debate. A set of hypotheses can be derived from current literature on EU enlargement. Broadly speaking, these hypotheses fall into two general categories: internal and external factors. Building on these factors, the analysis elaborates on the idea of different paths of EU enlargement, adopting a qualitative comparative perspective. More specifically, the study applies fuzzy-set QCA to eight candidate states from South-Eastern Europe. The results show that the factor of political transformation is a necessary condition for EU enlargement in South-Eastern Europe. However, political transformation is not individually sufficient for the outcome of enlargement, but only in conjunction with other factors. The results also demonstrate that what explains the lack of enlargement process is not automatically the negation of the conditions that explain progress in enlargement.
Prospects for Further (South) Eastern EU Enlargement: Form Divergence to Convergence?
2003
This paper looks at the experience of South East Europe which – for the purposes of this paper – includes the former states of Yugoslavia except for Slovenia (i.e. Croatia, Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia), Albania, and the two EU candidate countries, Bulgaria and Romania. For all these economies, accession to the EU will be the overriding driving force of the
The European Union’s Enlargement Prospects: a Viable Project or an Abandoned Idea?
The Future of the European Union, eds. Konstanty Adam Wojtaszczyk, Tadeusz Wallas, Paweł Stawarz, 2023
The purpose of this chapter is to assess the prospects for continuing the processes of expanding the membership of the European Union. For this purpose, the basic reasons why the EU's membership is so attractive to many countries were indicated first. The course of previous enlargements has also been outlined, including in particular the great enlargement to the East in 2004-2013. Then, an analysis of the current situation was made, presenting the basic conditions and positions on the idea of further enlargement presented, on the one hand, by the EU itself, and on the other-by the countries currently aspiring to membership. This required the characterization of two groups of such countries, located in the broadly understood areas of Eastern Europe and the Balkans (focusing on case studies of Ukraine and Turkey). All this made it possible to indicate the general prospects for further enlargement of the European Union.
The Past, Present, and Future of EU Enlargement
From the founding days of the European Coal and Steel Community ("ECSC') in 1952, European integration has been designed as an open access model. At least in principle, every European State has the right to join. And in spite of the somewhat mixed reviews the European Union (EU) has been getting from its citizens over the years, it has shown a remarkable and sustained attractiveness to those not yet among its members. The main reason is, undoubtedly, that the EU has been successful in its primary mission, namely to bring peace and prosperity to a continent that was regularly torn apart by violent conflict ever since historic records exist. At first, only Western Europe was able to benefit but right when the impact of European integration on peace and prosperity in the region was beginning to be taken for granted, the challenge of expanding the mission to all of Europe presented itself. As we all know, the EU has meanwhile grown from 6 Western founding members to 28 current members and now encompasses virtually the entire geographic range of Europe. One additional country managed to sneak in through the backdoor without a formal accession procedure. Only two countries, Norway and Switzerland, have ever decided against accession, and only one territory, Greenland, has ever decided to leave the EU. No fewer than eight more countries are right now at various stages of accession preparation, and several more may yet decide to apply. Thus, enlargement is an ongoing story and the map of the EU will still be re-drawn several more times before its final borders can be determined. At the same time, the procedure for accession negotiations is regulated only in very superficial terms, which have remained largely unchanged over time. Yet, the procedure has evolved considerably in practice. As always, when the law on a particular question provides only a basic framework, the discretionary powers of those who apply the law greatly increase. The Council and the Commission have not shied away from making use of those discretionary powers. It is the purpose of the present article to show how individual Member States, or rather individual leaders of those Member States, via the unanimity requirement in the Council, were able to impose their views on enlargement in the early years. Secondly, we will show that this power has shifted noticeably to the Commission as the number of Member States has grown. Nevertheless, strong individual leaders in the Member States can still put their mark on the timetable and conditions of enlargement. There just seem to be fewer of those distinguished leaders today. Thirdly, we try to predict the use of discretionary powers in ongoing and future accession negotiations. To that end, we analyze how accession negotiations were conducted with the Central and Eastern European Countries ("CEECs") which joined in 2004 and 2007, how and why the approach was modified for the negotiations with Croatia, and how and why the strategy is already different again for the next group of countries.
The European Union is making substantial effort to become an increasingly important figure in modern international relations. In order for the European Union to fully function, a proper balance needs to be found between deepening and widening of the European integration process. The EU is starting to highly resemble Kissinger’s model of multispeed Europe. Two key questions relevant to the integration process have been key issues since the Paris Treaty. The first question is what level of integration the EU can achieve without a clearly defined balance of sovereignty between the supranational institutions of the EU and the member-states. The second question is how a supranational institution will function in the complex European political climate. Analysis of relevant macroeconomic indicators such as GDP, expenditure, the level of employment and unemployment will prove that EU accession had an overall positive effect on acceding countries. In the contexts of enlargement policies, a special emphasis is placed on the region of the Western Balkans. It is recommended that taking into account the complex political situation in the region, the European Commission provides more accurate guidelines for the countries of the Western Balkans.
EU Enlargement: From a Success Story to Fatigue
Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi, 2013
This paper examines the prospect of European Union (EU) enlargement as a crucial step in the context of “enlargement fatigue”. It reviews the enlargement process in the post-2000s. From the late 1950 onwards , the idea of European unification has gradually been emphasized by an attempt to bring peace and stability. Between 1957 and 1995, the EU grew from six to fifteen members. The high point of this development was reached in 2004 and 2007, with an inclusion of Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), who had the communist traditions. After a decade of difficult economic and political reforms, the applicant countries finally edged toward centre stage. Since then, the debate has focused on the question of whether enlargement is fundamental to European unity and how far new member states can contribute to European integration and share the Unin’s benefits. The study relies on the key findings from the European Commission and the number of independent studies in this field. The...