Investigate why the EU has not been able to use membership conditionality to achieve all the desired outcomes from candidate countries before accession.
1. INTRODUCTION The EU (European Union), as the most important civilian power in the world, uses its power of attraction in order to transform the European political societies. The EU’s main target is to provide and develop the political and economic conditions for prosperity, democracy, security and economic growth. The collapse of communism in 1989 created the necessity for growing and efficient political actions. However, the political and economic gap between the former communist CEEC’s (Central and Eastern European Countries) and the member states was significant. The above statement produced increasing anxieties between the member states, which affected the aid programmes and later the enlargement process directly. From the early established relations between the EU and the CMEA (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) and the Phare Programme to the Europe Agreements, the assistance was grounded on conditionality. However, the CEEC’s desires were not only based on financial assi