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 assistance but mainly on the prospect of membership. As a result, the Copenhagen European Council in 1993 ratified, for the first time explicitly, the EU’s membership conditions. The adoption and implementation of the acquis communautaire was further supported from the initiation of the pre-accession strategy and the Agenda 2000. As Smith (2005, p. 279) states ‘the EU criticised domestic political processes and outcomes, and foreign policy choices, and expressed strong preferences for particular changes. Conditionality was used to lay the basis for European security before enlargement’. This essay will begin by introducing the causes for the development of membership conditionality. It will then go on to the analysis of the development of membership conditionality. The third section will analyze why and under which conditions membership conditionality is not an effective European tool. Finally, it will draw the most important conclusion. As a consequence, this essay will focus on the issue of membership conditionality by noting that even though ‘membership conditionality is the EU’s most powerful foreign policy instrument’ (Smith 2005, p. 279) its nature, substance and practical implementation has many disadvantages that undermine its effectiveness.

2. CAUSES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF MEMBERSHIP CONDITIONALITY.

The EU is a unique international organization with special and complicated institutions. All of the twenty seven member states have agreed to transfer important elements of their sovereignty to a more supranational level. Thereby, a single system of shared interests and values has been created; a system that affects any internal and external action of the EU. In fact, the member states are anxious not only for the protection of the EU’s institutional framework and function but also for their own priorities. As a result, when a new state announces that it aspires to become part of the EU, political disputes and bargaining between the member states begin at the same time.

According to Avery (2008, p. 180) conditionality ‘means that accession is conditional on fulfilling the criteria for membership’. Furthermore, Spendzharova (2003) states that membership conditionality is one of the most important salient mechanisms that the EU uses in order to affect the prospective member states. However, this is not to say that the EU’s conditionality can be taken as it is (Hughes, Sasse and Gordon, 2004) because as they state ‘conditionality should not be analysed as a constant factor of causation but rather as a process where its strength and weakness oscillate on a case by case basis’ (Hughes Sasse and Gordon 2004, p. 548).

Membership conditionality is a formal way to protect not only the single and unique European framework but also the special national interests. The European Commission (1992, p. 14) notes that ‘the capacity of the community to take decision merits the most careful reflection and evaluation. […] to proceed to enlargement in a way which reduces its effectiveness would be an error’. As Smith (2003, p. 106) states, ‘membership conditions are a way to protect the club’s basic values and interests from a radical change brought on by membership expansion’. Moreover, membership conditionality can be a sophisticated model for state transformation because each candidate country must accept and delegate the membership conditions to its legislation. The continuous growth of the EU diffuses the ‘model of ensuring peace and security via economic and political integration’ (Smith 2003, p. 107).

Following the aforementioned discussion, membership conditionality can be seen as a pattern of foreign policy instrument. Additionally, membership conditionality is a powerful instrument of political parties’ transformation in candidate countries (Vachudova, 2008). Although it can be said that membership conditionality is a geographically limited foreign policy instrument, in fact, membership conditionality ‘is both an indication of, and a contributing factor to, a more cohesive and assertive international role for the EU’ (Smith 2003, p. 109). The EU uses its power of attraction to promote its foreign policy goals throughout the world and membership conditionality is indeed the most powerful and simultaneously its most successful tool for accomplishing its ambition.

3. THE DEVELOPMENT OF MEMBERSHIP CONDITIONALITY.

From the very beginning the eligibility for membership was an issue but inter alia was an easy matter. As the article 237 of the treaty of Rome famously states, ‘any European state may apply to become member of the Community’. Thus, European identity was the only efficient and sufficient condition for membership. During 1970s, political transformations in South Europe generated the necessity for more explicit membership rules. The Greek, Spanish, and Portuguese transition from authoritarian to democratic regimes compelled the European Council to proclaim two more conditions for a successful membership. As a result, representative democracy and human rights became formal criteria for membership. This is not to say that the economic and administrative competences of the three countries were of minor importance but that the political conditions were preponderated to membership conditions.

The enlargement of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and Central and East European Countries, generated the need for even more strict and explicit membership conditions. In 1992, the Commission declared that ‘the applicant countries had to accept the Community system, the acquis communautaire, and be able to implement it’ (Smith 2003, p. 112). Thus, in 1993 the Copenhagen European Council sanctioned three criteria for membership based on the functioning market economy, the stability of institutions and the ability to take on obligations, for the first time. Furthermore, the membership was constrained by the so-called absorption capacity. It is clear that as Vachudova (2007 p.109) states ‘Gradually the EU’s pre-accession process brought potent if uneven conditionality and socialization to bear on domestic policy making in a growing number of candidate countries’.

According to the article 49 and 6 of the Amsterdam Treaty any country that respected the principles of liberty, democracy, human rights, freedoms, and the rules of the law, may become a member of the EU. In addition to this, the condition of good neighbourliness can be identified in Agenda 2000 and in Copenhagen European Council. It can be said that after 2004 and 2007 enlargement of the EU, the remaining candidate and potential candidate countries confront tougher conditions for membership than previous countries (Lavenex and Schimmelfennig, 2009). Furthermore, it can also be said that the membership criteria have become harder as the membership applications increased and third countries desire to improve their ties with the EU (Schimmelfennig, Engert, Knobel, 2005). This can easily be observed from the aforementioned decisions before and after the decision for enlargement.

4. WHY THE EU’S MEMBERSHIP CONDITIONALITY IS NOT FULLY EFFECTIVE.

As an international organization, the EU has unique characteristics. One of them is the acquis and the implied membership conditionality. Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005, p. 28) state that ‘the influence of the EU depends crucially on the context in which the EU uses its incentives’. According to Smith (2003, p. 114) ‘implementing the acquis is crucial for the smooth operation of the Union. Also, the extent of the acquis is one of the most distinguishing features of the Union, which clearly sets it apart from other international organizations’. However, even if the membership conditionality explicitly refers to the Union’s treaties, membership conditionality lacks clarification and classification. For Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005, p. 3) conditionality ‘is often used rather loosely in accounts of the EU’s influence on the CEEC’s, without clear analytical specification what it entails and under what conditions it has an impact’. As Smith (2003, p. 115) states ‘Not only did the Copenhagen European Council resist prioritizing the membership conditions, it also left the content of the conditions quite vague’. Hughes, Sasse and Gordon (2004, p. 547) acknowledge that ‘conditionality [...] has been highly in its intent and limited in its effect’. The vague content of economic and political membership conditions is one reason why the EU is not able to use membership conditionality to achieve all the desired outcomes. Thus, many times there are unclear questions about how membership conditionality works, about the categorisation and the hierarchy of the tasks, and the entailed satisfaction. Moreover, the EU has not created a unique model of governance for the promotion of its foreign policy goals and priorities. This nonexistent model undermines the effectiveness, legitimization and consolidation of the membership conditionality. It is clear that the lack of a ‘single model of governance to export its own diversity can undermine its efforts to export a single model of governance’ (Grabbe 2005, p. 78).

Furthermore, the political elites point out that the economic and political criteria for membership and the acquis have not been defined objectively (Krok-Paszkowska and Zielonka 2000). In addition, it can be argued that membership conditionality does not entail the good transposition, implementation and enforcement of the 85,000 pages of the acquis to the national laws. As Smith (2003, p.117) states ‘Determining whether the acquis is being implemented and enforced, however, is even more difficult: the key criterion is having the administrative and judicial capacity to apply it’. It is obvious that the aforementioned statement clearly proves that the candidate countries may be not able to cope with the membership conditions. The ‘size of domestic political costs for the target government’ which is associated with ‘the security and integrity of the state, the government’s domestic power base, and its core political practices for power preservation’ can be a significant reason why the EU is not able to achieve all of the desired outcomes (Schimmelfennig, Engert, and Knobel 2005, p. 29). Johnson (2008, p. 827) argues that the above statement caused the ‘smaller new member states into pacesetters’. In fact, the association of high EU credibility and low governmental adoption cost is a major reason for a successful conditionality (Schimmelfennig, Engert and Knobel, 2005). According to them membership conditionality is the most important material bargaining mechanism which provides compliance in candidate countries, with weak electoral systems and societies (Schimmelfennig, Engert and Knobel, 2003). As Schimmelfennig (2008, p. 919) states ‘When the political costs of compliance are high for the target government, that is, when fulfilling EU conditions threatens the survival of the regime or government, even credible membership incentives prove ineffective’.

Additionally, it can be argued that the EU is not able to use membership conditionality to achieve all the desired outcomes because the questions about European identity and the EU’s limits have not been clearly answered. The lack of the above has created different perceptions and policies for each candidate country. This is more observable in the case of Turkey which has been confronted unevenly (Smith, 2003). As Schimmelfennig (2008, p. 933) states ‘its effectiveness, however, is weakened by the legacy of ethnic conflict that bedevils most remaining eligible non-member countries and increases the domestic political costs of compliance’. Besides, Smith (2003) acknowledges the existence of the double standards among the member states especially in minority rights. Also, Mattli and Plumper (2005) believe that differences between the leaders in democratic or less democratic countries and interests groups, may affect the effectiveness of the reforms. As they note ‘leaders in more democratic countries had a strong incentive to implement politically costly and protracted institution building reforms’ (Mattli and Plumper, 2005, p. 71). Moreover, it can be said that geographic approximation between the EU and the candidate and potential candidate countries can be an important factor for the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the enlargement (Kopstein and Reilly, 2000). It is clear that the aforementioned inequalities and conditions negatively affect the EU’s use of membership conditionality and its legitimization.

In addition, in the case of CEEC’s the candidate countries ‘have been virtually unable to voice objections to the conditions, and that applicant state preferences have been consistently marginalised’ (Smith 2003, p. 119). The EU’s preferential enforcement has resulted opposite effects to the candidate countries. As Zielonka (2001, p. 513) notes ‘European laws and standards are formally adopted, but in practise they are often either ignored or implemented in an opaque manner’. Therefore, as a result, the EU is unable to use membership conditionality to achieve all the desired outcomes from the candidate countries both because the candidates are reluctant to accept the imposing preferences and since the rules are implemented in a wrong way.

Furthermore, it can be argued that in many cases membership conditionality includes many contradictory elements that affect its effectiveness. As Johnson (2008, p. 828) states ‘While membership conditionality pushed applicant states to exert maximum efforts to meet the criteria, in these cases euro-zone conditionality had the opposite effect’. Epstein (2008) points out the subjective quality and the material implications of membership incentives, as he notes ‘the very same actors who reject conditionality in one period may comply with it in the next, not because their political position has changed but because the social context has’ (Epstein 2008, p. 884). Finally, Hughes and Sasse (2003, p. 30) point out that many elements of membership conditionality like the EU’s reports were designed ‘less to promote EU norms and evaluate their implementation, but rather was more of process-oriented, that emphasized progress at all costs’. As a result, because conditionality affects candidate countries in a contradictory way, the political implementations have a subjective nature and some important elements of their function have been designed in a wrong orientation, and so the EU is not able to achieve all the desired outcomes from candidate countries before accession.

Besides, the EU cannot achieve all the desired outcomes from membership conditionality because many other factors affect the conditionality’s effectiveness directly or indirectly. As Smith (2003, p. 129) ‘Numerous other considerations jostle with the strict application of membership conditionality’. It is clear that there is ‘a high degree of interplay between internal and external factors affecting transitions in Eastern Europe’ (Zielonka 2007, p. 27). In addition, Orenstein (2008, p. 900) believes that for some specific subjects and under some cases ‘persuasion, rather than conditionality can be a powerful mechanism of transformation’. Trauner (2009, p. 775) states that ‘the key challenge for the EU has been to render the conditionality approach credible’. It is clear that many new multi-sided factors and developments in the political arena are able to negatively influence the credibility and effectiveness of membership conditionality.

In addition, Grabbe (2001, p. 1029) argues that ‘the whole accession process has an executive bias because of the structure of negotiations and the fact that EU actors mostly see the process of adopting EU norms as an administrative exercise’. As he states, the EU is not able to use its potential to achieve all the desired outcomes because there is an unchallengeable ‘diffusion of its influence’ and a proved interaction between the different European process (Grabbe 2001, p. 1028). Moreover, Grabbe (2005, p. 90) stresses that ‘the diffuseness of influence and uncertainty of how to implement the acquis legislation’ is a critical condition for an effective membership conditionality. As a result, the infectiveness of membership conditionality is directly resulted from the EU’s complicated external transformation processes and policies which undermine the accession process through uncertainty.

Finally, Smith points out that the EU’s membership conditionality is neither implemented consistently nor without controversies. As she states (2003, p. 120) ‘Beyond the perceptions of the basic fairness of the EU’s membership conditions, it is also important that the EU is perceived to be applying membership conditionality fairly. If conditionality is applied inconsistently it can lose force’ and she continuous that ‘Politics will intervene, which will undoubtedly make the decisions even more controversial. There is plenty of leeway to fudge the application of conditionality’ (Smith 2003, p. 130). It can be said that even though many candidate countries are ‘EU-compliant on paper’, there is a huge gap among the real political conditions and the conditions that are developed in Brussels (Noutcheva, 2006). However, it can also be said that the ‘the EU’s policy in the Western Balkan lacks strong normative justification, which affects the degree of compliance with the EU’s demands on sovereignty-related issues’ (Noutcheva 2009, p. 1066). As a result, the EU is not able to use membership conditionality to achieve all the desired outcomes from candidate countries before accession since its policy towards candidate and potential candidate countries is based on non-normative justifications.

5. CONCLUSION

In conclusion, even though the EU’s membership conditionality is a powerful tool of political and economic transformation and socialization, its effective functioning is not an easy task. As it has already proved, membership conditionality despite its successfulness as a European political tool, has many disadvantages that affect and undermine its efficiency. The main question of ‘How to make most effective use of the incentive of accession to support the consolidation of political reforms’ remains (Sedelmeier 2005, p. 402). Both the EU and the candidate countries should contribute so that a more successful implementation can be achieved. The new candidate and potential candidate countries are harder cases for the EU than the previous countries. Moreover, Turkey seems to be a cornerstone not only for the effectiveness of membership conditionality but also for the enlargement process itself. This is a very important reason for us to believe that membership conditionality should change both in its content and nature. If the EU still needs to have a powerful foreign policy tool, the further modification and clarification of membership conditionality is needed in the future.

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