Introduction
2. Conditionality and the European Union
The European Union has sharply increased its use of conditionality for future accessions in the late 1990s and early 2000. This change in the EU enlargement strategy pushed several researchers to discuss this new method of adhesion, drafted primarily for Central and Eastern European candidate countries (CEE) (Schmitter, 1999; Dimitrova 2002; Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier 2004; Grabbe 2006). From a theoretical perspective, rationalist institutionalism analyses the importance and the use of conditionality by the EU and underlines the criteria that can enhance its use for future enlargement (Sedelmeier, 2006). This approach suggests that the EU’s pressure on candidate countries changes the opportunity for utility-maximizing of domestic actors (Sedelmeier, 2006). In other words, the EU provides assistance and resources for domestic players – mainly to government and public institutions – to pursue internal changes and thus influence their decision at the national level. The EU make candidate countries accept its rule through the conditionality strategy by providing rewards when respecting the accession criteria.
Therefore, rationalist institutionalism measures the effectiveness of Europeanization and analyses how the EU influences candidate countries at the domestic level to comply with EU rules and norms. More specifically, this approach uses five criteria to analyse the effectiveness of the EU conditionality strategy: the clarity of demands; the credibility of incentives; the bargaining power between the EU and candidate countries; the importance of veto players; and the magnitude of EU’s influence (Sedelmeier, 2006). Such criteria help us to determine how the conditionality strategy is efficient and how the EU can further develop it to increase its influence in candidate countries. However, researchers have shown some scepticism toward this strategy as it wasn’t clear how such criteria could help the accession process to become more optimal. The governance model developed with the EU conditionality is based on incentives and rewards that push candidate countries to implement reforms. Though, if the EU isn’t able to suggest new incentives after the accession, new Member States should slow down or block the implementation of reforms as they won’t have interests in engaging in strict reforms after membership (Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier, 2005).
While the EU focused on respecting the acquis communautaire as part of its previous enlargements, the process of enlarging with the East was much more complicated. Indeed, the acquis conditionality and more importantly the democratic conditionality were two key milestones that the EU had to foster before engaging in negotiations with CEE candidates. As such, the Copenhagen Criteria (1993) set the criteria for accession to ensure an optimal transfer of EU rules in Central and Eastern European Countries (Steunenber, 2007). The Copenhagen criteria for membership were a realistic and accurate design to minimise the risk of new entrants becoming economically and politically unstable after joining the EU. To do so, Member States set four major conditions that each candidate countries had to respect before engaging in negotiations for accession. First, the stability of institutions and respect for democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for minorities were important aspects of the so-called “political conditionality”. Secondly, each candidate country should have a well-structured market economy and the ability to cope with EU competitive market. Another criterion was the importance of complying with the political, economic and monetary Union model to enhance the Europeanization and European Integration. Finally, the acquis communautaire chapters should be closed before engaging in the negotiations for accession. Nevertheless, these criteria were very general as they didn’t incorporate all appropriate conditions for an optimal accession of CEE candidates. As such, the vagueness of some conditions and subjectivity of evaluation of the applicant countries pushed member states to give the European Commission the authority to foster these criteria and manage the implementation of reforms in candidate countries (CHI SOURCE).
As such, the European Commission added numerous conditions related to human rights, horizontal administrative changes, and nuclear safety even if most EU countries didn’t comply with these rules (Source – check Steunenber, 2007). Candidate countries accepted to implement new reforms event if the latter didn’t meet with their political, social and economic situation (Dimitrova, 2016). Failing to fulfil these criteria would have led candidate states to the exclusion or the slow-down of the negotiation process (check book Schimmelfennig, Sedelmeier 2005, LSE, Dimitrova 2016). Therefore, it is straightforward to say that the conditionality strategy adopted for CEE countries emerged from the determination of the EU to regulate its accession process efficiently to reduce the economic, social and political gaps between the Member States and Central and Eastern European candidates. (ajouter critique??)
When analysing the pre-accession process before the big enlargement in 2004, Grabbe (2006) argued that the conditionality strategy was more tightened between 1998 and 2002 for EU candidates. While the Copenhagen criteria were set by the Member States and were very general (Mal dit), the EC managed to progressively tighten the conditions to prepare CEE candidates for the accession. Therefore, the Commission played a significant role in the accession process due to its technocracy and objectiveness toward candidates. The requirements for the EU and the reward and conditions of membership were introduced in the Accession Partnerships in a more explicit way and define the expectations of the EU during the negotiation process. These documents helped candidate countries to understand what the EU conditionality aimed for and how the EU will provide financial aid in the exchange of implementing specific reforms (Grabbe, 2006). By doing this, the EC pushed CEE candidates to prepare active Programmes for the adoption of the criteria while monitoring every year the implementation of the reforms. Moreover, the Accession Partnerships changed priorities of candidates who were previously focusing on general development and political objectives rather than specific regulations for each country. As such, the EU conditionality strategy was better defined, more explicit and clear for CEE candidates. (critique???)
Measuring the magnitude of success or failure of EU conditionality strategy: EU incentives
To push CEE candidates to accept the reforms, the EU created an incentive for these countries to maximise its influence and control the negotiation process. Schimmelfennig et al. (2003 – check Steunenber) describe this incentive model and underline the idea of “reinforcement by reward” as part of the EU conditionality strategy. They suggest that the reinforcement by reward makes the EU offer rewards in the form of financial assistance and EU market access that will further improve the situation of new member states in exchange for implementing new reforms as part of the EU conditionality. The government assumes that the costs of adoption of new reforms are less substantial than the rewards proposed by the EU and therefore, they conform to EU conditions. As candidates joined the EU, most of them managed to cope with the EU acquis and political conditions, increased their security, limited their geopolitical tensions and transferred EU rules to their legislations (Grabbe, 2006).
The adoption costs of EU reforms are an important aspect for measuring the magnitude of success or failure of EU conditionality strategy. Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2005, book) present an interesting approach to the evaluation of the external incentives model of CEE candidates and its impact on conditionality. They suggest that governments are more intended to adopt EU rules and recommendations when the rewards of entering the EU exceed the domestic adoption costs. They assume that the introduction of new reforms and the evaluation of the costs of adoption depend on four criteria. First, the determinacy of conditions which relates to whether or not the EU set the rewards clearly for candidate countries: the likelihood of rule adoption will increase if rewards are stated clearly in the negotiation process and are subject to the implementation of reforms. Second, the size and speed of rewards which concern the temporal distance of the payment of rewards after engaging in reforms: The longer the time and speed of rewards, the less the CEE candidates will comply with reforms. In the case of CEE candidates, rewards have been set quickly and that what explains why the post-accession process of the fifth enlargement was rapid and efficient concerning the implementation of new reforms. Third, the credibility of conditionality where the compliance of candidates with EU rules increases depending on the credibility of conditional threats and promises from the benefits of rewarding. Finally, the number of veto players involved for adoption costs are important in the evaluation of the costs of adoption. However, the authors assume that in the case of CEE candidates, the number of veto players is relatively small and thus have a little effect on government’s decision to adopt EU rules.
The main finding of Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier is that the size of adoption costs and the credibility of conditionality are the two main variables influencing the government’s decision to comply with EU requirements for accession. This conclusion goes in line with our argument regarding the magnitude of success of the EU conditionality strategy during the pre-accession phase. As the EU engaged in the negotiations, the amount of funds allocated for the reforms and the high motivation from CEE candidates to become EU member states were two important factors that provided the EU further influence to lead the negotiation process. Moreover, Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier assume that the likelihood of rule adoption is linked to whether or not the EU made its rules subject to conditionality (same book, 215). For CEECs countries, the most important factor influencing the domestic cost adoption of rules is based on the credibility of the EU to reward rule adoption with membership (source 215cquoi). However, some researchers disagree with this conclusion as it shows one limit of the EU conditionality. For Steunenber and Dimitrova (2007), the EU conditionality strategy becomes inefficient when the EU decide to set the accession date for a candidate country. In other words, when the EU choose to reward an applicant state by setting up the date of membership, this can create problems with the transposition of EU rules and will prevent the candidate state from an optimal implementation of reforms (Steunenber and Dimitrova, 2007).
Temporality of the EU conditionality strategy in Central Europe
The process of EU enlargement with CEE countries stressed the time pressure of the EU to expand its Union and respect its conditionality. Since the opening of negotiations, there was a strong dynamic from candidates to transpose the new reforms and legislation quickly to close the EU acquis chapter of negotiations. With the rewards and advantages seen from joining the EU, CEE countries have set a time constraint in which they had to transpose EU rules rapidly to not left behind by the other candidate countries in the negotiations. In that sense, the EU seemed to have “naturally” constrained candidate countries to respect its conditionality and implement the new reforms as the size of reward was big for most of the candidates and the date of accession was close (source). On the one hand, synchronising the negotiations with CEE countries all at once created a competitive pressure among them, pushed the governments to bargain efficiently with domestic powers, and therefore contributed in implementing the reforms. On the other hand, the asymmetric relationship between CEE candidates and the EU helped to the Europeanization of CEE applicants and to comply with EU rules. (revoir…MD).
However, the time inconsistency of the EU conditionality strategy is more related to the effectiveness of reforms in the long term – post-accession – rather than their implementation in the short term – pre-accession. For some CEE candidates, the EU acquis were well transposed in every administration so that the EC couldn’t oppose their accession. However, some reforms weren’t fully completed or not sufficiently monitored in the long term which created some distortions and difficulties to deal with the rapid growth of the EU. This situation was due to the high level of corruption of some CEE candidates – Romania, the Czech Republic for instance, or their inability to maintain a strong comparative advantage in the EU market and their dependence from the EU funds. The pressure made by the EU to quickly reform each country are the driver of the differences between Western and CEE countries in the EU today. While the countries who already had efficient public administration managed to continue in the reforms, others who were still experiencing a transition phase from the communist power had more difficulty to continue the reforms as their institutions were still weak. As the EU based its conditionality strategy on rewarding each country after transplanting EU rules, the motivation of some countries started to decline due to the limited power of the EC in monitoring the projects after membership. The rapidity of supervision of the projects and respecting the conditionality are both two factors that contributed to the failure of some countries in their further Europeanization after accession. Thus, the time constraint played a barrier for well implementing the reforms and thus contributed to the difficulties raised today with some CEE countries.
An important study that supports our argument was conducted by Tocci (2005) who went further in her analysis and presented more details about the time dimension of conditionality. In her paper, the time inconsistency refers to the fact that the EU wanted to see the results of the reforms in the short and medium term while the benefit – which is the accession to the EU – occurs in the long run. In the case of the 2004 enlargement, the benefits for the EU were in the short term through the implementation of the reforms before accession so that each country will match the EU economic and political model. On the other hand, the CEE candidates had more benefits in the long term after the implementation of reforms and were more focusing in achieving the objectives quickly rather than efficiently. As such, strict and complicated projects were performed quickly – especially in countries with weak public institutions – without sufficiently measuring their effect in the long term.
The short time for the implementation of reforms and the weak EU influence after accession underline the limits of EU conditionality for the 2004 enlargement. With CEE candidates, the time between writing the conditions and the implementation was short and thus explain why new member states couldn’t perform well at the EU level after accession. A contrary example for the time inconsistency would be with the case of Turkey. In this case, the time taken in negotiating the Turkish accession is long which shows to member states some crucial problems linked to the effectiveness of reforms and respect for democracy in Turkey. This raise the question as to whether the EU should set a time constraint to transpose EU rules or not to provide any details regarding the duration of negotiations and thus, the applicant state won’t consider its accession as a reward for implementing the EU recommendations.
Tocci (2005, p.79) presents another limit of EU conditionality strategy which is related to the timing and monitoring capability of the EU regarding the sustainability of the reforms. She argues that the ambiguity and generality regarding the Copenhagen political criteria make the reforms much more complicated to be monitored. This difficulty is due to the characteristics of the political conditionality that are not well-stated as the EU acquis chapter during the negotiations. One solution proposed by the Commission is to continue monitoring the political reforms even after the opening of accession. However, this suggestion doesn’t provide many details on how this solution can strengthen the EU conditionality for future accession. Moreover, having such monitoring can create less incentive for candidates to cope with EU reforms effectively and rapidly. In the case of CEE countries, the rapid time for the negotiations and the weak monitoring of the EC is what created the inconsistency of some policies and the difficulty of Europeanization of CEE candidates.
However, even with the time limit implementing EU rules, the motivation to transpose EU legislative recommendations was an important factor for the success of some political reforms. Most of the 2004 applicant states wanted to comply with the EU political conditionality to engage in a democratisation process and overcome the risk of political instability. The European Commission found that most of its political recommendations were respected which show due to the electoral cycles and the high desire of CEE countries to apply the EU political model. To sum up, the time inconsistency reveals one important limit of the EU conditionality strategy which is related to the post-accession compliance of candidates rather than the pre-accession and respect of membership criteria. The next section will highlight our argument, which is that rapid reforms and EU influence played a prominent role in limiting the effects of EU conditionality.
Case Study: Lithuania and Romania
To underline the limits of EU conditionality strategy after accession, I chose to do a comparative analysis between Lithuania and Romania and assess their compliance to EU rules before and after accession. While Lithuania joined the EU in 2004, Romania, on the other hand, couldn’t access the Union until 2007. Either regarding their geopolitical instability, poor market economy performance or difficulty to implement EU democratic rules, both countries complied to the EU acquis and transposed the EC’s recommendations differently. In 1998, accession negotiations started with the so-called “first group” of candidate countries – Poland, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Cyprus and Hungary – who were performing better than the rest of the countries and were able to engage directly in the process of negotiations with the European Commission. The rest of the candidates – Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Malta and Slovakia – weren’t considered ready to engage in the first phase of negotiations. This distinction is due to the multitude of membership conditions set by the Copenhagen Criteria and accession partnerships that were much more difficult for some countries than others. For instance, Lithuania and Romania had several limits and problems to implement the whole acquis due to the weak institutional structure of the two states who just engaged in the state-building process after the end of the communist power. Another aspect that blocked the negotiations for the second group of countries was the anticorruption criterion that wasn’t stated in membership conditions and blocked several reforms. The Copenhagen criteria helped the EU to distinguish between countries which were much more prepared for accession and others which were highly motivated but had to make much more efforts to transform their economic, social and political systems.
While Lithuania started early reforms and managed to perform well before 2002, Romania was more passive in respecting EU conditionality and was seen by member states as the “laggard” of the EU accession. As Noutcheva and Bechev (2008) pointed out, Romania wasn’t ready at the beginning in engaging in reforms at the same speed as the other applicant states. The country was accused of lacking rhetoric and action in its respect of EU conditionality (Pirdham, 2007). Moreover, the costs of adoption seem for Romania higher than the EU incentives and therefore the country was dependent on EU funds and policy assistance to engage in reforms. Consequently, the EU was no longer satisfied with Romanian passive reforms and the country “was sanctioned by the market and by the exclusion effects of the EU’s conditionality machine” (Noutcheva and Bechev 2008, 119-120). This decision led to the delay of negotiations for Romania that showed less progress in meeting the membership criteria and reforming both its judiciary sector and public administration. Therefore, Romania couldn’t benefit from the “big bang” enlargement in 2004 and was left behind while the EC set the date of accession for the other countries for 2004. This hard decision against Romania pushed political leaders and those for the Europeanization of the country to accelerate the reform and respect EU conditionality. The response to the critics and sanctions made by the EC were rapid and sufficient, and the government have tried to objectively cope with the reforms efficiently and in a short time.
At the same time, Lithuania was already closing its acquis chapter of negotiations and fully prepared to access the EU. After engaging in the negotiations, Lithuania became the best performer regarding the transposition of EU laws (paper Lithuania). It rapidly implemented reforms to reduce corruption, strengthen its economic market, close its nuclear station Ignalina as a proof of compliance with the EU rules and overcame its biggest challenge linked to the agriculture sector. The process of Europeanization of the country was completed, and the public opinion was prepared to join the EU. Even if Lithuania didn’t take part of the negotiations with “the first group” due to its sectoral problems, the country managed to mobilise its resources and political leaders to make use from the fifth enlargement and become a model for the rest of CEE candidate countries before accession. The incentive to join the EU and become a member state was a strong stimulus to ensure the democratisation of Lithuanian institutions and adopt the open market strategy to overcome its economic obstacles. In the end, joining the EU in 2004 wasn’t a big step for Lithuania as the country already engaged in strict adjustment to EU legislation, fulfilled EU conditionality and was already profiting from EU assistance (Knuden).
On the 16 December 2004, Romania signed the Accession Treaty with the EU, according to which the country would become an EU member state in 2007 after fulfilling the EU acquis and engaging in serious reforms to respect membership conditions. The EC introduced the safeguard clauses that declare that the Commission has the right to revoke the benefits of accession within three years before and after membership. Although the same requirements were applied in previous enlargements, it was, however, the first time the EC discussed the risk of revoking some EU benefits, such as funds and export bans seriously. (check Romania Bulgaria paper) (Notcheva 2006 – same paper). The tightness of conditionality for Romania was much more relevant than with Lithuania and the rest of the CEE candidates. In 2007, Romania along with Bulgaria joined the EU, but the Commission concluded that further progress needs to be done in the judiciary area and fight against corruption. Thus, the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) was created to monitor the two countries in these sectors and present recommendations for better performance. This decision was made after the EC realised the weak progress of some new member states in these areas and therefore, tried to fix this problem with Romania and Bulgaria (source?).
While analysing the pre-accession process for Romania and Lithuania, it seems straightforward that the EU conditionality strategy has worked well for both countries. The short-term effects of the reforms appeared to be socially, economically and politically profitable and contributed in respecting membership criteria to secure the accession. However, this conclusion tends to be more questionable when we analyse the compliance to EU law and further reforms in both countries after accession. The reduction of EU incentives and rewards after membership reduced the motivation of new member states to respect further EU recommendations (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2008??). Although the conditionality strategy was more tighten for Romania than Lithuania, the two countries couldn’t catch the EU overall trend to maintain a good performance compared to the old member states. Pridham (2007) have been sceptical toward the Romanian accession because he believed that the conditionality strategy couldn’t provide any guarantee for future progress in the country as the EU incentives will stop after accession. Moreover, fewer reforms were engaged in areas not related to the EU acquis such as the respect of minorities and fight against corruption for Lithuania. On the contrary, the last report of the European Commission (2016) shows that Romania performed well in combating corruption and reforming its legislation but still needs to make more efforts to catch the EU average.
Therefore, we can assume that sectors and projects that were monitored and supported by the EU after accession were the ones where Romania and Lithuania progressed. Maniokas and Karmazinante (2014) assessed the Europeanization of Lithuania after ten years of membership, and the results show that apart from economic convergence, life expectancy and education, Lithuania demonstrated a limited change regarding democratisations and governance after accession. The Democracy Index, Governance effectiveness and the Corruption Perceptions Index remained stable after the accession since 2004 and citizens still don’t trust their national legal system and institutions (Maniokas and Karmazinante, 2014). This underline the limited efforts made by the government to further democratize public institutions after accession since the EC wasn’t monitoring the reforms anymore. Moreover, it shows the limits of the incentive-based model of the EU conditionality since Lithuania became very dependent on the EU to further progress. The most visible developments and advances in Lithuania were related to public policies funded and supported directly by the EU. In this context, the incentives were strong to implement new reforms and use the contribution of the EU efficiently