Differential Europeanization in Eastern Europe: The Impact of Diverse EU Regulatory Governance Patterns

Abstract

When analysing processes of domestic institutional and political change in Central and Eastern Europe, political scientists frequently refer to the concept of Europeanization. This article focuses the policy‐analytical framework as one central Europeanization approach and addresses the question of whether this approach is applicable to explain domestic change beyond the core of EU member states. The policy‐analytical approach systematically analyses the impact of different modes of EU governance on process and outcome of national institutional and policy change. The article demonstrates that in distinguishing the different potential of compliance, competition and communication to trigger domestic adjustments, the policy‐analytical approach proves to be a useful tool for predicting domestic change in states outside the EU. It helps generate differentiated hypotheses about the potential impacts of EU policies in Central and Eastern European candidate countries that are likely to join the EU in the foreseeable future and in non‐member states with only minimal or no accession prospects.

Key Words:

• Central and Eastern Europe
• Europeanization
• regulatory policies
• governance mechanisms
• domestic change

Acknowledgement

This paper originated in the context of an ongoing research project commissioned by the Landesstiftung Baden‐Württemberg.

Notes

1. With this initiative, the European Commission reacted on the increasing interdependencies with its neighbouring states in the south and east. It aims to promote transnational economic relations, common shared values and cooperation combating security threats. The initiative refers to Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine Territories, Syria and Tunisia, as well as Belarus, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine (Commission of the European Union 2003).

2. Illustrating the arguments concerning ‘likely members’, the article refers to empirical examples from the latest candidate states Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and the three Baltic States, as well as Romania and Bulgaria that, in the meantime, have become regular EU members. However, the argumentation can be transferred easily to future candidate states, such as Turkey, Croatia and Montenegro.

3. ‘Unlikely members’ in Central and Eastern Europe are taken to be states such as Belarus or Russia, with no credible accession prospects for the next years.

4. It has to be considered that the candidate countries do not have to transpose all EU regulations immediately. Transitional periods have been conceded to them, leaving them room to implement the regulations within a certain negotiated time frame.

5. According to Schimmelfennig (2004, 254 et seq.), credible membership prospects require a credible assurance of accession (candidates must be sure to be affiliated when they fulfil the conditions), a credible threat of exclusion (candidates must be sure that they will not be accepted if they fail to comply with the conditions), as well as a concrete definition of the accession conditions and the existing deficits.