EU Member State-Building in the Western Balkans: (Prolonged) EU-protectorates or new model of sustainable enlargement? Conclusion

Abstract

More than 20 years after the violent break-up of Yugoslavia European efforts to create sustainable States in the Western Balkans, as discussed in the papers of this Special Issue, have brought about some progress, but a lot of work remains. This conclusion will draw on some of the themes developed in the previous papers and contrast to what extent EU Member State-Building provides a new framework for enlargement and what the key questions of sustainable expansion of the EU and functional state-building through conditionality will be. It concludes that the EU's current engagement with the Western Balkans faces many problems and obstacles and therefore some reconsideration might be necessary.

Keywords:

• EU Member State-Building
• Western Balkans
• conditionality

Notes

Serious concerns over democracy, the rule of law and the protection of human rights in Hungary have been expressed by European institutions after the adoption of a series of laws implementing Hungary's new Constitution, the first after the Communist era and in force since January 2012. Prime Minister Viktor Orban's party had won a two thirds majority in a parliamentary election in 2010 and immediately after rewrote the country's Constitution attracting widespread criticism for threatening the essentials of democracy. After ordering a change to the country's media law in 2011, the EU Commission in January 2012 began infringement procedures on laws concerning the retirement ages of judges, independence of the central bank and the independence of the data protection agency. In July, the EU Commission officially closed the infringement procedure over the independence of the central bank, after the Hungarian Parliament had passed amendments to its Central Bank Act. On 16 February 2012, the European Parliament passed a resolution urging Hungary to respect EU laws and values or risk having the EU assembly start a formal investigation into serious breaches of EU values, a never-before-used instrument in the EU Treaty. Based on a report commissioned to the civil liberties committee in the European Parliament, the Parliament will decide whether to activate Article 7 of the EU Treaty, with the ultimate sanction being loss of voting power for the Member State. On 18 July 2012, the EU Commission issued a report in which it questioned whether the Romanian government has the “understanding of the meaning of the rule of law in a pluralist democratic system.” The report contained an 11-point-long to do list, including independence of the judiciary. Another special report on the Romanian situation will be drafted before the end of the year. Sources: EU Observer on Hungary <http://euobserver.com/political/115286 and on Romania <http://euobserver.com/political/117211. EU Commission – Press Release, European Commission launches accelerated infringement proceedings against Hungary (17 January 2012). http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/12/24. EU Commission, Eleventh CVM Report on Romania (18 July 2012). http://ec.europa.eu/cvm/docs/com_2012_410_en.pdf.

According to George Schoepflin, “States need a need a cohesive idea” (Schoepflin [1993] 1995) for justifying their existence; in his article, Schoepflin explains the break-up of Yugoslavia as a consequence of such an underlying vision of the common State getting gradually lost.

Introduced in March 2012 by Commissioner Füle, the High Level Accession Dialogue – HLAD shall “put the EU integration to the forefront of the domestic agenda and give it a new boost […] by ensuring a structured, high level discussion on the main reform challenges and opportunities”. The Dialogue “does not replace accession negotiations but it forms a bridge to them”. See EU Commission Conclusions <http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/fule/docs/news/20120315_conclusions.pdf. In June 2012, a High Level Dialogue on the Accession Process has also been launched with Bosnia and Herzegovina for explaining the requirements and the methodology of accession negotiations and concretely what is expected from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the EU accession process; see Joint Conclusions <http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/12/503&type=HTML.