THE NEW MEMBER STATES OF THE EU IN THE AFTERMATH OF ENLARGEMENT: DO NEW EUROPEAN RULES REMAIN EMPTY SHELLS?

Abstract

During the enlargement negotiations with the post-communist states from Central and East Europe, the European Union required sets of rules to be established creating independent administrations, judiciary, competition regulators and other key institutions. This article argues that the fate of these institutional rules adopted in response to the EU's conditions for membership is an important, under-researched part of the post-enlargement research agenda. The key question is whether informal rules and practices will also change following the change in formal rules and lead to institutionalization, or alternatively whether the imported rules will be reversed or remain empty shells. To account for divergent patterns of institutionalization, I propose a framework focusing on the preferences of key actors bargaining over the new institutions. I identify issue-specific veto players and non-state actors linked to them as the key actors that will affect the outcome of the post-enlargement round of bargaining over the new rules.

Keywords:

• CEE
• enlargement
• institutions
• new formal rules

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

An earlier version of this article appeared as ‘Institutionalization of imported rules in the European Union's new member states: bringing politics back into the research agenda', RSCAS working paper 2007/37, EUI, Badia Fiesolana.

Notes

Some examples can make this distinction clearer: when the rules pertain to policies, we can speak of implementation, (e.g. the implementation of directives on working time). When the adopted rules pertain to institutions (e.g. independence of the civil service) I speak of institutionalization.

Other authors have also discussed potential outcomes, especially reversal (Pridham 2008), but from an external incentives perspective. The outcomes identified here are rooted in a domestic perspective.