The successful completion of the Eastern enlargement in two subsequent waves, in 2004 and 2007 was achievement of historical magnitude for candidates and European Union (EU). The process attracts the attention of European integration scholars and practitioners ever since the 1990s when post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe aspired to EU membership. The accession of Croatia in 2013 demonstrated that EU enlargement, as policy and process, continues to unveil. With each wave of accession and new group of enlargement countries, EU’s enlargement conditions, instruments and tools have evolved. Today, the Union’s “new approach” applies to the Western BalkansFootnote1 (WB) and Turkey’s membership bids.
The enlargement policy transformations and the gradual development of EU enlargement conditionality elements – criteria, incentives and monitoring – are thoroughly documented and analysed in Eli Gateva’s book European Union Conditionality. In Chapter 1, Eli Gateva offers an innovative stage-structured theoretical model of analyses of EU conditionality which allows her to track the evolution of the policy both across different stages and different groups of applicant counties. She presents a thorough account of four stages of EU enlargement conditionality: (a) pre-negotiation stage (b) negotiation stage; (c) accession stage and (d) post-accession stage – in three distinct waves of EU enlargement (26–31). The study offers analyses of the explanations of changes and continuity in the trajectory of conditionality policy from one wave of enlargement to another. It leads to what the academic and policy world is increasingly interested in – the current EU enlargement policy and its potential successful outcome in the WB and Turkey.
The author provides rigorous analyses of the factors explaining the evolution of EU conditionality. Adopting a comparative approach, two institutional factors emerge to have enormous impact on EU enlargement conditionality: (1) EU member states and (2) the inter-institutional dynamics. Next to these, Gateva traces the impact of (3) public opinion; (4) the group of enlargement countries and their characteristics and (5) the external pressures caused by economic and security shocks.
Gateva’s the stage-structured conditionality model allows for the investigation of the evolution of each EU element of conditionality: conditions, incentives structure and monitoring. Based on a large number of interviews EU and national policy-makers, the study, first zooms in to the first wave of the “big bang” enlargement in which eight post-communist countries and Malta and Cyprus (Chapter 2) joined the EU (2004). Following identical structure, the book moves onto the second wave to the accession of Bulgaria and Romania in 2004 (Chapter 3) and finally – accession of Croatia in 2013 and the on-going enlargement process to the WB and Turkey (Chapter 4). In three rich empirical chapters the author presents a thorough scientific account of the intricacies of each of these enlargement rounds, by stage and element development and the combination of factors at play.
The conditions, outlined by the EU with which an applicant country must confine in order to move on the EU enlargement ladder have changed sufficiently since the Copenhagen Council in 1993, which adopted them for a first time. Gateva’s findings reveal that the Copenhagen Criteria set uniformity in EU conditionality in the pre-negotiation and negotiation stages (175–176). Gateva observes expansion of the scope of conditions for (1) applying for membership and (2) for opening accession negotiations. The “new approach” to enlargement testifies of a continuous evolution into a more heterogeneous set of requirements, resulting in a much more detailed EU demands towards the WB and Turkey (205).
Gateva demonstrates that the incentives structures for compliance with EU demands has also transformed sufficiently. First, the reward/threat balance has become increasingly negative, while the incentive structure progressively weaker across stages and groups of entrants (191–192). The study adds much value to the theoretical discussion of conditionality by including monitoring mechanisms in the stage-structured model, and by providing evidences for their transformation across enlargement rounds into a source of external pressure for domestic reform in candidates. The analyses show the complex interplay between institutional factors and their diverging effects across enlargement contexts. What is interesting in Gateva's study is that among the exogenous factors public opinion seems to have not played a role in previous enlargement rounds, but as the study reveals, it is becoming increasingly relevant. Gateva’s interviewees point to the French and Dutch referendums that raised the significance of public opinion as a factor influencing EU conditionality (201–203).
The theoretical model rests on a broad range of sources and solid empirical evidence. The book represents a vast collection of qualitative data, facts and documents on EU enlargement as both policy and process. The study demonstrates simultaneously the weaknesses and strengths of EU enlargement conditionality to bring reforms in candidates and proceed further to next stages for the ongoing EU enlargement towards WB and Turkey.
Notes
1. The Western Balkans terms is tailored by the European Commission to specifically address candidates and potential candidates in South-Eastern Europe, These are Montenegro, Serbia, FYROM, Kosovo, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina.