Enlargement Rounds Research Articles

Putin’s Dilemma: Russia and the Slavic Dimension of NATO Enlargement

Abstract The potential weaponization of Slavdom is a poorly researched topic in the literature on hybrid warfare, despite the Slavic dimension of NATO after several rounds of enlargement. Part of the reason is the traditionally reserved attitude of Russian authorities to the Slavic idea, which runs counter to the idealized supranational character of Russia and can incite domestic ethnic populism. Even though Moscow has not used this instrument so far, the historical record shows that it could do so at a later stage if its very existence is at stake. The instrumentalization of Slavic identity therefore requires attention, not only as an impending threat, but also as a potential catalyst for change on the Russian side.

European Union Enlargement Policy with Special Reference to Bosnia and Herzegovina – Preferences and Downsides

By virtue of several European visionaries, led by Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet, whose noble goal was to end centuries of wars and bloodshed on the European continent, today we have the European Union, the most successful integration project of the 20th century. The European Union has come a long way to achieve the ultimate goal of political stability, based on equality in diversity, rule of law, democracy and respect for human rights, as well as the economic growth and development of all its members. From the original six countries that founded the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, the European Union, through seven rounds of enlargement, has grown into a community of 27 prosperous countries, which both individually and together within the Union, have become a significant player on the global political and economic scene. The aim of this paper is to research and analyze the complexity of the European Union enlargement policy, its preferences and downsides, with special emphasis on Bosnia and Herzegovina and its integration processes, following its recent candidate status. The main research objective is to identify the factors that may enable or constrain effective EU enlargement policy and its implementation in BiH. The paper argues that the final goal - the EU acquis transposition and enforcement by enlargement countries - may present the biggest hurdle on the EU trajectory. The research methods include qualitative methods - analysis of the relevant literature, publications, official EU data, as well as the EU and BiH policy documents and strategies.

The Three Dimensions of NATO Enlargement in 2023: From the Arctic to the Black Sea and Beyond

This paper will examine the geopolitical implications of the most recent round of NATO enlargement, which was spurred by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, through a three-dimensional assessment. First, we will broadly examine how NATO enlargement and the war in Ukraine have shaped the international system of alliances. Second, we will look at the strategic implications of NATO expansion in Sweden and Finland’s geographical backyard, the Arctic and the Baltic regions, and their effects on regional politics and security. Finally, we will examine how NATO expansion has impacted Türkiye, one of two members that has delayed NATO’s recent enlargement, and its strategic balancing act in the post-Ukraine world.

Wartime EU: consequences of the Russia – Ukraine war on the enlargement process

ABSTRACT The European Union (EU) revived the enlargement process in response to the Russia-Ukraine war. That reaction compares to how the EU utilized this process following the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s. In this paper, we argue that on neither occasion was the inclusion of more states within EU borders a preferred EU working agenda. Instead, the EU used enlargement as a stabilization and security-building mechanism without guaranteeing membership as the end state. This observation has implications for the future of the enlargement process. We argue that the outcome of the previous rounds of enlargement was reactive and context-driven. Absent those same contextual factors, and although the EU reacts to the Russia-Ukraine war in a familiar sequence of incomplete decision-making, the outcome of this wartime enlargement negotiation process points in a different direction.

THE SOURCES AND DYNAMICS OF TURKEY’S ANTAGONISM TOWARDS THE EURO-ATLANTIC ASPIRATIONS OF SWEDEN AND FINLAND

Since 1949, NATO’s membership has increased from 12 to 31 countries through nine rounds of enlargement. Allegedly, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization door remains open to any European country in a position to undertake the commitments and obligations of membership, and contribute to security in the Euro-Atlantic area. Yet, any decision to invite a country to join the bloc is taken by the North Atlantic Council on the basis of consensus among all Allies. This dichotomy has attracted particular attention following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which ‘encouraged’ historically non-aligned Finland and Sweden to apply for NATO membership. Apparently, the Euro-Atlantic aspirations of both Nordic countries have immediately encountered strong Turkey’s antagonism. While Finland is now a NATO Ally as of 4 April 2023, Sweden has got merely an official Invitee status. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has highlighted that NATO’s priority is for Sweden’s accession to be completed as soon as possible as well. Although President Erdogan submitted Sweden’s accession protocol to the Turkish parliament for ratification in October 2023, there is an ongoing discussion on the reasons why the process has been held up by official Ankara. This article aims at exploring the genuine motives behind Turkey’s reluctance to clear the way for the country to become part of the Western military-political bloc. It argues that self-positioning of Turkey as a non-conventional NATO Ally pursuing an autonomous policy, trying to have its own national security concerns better accommodated by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, has been a critical factor.

What Putin Fears Most

Russian president Vladimir Putin wants you to believe that NATO is responsible for his February 24 invasion of Ukraine—that rounds of NATO enlargement made Russia insecure, forcing Putin to lash out. This argument has two key flaws. First, NATO has been a variable and not a constant source of tension between Russia and the West. Moscow has in the past acknowledged Ukraine's right to join NATO; the Kremlin's complaints about the alliance spike in a clear pattern after democratic breakthroughs in the post-Soviet space. This highlights a second flaw: Since Putin fears democracy and the threat that it poses to his regime, and not expanded NATO membership, taking the latter off the table will not quell his insecurity. His declared goal of the invasion, the "denazification" of Ukraine, is a code for his real aim: antidemocratic regime change.

Estimating the Impact of EU Membership on United Kingdom’s Export by Using Gravity Model

After a year from the formal UK withdrawal from the EU, there are still different opinions about the potential economic impact of Brexit. This paper gives a detailed overview of the trade profile of UK and explores the determinants of United Kingdom`s export. We apply the gravity model to estimate the aggregate benefits of EU membership or the reversed, lost (foregone) benefits from leaving the EU. We measure the influence of GDP, distance, population, the EU membership, and signed free trade agreement with the trading partners on UK’s export as a dependent variable. The analysis includes data for 70 UK trading partners in a period of 48 years (from 1973 to 2020) since Great Britain become EU member. The results show that UK’s export is directly proportional to trade partner’s GDP and inversely proportional to distance. In order to estimate the average benefit due to EU membership, we estimated subsequent equations with different time periods. The coefficient decreases and becomes negative as we shorten the time periods, proving that the average trade advantage due to EU membership diminishes over time. According to the economic theory of regional integration, it is expected that the coefficient increases due to many rounds of enlargement, especially the biggest one in 2004 as well as due to the introduction of the Euro. On the contrary, as we shorten the time periods in the analysis, we obtained increasing coefficient for the variable free trade agreements. This confirms that trade exchange within FTA has significantly higher effect on United Kingdom’s export in comparison with trade within EU.

Norms of belonging: emotion discourse as a factor in determining future “Europeans”

ABSTRACT This article searches for the existence of emotion norms in the enlargement process of the EU. It argues that there is an appropriate emotion that needs to be expressed through the coordination and communication discourses of the European Commission and of the (European) Council. The article displays these norms through a critical discourse analysis of the enlargement strategy papers of the European Commission and the European Council conclusions in the 1997–2002 round of enlargement towards the Central and Eastern European countries. This analysis identifies the topoi that collectively form these emotion norms of enlargement. Afterwards the article analyses the same type of documents on the Western Balkans between 2014 and 2020 through periods of stalling and reinvigoration to demonstrate the resonance between these institutional discourses. It concludes that progress in the enlargement process takes place if both types of discourses conform to the emotion norms of enlargement.

The Exclusion of Roma and European Citizenship

Some 10-15 million members of the Roma minority live in Europe; an estimated 6 million are citizens of the European Union. It was not until the 1990s that European Union institutions began treating Roma as an ethnic minority deserving of human rights protections. Concerns about mass migration of Roma from Eastern European countries where they face severe discrimination was one of the reasons the EU included protections for Roma among the conditions that candidate countries had to meet to qualify for consideration in its most recent rounds of enlargement. Those EU efforts have overlooked similar discrimination and neglect in western member states.

The enlargement process on hold? Comparison of the French and German positions towards the widening of the EU

This work aims to compare the enlargement policies of France and Germany, which are regarded as the leaders of the EU and whose policies are assumed to have a significant impact on other states within the Union. Additional to the political significance, these two countries are among the founding members of the Union and have been part of every of the seven enlargement rounds. Besides similarities, there is also a significant difference between these two states in their approach to the expansion of the EU. While France acts as an enlargement skeptic, Germany acts as a supporter of the widening process. The general hypothesis is that the enlargement policies of these two states are determined by the perceived costs and benefits of such policy.

EU Enlargement, Conditionality, and the Protection of Christian Minorities in Turkey

Turkey has had aspirations to join the European Union (EU) and be part of Europe since 1958. The most recent three EU enlargement rounds in 2004, 2007, and 2013 included most Eastern European countries and kept Turkey aside. Turkey has to comply with numerous enlargement conditionalities imposed by the EU to obtain the status of potential membership eligibility. Among these conditionalities are the Copenhagen criteria, which include but are not limited to the respect of minority rights as an inseparable part of Copenhagen's political criterion. This essay discusses the respect of minority rights in Turkey as a conditionality for its EU accession and focuses on the non-Muslim Christian minorities, namely Armenian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox minorities. The findings of this essay present and demonstrate the persecutions and intolerance these minorities have encountered and still encounter in their everyday life within Turkish society by the current Turkish government and its predecessors. As a result, this essay argues that Turkey does not comply with the 'respect of minority rights' requirement as prescribed by the Copenhagen criteria, a prerequisite for its EU accession. Consequently, Turkey is not eligible for EU accession from the 'respect of minority rights' perspective as it does not fulfill the latter condition.

(Counter-)Narrating European integration

In order to maintain social standards within the European Union, trade unions have to overcome national differences to form common political positions. Especially against the background of the recent enlargement rounds, the crafting of such positions has become a daunting task. In this context, the European Services Directive has posed an important challenge to trade unions: The so-called ‘country of origin principle’ implied that workers were supposed to be employed in line with the standards of the sending- and not the receiving country. After lengthy discussions between representatives from Eastern and Western Europe, the trade unionists managed to form a joint political line and forced the European Commission to remove the principle. In order to challenge the hegemonic neoliberal narrative of the common market bringing freedom and prosperity to the countries of Europe, the article will show how the counternarrative of a European Social Model served as a reference frame for this joint position.

25 years later – Austria’s shift to the populist right: national characteristics of a pan-European trend

Abstract The year 1995 rather coincidentally tags both the foundation of the Central European Political Science Association and the accedence of Austria, one of its founding members, to the European Union. Austria has particularly benefitted from its membership and the following EU enlargement rounds which also welcomed the other CEPSA members to the club. However, it seems that these advantages have not yet been fully appreciated, neither by a significant part of the political elite nor by the majority of the Austrian population. Increasing Euroscepticism and EU bashing can be observed during the last two and a half decades. The rise of the populist far-right, EU-hostile Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) was simultaneous. Of course, the political success of right-wing populism in combination with strong Euroscepticism has become a pan-European phenomenon since at least the last two decades. It is certainly not purely an Austrian phenomenon. Nevertheless, one can observe national differences. Since a systematic comparison of the development of right-wing populist patterns and related political trends between Austria and other CEPSA member countries would go beyond the scope of this essay, the focus of the paper is on relevant Austrian characteristics pertinent to this phenomenon.

The third round of euro area enlargement: Are the candidates ready?

In this paper, we study the readiness of Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania to adopt the common monetary policy of the ECB in the context of the third round of euro area enlargement. Following the optimal currency area (OCA) theory literature, we focus on the coherence of economic shocks between candidate countries on the one hand and the euro area on the other and analyse the relevance of euro area shocks for key macroeconomic variables in these countries. Our results, based on a novel empirical approach, show that the overall importance of those shocks that are relevant for the ECB is fairly similar in candidate countries and the euro area. The cost of joining the euro area should, therefore, not be pronounced, at least from the aspect of the adoption of the common counter-cyclical monetary policy. This conclusion holds for all three candidates, despite important differences in their monetary and exchange rate regimes.

Romania’s bid to join NATO in the first wave of enlargement: A preliminary assessment based on U.S. documents

Based on declassified documents from the Clinton library and the Department of State, this article examines the U.S. decision in favor of restricting the first round of NATO enlargement to only three new members, thus leaving Romania in the waiting room, despite the massive diplomatic efforts of the new government, resulted from the 1996 elections. The article delves into the connection between the open door policy and the NATO-Russia relationship, arguing that the U.S. decision sought to increase confidence in NATO’s promise of having subsequent accession rounds in order to reduce Baltic pressures for membership, to avoid the perception of a Russian veto over NATO decisions and, eventually, to lessen further Russian antagonism by continuing enlargement in a gradual manner and making thereby the process more acceptable to Moscow. The U.S. approach was to start with a smaller group of the strongest candidates while keeping promising candidates for the next rounds in order to guarantee the credibility of the open door policy.

Rule of Law Decay: Terminology, Causes, Methods, Markers and Remedies

This special issue on rule of law decay addresses a range of issues prompted by recent developments in Poland, Hungary and elsewhere: How to conceptualize rule of law decay? What are its characteristics? How can it be explained? Can it be detected at an early stage? What is the methodology of undermining the rule of law? What, if anything, can outsiders, especially the EU, do to counter this decay? What lessons can be drawn for demands imposed on candidates by the EU in future enlargement rounds?

The altered enlargement policy: Challenges and concentric circles of integration

The paper examines the implementation of the enlargement policy at the end of the second decade of the 21st century, which occurred under considerably altered circumstances and in different dynamics in comparison to the previous cycles of the ?Eastern enlargements?. Unlike those accession cycles which were conducted under different circumstances and had been regionally and strategically directed in their approach so that the entire groups of countries could simultaneously join the Union, during the last decade there was a growing focus on strictly bilateral relations of Brussels with each candidate and its individual accomplishments within the ?accession regatta?, and on more intensive and earlier conditioning. In combination with the changed international circumstances, these resulted in a different treatment of the current accession candidates. The article points that the reasons for this have been the altered political circumstances and challenges in the functioning of the Union, the different international context, as well as insufficient progress in the remaining ?unintegrated? southeastern countries. With the accession policy falling behind and along with considerations regarding the reform plans within the European Union by the model of concentric cycles of integration, it appears to the author that further accession of EU candidates will retain different dynamics comparing to the previous enlargement rounds, and potentially result in a different form of integration in the future..

Transnational Learning and Civil Society Empowerment in the EU Enlargement Process

AbstractStrengthening civil society as a domestic safeguard against the backsliding of reforms is a cornerstone of the EU enlargement process. Support provided by the EU, however, was shown to have had limited effects in triggering civil society empowerment in candidate countries. Adopting a novel perspective, this article demonstrates that the diffusion of mobilization formats, via transnational learning between activists from different enlargement rounds, facilitated the empowerment of non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) in countries joining later. Drawing on comparative evidence from Serbia and Montenegro, it shows how such transfers of external models enabled NGOs to feed into the ongoing membership talks. Their influence over substantive outcomes, however, was limited by a lack of domestic responsiveness, while funding availability constrained the operation of the transferred formats. These findings shed light on an overlooked dimension of learning in the context of Europeanization and feed into the debate on civil society empowerment in enlargement countries.

Trade union representatives from ethnic minorities. Representation revisited

The Nordic countries have experienced major labour immigration since the EU enlargement round in 2004. Recruiting workers from ethnic minorities is a major challenge for all Nordic trade unions. Less attention has been directed towards the need also to integrate these members inside the unions, for example, by having them serve as trade union representatives at different levels in companies, as well as in the unions. A glance at the top positions in the Swedish, Danish and Norwegian trade unions reveals an almost all-white picture. There is considerable imbalance between the number of ethnic minority trade union members and the number of ethnic minority representatives. This article argues that looking into the concept of representation, and especially the features attributed to trade union representatives and how these features are perceived, enables us to investigate the mismatch between trade union density and trade union representatives among employees from different ethnic minorities.

Transnational cooperation: a network analysis of town twinning in the Baltic Sea region

ABSTRACTThe patterns of cooperation between regions and urban spaces are no longer influenced, to the same extent, by national borders. Political integrative events changed the extent of transborder urban cooperation in the Baltic borderlands, a region that has undergone extensive changes. A social network analysis of cooperative ties in the form of town twinning indicates that the end of the Cold War strongly changed the network of town twinning in this region, whereas the effect of the various EU enlargement rounds seems to be more nuanced.