HUMAN AFFAIRS 18, 67–80, 2008 DOI: 10.2478/v10023-008-0006-4 THE EASTERN ENLARGEMENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION: CHALLENGES TO DEMOCRACY?1 DARINA MALOVÁ, BRANISLAV DOLNÝ Abstract: Recent scholarship assesses the impact of the European Union’s conditionality on democracy in Central and Eastern Europe in a contradictory way. On one hand, the EU is perceived as a key agent of successful democratic consolidation and on other hand, the return of nationalist and populist politics in new member states has been explored in the context of the negative consequences of the hasty accession that undermined government accountability and constrained public debate over policy alternatives. This article explains this puzzle of the ambiguous effects of the EU’s politics of conditionality, which promoted institutions stabilizing the horizontal division of powers, rule of law, human and minority rights protection, but which neglected norms and rules of participatory and/or popular democracy. Keywords: democracy; democratic consolidation; EU conditionality; accession process; horizontal and vertical accountability. Introduction It is taken for granted that the so-called Eastern enlargement of the European Union (EU) has supported the establishment of democracy in the candidate countries. The EU has often been perceived as the key agency that promoted and strengthened democracy in Central Eastern European countries (CEEC)2. However, the most recent developments in several CEEC, namely the return of nationalist and populist politics to the core of several governments in several countries has cast doubts on the state and the quality of democracy in these countries. Has the EU accession process promoted or constrained democracy in the new member states during the accession process? This paper addresses this question. First, we review the current state of democracy in new member states. Second, we examine the EU’s direct influence on the institutionalization of democracy in CEEC by applying political conditionality to the applicant countries. Finally, we explore the indirect effects of EU accession on politics in the region. We argue that the EU directly promoted institutions stabilizing the horizontal division of powers, rule of law, human and minority rights protection, 1 This work was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under contract No. APVV-0660-06 and COPART SAS. 2 By “CEECs” (Central Eastern European countries), we refer to the post-communist applicant countries. Eight of these countries—the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia—became full members of the EU on 1 May 2004, followed by Bulgaria and Romania on 1 January 2007 and we refer to them as well as to the new member states (NMS). 67 and corresponding behaviour of the elite, however the rapid and technocratic accession ‘logic’ of the EU neglected the norms and rules of participatory and/or popular democracy. Moreover, the dominant pattern of political accountability to external organizations (EU, World Bank, Council of Europe) has weakened horizontal accountability to electorates in CEEC and limited the links between political parties, institutions and citizens. Challenges to Democracy in the New Member States In the recent scholarship, agreement that ten countries in Central and Eastern Europe Countries (CEEC) which joined European Union in 2004 and 2007 have consolidated democracies has prevailed (Berg-Schlosser 2004, 2007; Schneider, Schmitter 2004, Merkel 2008). The relative success of the CEEC in the liberalization, democratization and consolidation of democracy suggests that the predictions dominating the scholarship on democratization of post-communist countries were excessively pessimistic about their outcome (Schneider, Schmitter 2004; Merkel 2008). The conclusion on the consolidation of democracy in CEEC follows on from the results of different international agencies that measured the progress in the transition to and consolidation of democracy. Dirk Berg-Schlosser (2004) has reviewed several indexes measuring the consolidation of democracy (Freedom House, Polity IV, Bertelsmann Transformation Index) and concluded that according to these measurements all democracies in the region are fully consolidated democracies. If more demanding normative criteria on the consolidation of democracy were to be applied to the NMS, then the evaluation would differ. These criteria include the broader participatory activities of citizens in a “strong democracy” such as the inclusion of woman, the weaker social strata, cultural minority groups and so on. Such criteria also refer not only to political rights, but also to greater equality of actual social and economic opportunities and living conditions; and a greater measure of solidarity among all members of society—involving mutual trust, tolerance and a high level of “social capital”, and co-operation nationally and possibly internationally (Berg-Schlosser 2004, 32). However, there are no relevant indicators with which to judge the quality of democracy in CEEC, as all democracy indexes were developed to measure the quality of consolidated democracies (Merkel 2008, 22-23). Table 1: Assessments of democracy performance and democratic consolidation in CEE (2006) Country/ Rating Slovakia Czech republic Hungary Poland Slovenia Estonia Latvia Lithuania 68 Freedom House Scale: 1-7 (max. 1) Political Civil rights liberties 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Freedom House BTI Political Nations in Transit Transformation Scale: 1-7 Scale: 1-10 (max. (max. 1) 10) 1.96 9.20 2.25 2.00 2.14 1.75 1.96 2.07 2.21 9.45 9.40 9.20 9.55 9.40 8.30 9.25 Polity IV Scale: -10 - +10 (max. +10) +10 +8 +10 +10 +10 +6 +8 +10 Table 2: ‘Net’ satisfaction with the way democracy works in our country. Country/Year 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Slovakia Czech rep. Hungary Poland Slovenia Estonia Latvia Lithuania Romania Bulgaria Croatia EU 25/27 EU 15 NMS -61 -7 +15 -42 -6 -29 -20 -18 -39 -61 NA NA +21 NA -50 -11 -14 -51 0 -26 -22 -12 -51 -66 NA NA +18 -34 -62 -10 -35 -67 -12 -35 -23 -33 -62 -56 NA NA +11 -49 -46 -2 -44 -38 +13 -7 -8 -48 -38 -56 -58 +9 +24 -31 -48 +11 -7 -20 +11 -6 -13 -48 -44 -49 -54 +15 +20 -15 Source: Eurobarometer 2002-2006 (spring editions) Scholars who have taken into account broader definitions of democracy to assess more critically the state of democracy in CEEC claim that the new European Union member states in Eastern Europe do not have fully consolidated democracies (Reik 2004; Rose-Ackerman 2007). Susan Rose-Ackerman argues that “full democracy cannot be attained unless the policy-making process is accountable to citizens through transparent procedures that seek to incorporate public input” (Rose-Ackerman 2007, 32). She suggests that most emerging democracies need to improve policy-making accountability inside the government, as competitive elections and a competent legislature are necessary but not sufficient for consolidated democracies. This Table 3: Net trust in national governments. Country/Year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Slovakia Czech rep. Hungary Poland Slovenia Estonia Latvia Lithuania Romania Bulgaria Croatia EU 25/27 EU 15 New MS -56 -20 +4 -24 -13 -11 -27 -41 -6 +4 NA NA -13 -42 -15 +28 -27 -21 +2 -29 -36 -14 -30 NA NA -12 -40 -25 +16 -49 -31 +17 -1 -25 -24 -44 NA NA -16 -31 -58 -39 -27 -78 -39 +1 -35 -28 -18 -53 NA -51 -50 -27 -73 -17 -5 -21 -41 -6 -50 -49 -33 -28 -55 -53 -29 +6 -49 -21 +14 -43 -52 -30 -42 -43 -24 -22 -36 -10 -43 -40 -58 -24 +36 -55 -41 -53 -45 -60 -12 -3 -47 -31 -57 Source: Eurobarometer 2001-2007 (spring editions) 69 approach can better explain dissatisfaction with democracy in the majority of CEEC, the low trust in political institutions and perhaps also the return of nationalist and populist parties in the governments. During the transition to democracy and EU enlargement, popular control and government accountability became limited mainly to the elections. This has produced an increased risk of popular disengagement from political life based on disillusionment and distrust in political institutions. The national governments and ministries in the applicant countries were the main managing actors in the accession process, therefore it is revealing to follow citizens’ trust in these central sites of power. The post-accession political turmoil in the CEEC suggests that having secured EU membership, the new member states have partly lost a strong guiding leadership in their economic, social and political development, provided in the past by the EU and its institutions. None of the incumbent prime ministers who tried to maintain office succeeded in the postaccession elections. In particular, the Visegrad-4 countries experienced serious political turbulence. With elections in September 2005 Poland’s party system underwent a complete reconstruction and the country under Kaczynski brothers faced the return of nationalism and arch-conservative values. Moreover, the government tried to curb the powers of the Constitutional Court and Central Bank. The robustness of these political institutions and public awareness prevented a restriction of their powers. Early elections produced—after long negotiation—the new government, which seems hesitant to implement the efficient and necessary reforms. After the 2006 elections, Slovakia’s new government led by SmerSocial Democracy included two political parties—the People’s Party-Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (ĽS-HZDS), and the far-right Slovak National Party (SNS), which had internationally isolated Slovakia in the past by violating democratic rules. It would seem that once EU membership was secure the electorate moved to support the populists who promised a modification of the radical reform path and declared that the main concern of the 2006 elections would not be “Europe” but domestic issues. In the elections Smer-SD cleverly used the fact that the new prosperity—given successful macroeconomic policies, and strong FDI inflows—remained uneven, with many regions and significant sections of the population unable to benefit from the booming economy. The Czech Republic experienced long political paralysis before a new government was formed. Czech Social Democracy unwillingly accepted its defeat and relinquished power only after several months, unrealistically hoping somehow that the party could continue to govern. Popular protests in Hungary organized by the opposition in autumn 2006 challenged the foundations of representative government, because the opposition used extra-parliamentary methods to bring the government down. While the post-accession backlash in each country has been driven by unique internal factors, they may have common origins, most likely rooted in the painful post-communist transition and EU conditionality. The current development in CEE represents a natural response to the need to comply with the complex demands of EU accession. During the accession, compliance with EU criteria was the most secure way to achieve the key strategic objective—EU membership, notwithstanding the costs and consequences for the quality of democracy. EU Impact on Democracy in Central Eastern Europe: Direct and Indirect Influence “Return to Europe” became a grand political project for the former post-communist countries (Henderson 1999). Consolidating democracy and building a market economy and 70 the state were simply the instruments required to achieve this goal. The EU was powerful not just because it had been a powerful magnet in the early post-communist years, but also because it acted as an ‘agenda setter’ and gatekeeper at a number of points on the road to EU membership. Membership in the EU, according to Whitehead (2001) generates powerful, broad-based and long term support for the establishment of democratic institutions because it is irreversible, and creates a cumulative process of economic and political integration that offers incentives to a very wide scale of social forces. The influence any organization can bring to bear on a potential member is likely to be dependent on numerous factors including the clarity of the conditions, the credibility of the rewards, i.e. a genuine prospect of membership and the preferences of domestic political actors (Schimmelfennig, Sedelmeier 2005; Vachudova 2005). The EU impact was rather limited in the early post-communist years because membership was not on the agenda. Although external actors, such as the EU and its member states, played a role as exemplars whom postcommunist reformers chose to adapt and converge (Malová, Haughton 2002) or “emulate” Jacoby 2006, 628), the EU’s ‘passive leverage’ (Vachudova 2005) probably served merely to reinforce the pre-existing strategies of reform in candidate countries. The enlargement process was often perceived as one-sided and characterized by the power asymmetry (Grabbe 2001) and by a one-way transfer of EU rules and norms (Glenn 2004). This approach pointed out that there was very little space left for true negotiation between the EU and the candidate countries beyond ‘a derogation’, i.e. temporary transitional arrangements. A closer study of the accession process proved that its logic included the complex interactions between the representatives of the European Commission, the member states and political and administrative representatives of the candidate countries (Grabbe 2006; Jacoby 2004; Glenn 2004; Pridham 2005; Raik 2004; Schimmelfennig, Sedelmeier 2005; Vachudova 2005). The study of regionalization claimed that the EU impact on the region represents only a ‘myth’, because domestic political actors and conditions played a key role in designing regional reforms (Huges, Sasse, Gordon 2004). However, thanks to the power of the EU’s conditionality numerous changes have been made to institutions and policies in CEEC, but its impact proved to be more effective in those policy areas where conditions were well specified, advice and support was given to the applicant states and where the states were rewarded for their actions and above all when the EU offered a real and credible prospect of membership (Jacoby 2004; Schimmelfennig, Sedelmeier 2005; Grabbe 2006; Haughton 2007). The EU impact varied across policy areas depending on both density of acquis and domestic conditions, i.e. preferences of domestic actors and “external influences matter precisely where they best connect with domestic processes, not where they act independently” (Jacoby 2006, 639-40). It has also been changing over time, for example the decision at the Luxembourg summit in 1997 to open accession negotiations with some CEE states but not others, provided a clear signal for those left out, such as Slovakia and Latvia, that the EU’s offer of membership was genuine, and therefore has strongly shaped preferences and action of domestic political actors (Haughton 2007). While the EU’s influence on administrative, economic and social institutions and policies has been sufficiently proved, its impact on democracy in CEEC is less explored. It is partly due to the timing, because the accession negotiation started after democratization. Becoming a functioning democracy was a necessary condition for opening the accession process and this limited the study of the EU’s political conditionality only to problematic countries such as Slovakia, or to the period before the beginning of the accession process. Moreover, according to Smith (2001) only 1% of EU aid was spent on direct promotion of democracy, consequently 71 its impact could be minimal. However, the EU broadened the political criteria during the accession process. It is necessary (1) to analyze the application of political conditionality per se and also (2) institutional, administrative and policy changes in the applicant countries that were implemented as a result of EU pressure and indirectly influenced democracy. The former relates to the promotion of democracy in the region, i.e. to political conditionality per se, and the latter concerns the unintended outcomes of the whole accession process, i.e. it embraces the accidental effects of fulfilling the EU economic and administrative requirements on CEE democracies. The EU’s impact on the new member state has been rather ambiguous. On the one hand it has promoted democracy in the applicant countries, especially institutions related to rule of law and human and minority rights protection. On the other hand it has restrained democracy, because some decisions prompted by the EU and their ‘costs’ linked with the fulfillment of membership criteria have led to the institutionalization of executive and elite biases in decision making. Direct influence The EU’s direct impact on democratic consolidation in CEEC has included several activities related to the promotion of democracy through applying political conditionality. The presence of democratic institutions and practices was a sine qua non condition for establishing formal linkages with possible candidates; therefore the EU was quick to establish so-called political dialogue in the Europe (Association) Agreements concluded in the early 1990s. The political dialogue was designed to support economic and political transformation in candidate countries and to start ‘convergence’ of the two parties (Malová, Rybář 2003). At the Copenhagen European Council in June 1993, the EU outlined the criteria for membership. Political conditions included the ‘stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities’. Although membership criteria were vague and did not provide clear definitions of conditions or prescribed models of democratic institutions they were later specified in each individual case in the Commission’s annual reports. The European Council delegated the role of monitoring and evaluating agency to the Commission. Since launching the pre-accession strategy the European Commission had been screening the process of the implementation of all Copenhagen conditions. The Commission’s official evaluations had a major impact on the internal political situation. The first opinions (avis), formally included in the document Agenda 2000, played an important role. The Commission’s avis of 1997 served as the basis for the Luxembourg European Council’s decision to divide the candidates into two groups. Domestic political actors, especially opposition parties and NGOs played an important role in the preparation of avis and the following annual reports. Rejecting open accession negotiation with Slovakia on political grounds was a key moment, as it illustrated both the EU commitment to the enlargement and the serious application of membership criteria. The case of Slovakia illustrates that the main criteria were related to the behavior of the political elite, especially to the government officials’ respect for constitutional limits on their behavior. The Commission Opinion stated that the “government pays insufficient respect to the powers devolved by the Constitution to other bodies... the use made by the government of the police and the secret services gives cause for concern and substantial efforts will have to be made to provide better guarantees of the independence of the judicial system and of satisfactory conditions for its operation” (Commission 1997, 23). Violations of the separation of powers and political 72 inequality became the main reasons for excluding Slovakia from the beginning of the accession negotiation. Stability of democracy depends on government behavior respecting democratic norms and rule of law. The commission also paid attention to the role of the opposition. In the case of Slovakia the Avis criticized the treatment of the opposition, while in the case of other applicants the Commission concluded that the opposition plays a ‘normal’ or ‘customary’ role in the operation of the institutions. The Slovak government often disregarded the rights of the opposition: “The frequent refusal to involve the opposition in the operation of the institutions, particularly where Parliamentary scrutiny is concerned, underlines this trend” (Commission 1997, 23). Following the 1998 elections the Commission’s Regular Report of 1999 changed its assessment on the stability of democracy in the country: “The main weaknesses identified in the Opinion and confirmed by the Regular Report have been addressed. The powers of the Slovak Parliament are respected and the opposition plays a full part in its activities.” (Commission 1999, 13). The Commission’s Opinions assessed the performance of the constitutional courts and judiciary in the applicant countries as an inherent part of democratic stability and rule of law. The Commission considered institutional deficiencies only as temporary shortcomings. The Commission concluded that justice had yet to operate satisfactorily in several countries. In Hungary the Commission pinpointed two vacancies in the composition of the Court and it criticized parliamentary parties for their reluctance to find common candidates. In Poland the Commission welcomed the strengthening of the powers of the Constitutional Tribunal by abolishing the power of the parliament to overturn the court’s decisions by a two-thirds majority. In the Slovak case, the Commission stressed that “the way in which the government recently ignored decisions by the Constitutional Court and the central referendum committee on the voting which took place on 23 and 24 May 1997 directly threatens the stability of the institutions” (Commission 1997, 23). Hence, for the EU it is the violation of existing institutional rules that discriminates between stable and unstable democracies. The EU acquis does not provide explicit norms and legislation related to human and minority rights, because it has not been harmonized in the member states. Given this situation, the EU intervened case by case. EU requests were followed by monitoring undertaken by the Commission and regular reports on the applicants. The common starting point was the finding that some of the laws governing this sector in the applicant countries were outdated. The Polish government was encouraged to complete procedures for compensating those whose property had been seized by the Nazis or Communists and the Commission committed itself to monitoring how the so-called lustration law would be implemented. Freedom of expression in the Czech Republic was declared to be limited under the Criminal Code, because it prescribed sentences of up to 2 years’ imprisonment for defamation of the Republic and its President. Regular Reports issued during the accession negotiation added new requirements, developing institutional frameworks in the field of human and minority rights including the establishment of the Ombudsman, the return of citizenship to those individuals who had lost their citizenship under the Communist regime, reform of the judiciary, criminal codes, etc. The Commission pushed for the implementation of anti-discrimination policies. In Slovakia, antidiscrimination legislation was passed by the parliament only after several reports pinpointing the lack of legislation transposing the EC anti-discrimination acquis. The Anti-discrimination Act took effect only from July 2004, and again only after the Commission’s pressure. Despite the EU’s lack of formal authority in minority rights, the Commission constituted a normative pressure in the candidate countries, apparently due to security concerns after 73 the eruption of ethnic conflicts in former Yugoslavia. The sections on ethnic minorities in the regular reports have an incoherent and inconsistent approach, with frequent use of formal evaluations, ad hoc positions and rhetoric (Sasse 2005). EU evaluations of progress in politics towards minorities in applicant countries in the end depended on the overall evaluation of the domestic context and on the EU political decision to acknowledge progress or not (Brusis 2003). The lack of an EU agenda in minority policy stems from the very nature of the European Union, which was founded primarily as a community for economic cooperation and member states traditionally enjoy sovereignty in other fields of domestic policy. Bruno De Witte (2002, 467) considers the EU concept of minority rights as an “export article and not one for domestic consumption.” As there is no EU minority rights’ acquis, the EU’s political conditionality in this area was worked out as a diffusion of norms and practices anchored in Council of Europe (CE) and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) standards. The EU’s conditionality in this sector succeeded thanks to “passive leverage”, i.e. the prospect of gaining membership in this exclusive club. Such a situation increases the possibility of local actors shaping the EU agenda in their own countries during the accession process. The better organized the ethnic minority and the better articulated the demands, the better the chances of being able to promote those demands (Malová and Világi 2006). Consequently, the EU’s influence has varied according to the different conditions of the ethnic minorities. As relatively large, cohesive and politically engaged groups, the Hungarian minorities in Slovakia and Romania could defend their interests much more effectively than the Russian-speaking minorities in Estonia and Latvia. The latter did not have citizenship rights and in Estonia could not form a political party. Given the social hardship of the Roma minority (unemployment, housing conditions, level of education, health) and political under-representation, their interests were not well-articulated and represented vis-à-vis national governments and the EU authorities. The Commission’s Opinions presented the improvement of justice and protection of the Roma in the applicant countries as a necessary requirement; nevertheless very little progress has been achieved in this field. The different positions of the ethnic minorities in terms of size, types and political mobilization prompted the differentiated actions of the EU and of the representatives of minorities. The Commission’s Opinion on Slovakia stated that: “Improvement is also required in the treatment of the Hungarian minority, which still does not benefit from the general law on the use of minority languages…for which there is provision in the Constitution” (Commission 1997, 23). Compared to the situation of the Russian-speaking minorities in Estonia and Latvia, who as “non-citizens” were affected by various types of discrimination, the Hungarians in Slovakia and Romania enjoyed a much better position. However, given the political tensions between the national governments and the Hungarian minority parties, “the Hungarian issue” was perceived in Brussels as a more urgent demand. The situations of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia and Romania and the Turkish minority in Bulgaria improved once the respective minority party was a member of the coalition governments. The inclusion of minority parties in governments was often a response to the EU’s conditions. The Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK) had been in government in Slovakia for eight years between 1998 and 2006. This allowed the SMK to fulfill its minority interests, for example, the adoption of the Minority Language Law, and relevant financial support for minority education and culture. In the case of regional reform in Slovakia and the Hungarian status law which provided special rights to Hungarian minorities abroad, tensions 74 between the SMK and its coalition partners became very intense and without the magnetism of EU membership, the conflicts would not have been settled (Malová, Haughton 2006). The EU pushed the Estonian and Latvian governments to improve the situation of the Russian-speaking minorities, and regularly stressed the high proportion of non-citizens and the slowness of the naturalization process in both countries. While Estonia amended the Language Law in accordance with EU recommendations, in Latvia it took much longer. This difference stems from a distinctive party politics. In Latvia, the main structural conflict took place between the nationalists and the parties representing the Russian minority, therefore the government was more reluctant to fulfill the EU’s suggestions. The disfranchisement of 20 per cent of the population was the source of serious worries about consolidation of democracy among EU officials even after entry to the EU (Pridham 2008, 374). Due to the EU’s security and migration concerns the Commission’s policy also focused on the Roma communities. EU influence was important especially in agenda-setting. Unlike ethnic Hungarians and Russians, the Roma minority has very a weak identity, almost no political organizations, faces strong pervasive discrimination and a reluctance of the domestic authorities to improve its living conditions. The Regular Report on the Czech Republic expressed reservations on the treatment of the Roma population, especially in relation to the construction of a wall in Ustí nad Labem between a building occupied mostly by Roma citizens and its neighbors across the street. The Commission urged the government “to combat anti-Roma prejudice and to strengthen the protection provided by the police and the courts” (Commission 2000, 26). Recommendations focused on institution building and asked for a budget, executive powers and permanent staff for the Inter-Ministerial Roma Commission (Ibid.). In the 2002 Regular Report the Commission praised Slovakia—as one of the countries with a relatively high Roma population—for the “considerable efforts to put into practice minority rights protection”; however, it also added that “these efforts must be continued and reinforced as a matter of priority, to effectively combat discrimination and improve the living conditions of the Roma community” (Commission 2002, 25). Just a few years before the enlargement the EU pushed the candidate countries to strengthen the state’s capacity by implementing new institutions to promote the independence of judiciaries, the anti-corruption measures and to improve the civil service. The Commission broadened political conditions and asked applicants to introduce institutions related to economic and social rights, social dialogue and gender equality. This new focus expanded the EU’s political requirements beyond the procedural understanding of democracy. For example, in the 2002 country report on Slovakia issued shortly before the closing of membership negotiations, corruption remained ‘a cause for serious concern’; while progress with judicial reform was acknowledged, but a need to implement the new legislation ‘to the full, so as to guarantee the judiciary’s professional impartiality and political neutrality’ was again required (Commission 2002, 33). The Regular Report on Latvia was more demanding and required the government to implement ‘a thorough systemic reform’ of the judiciary (Commission 2002, 34). The EU’s political conditionality has three critical consequences. First, it set the agenda for many reforms of public policies; second, it encouraged the establishment of new political institutions and agencies; and finally, it shaped political elite behavior. Positive impacts of the EU enlargement on democracy in CEEC definitely include the strengthening of many institutions designed to prevent concentration of power, combat corruption and to improve governance capacity. Nevertheless, if democracy means more than elections, political party organization, and the protection of individual rights and also includes rules encouraging broad 75 participation in decision-making (Rose-Ackerman 2007, 31), then more substantive features of democracy have been neglected during the accession. In fact, the EU’s technocratic pressures and the speed of accession reduced the understanding of political participation in CEEC mostly to free and fair elections. Indirect influence The indirect impact of EU integration on democracy in the applicant countries is linked to applying two other sets of Copenhagen criteria for membership, i.e. building a market economy, governance and the administrative capacity of the state. The implications of this ‘enlargement logic’ contradict democratization and constrain democratic politics. It has been argued that overall EU policy toward CEE candidates was ‘elite-centered’, ‘technocratic’, ‘bureaucratic’, as it was based on such principles and norms as “inevitability, speed, efficiency, and expertise” and such norms and processes constrained democratic politics in the applicant countries by limiting their EU accession to a narrow sphere of elites and experts (Cameron 2003; Reik 2004; Ekiert 2006). The politics of conditionality and the logic of enlargement indeed ‘constrained’ the institutionalization of democracy to the procedural conception (stability of democratic institutions, rule of law, respect for human and minorities’ rights). The political norms and institutions that resulted from the EU’s pressure secured the horizontal division of power, the protection of human and minority rights, and strengthened the administrative capacity of the states, however the EU’s conditionality excluded the participation of citizens in the enlargement process. This might limit democracy in the new member states (NMS) by reducing citizens’ participation to elections, and deepening political apathy, low trust in the institutions and general political dissatisfaction. However, the quality of post-accession democracy in NMS has not solely resulted from external pressure but it is also a product of the domestic conditions, legacies, and political actors’ strategic decisions and collective actions. The EU’s criteria thanks to their broad formulation provided ample room for institutional variation, allowing CEE countries to establish democratic institutions in accordance with their own political traditions and culture, however, the key condition was to establish ‘some’ stable democratic institutions. Initially, a range of different formal institutions and political rules emerged, and in line with the idea of a ‘return to Europe’, there has been a tendency to look toward West European institutional templates, as they proved their efficiency in democratic performance. Almost two decades on from the revolutions of 1989 many commonalities in the general political set-up among the applicant countries are discernible. Moreover, the key state institutions have come to resemble those of Western Europe. The prevailing institutional model involves parliamentary or semi-presidential republics, a proportional representation electoral system, multiparty systems, coalition governments and constitutional review. During the last decade several applicant countries have shifted towards this pattern, even if their constitutions and electoral laws originally provided for some forms of mixed types of government and mixed electoral formulae. This process of institutional convergence has contributed to overall democratization and stability in the continent, because it increases predictability, i.e. political actors in CEE are increasingly expected to behave at the state level according to the democratic rules of the game that are well-known to their western counterparts. At the same time, this convergence provides sufficient room for institutional diversity at lower levels (Malová and Haughton 2001). The institutional convergence constitutes one of the unintended outcomes 76 of the politics of EU enlargement that can be assessed as a positive product of the politics of conditionality. The new parliaments in CEEC in the early years of transition enjoyed a dominant position over the executives in contrast to legislatures in the established democracies of Western Europe. However, since the inception of the EU’s conditionality politics and especially since the beginning of the accession process, the position of governments in the region has been significantly strengthened due to the introduction of fast truck procedures implemented during the accession (Malová, Haughton 2001). The Commission’s Regular Reports indirectly encouraged such an arrangement by relentless critique of the accession countries for delays in implementing acquis. For instance, in 2000 the Commission praised the Czech parliament for significantly improving its performance through the streamlining of its legislative scrutiny procedures “thanks to the introduction of a fast track possibility for EC related draft law” (Commission 2000, 27). Tight timetables left little space for discussing EU-related matters in Parliament; decisions were simply taken. Competition with other countries pushed governments and parliaments to give precedence to speed and has led political leaders to be more responsive to the demands imposed from the outside than to domestic conditions and expectations (Láštic 2006). Membership conditions demanded that the accession countries prioritized efficient decision making and the inclusion of various political and societal groups in it would have increased costs related to time and resources. Since the EU clearly rewarded fast and efficient work during the accession, officials and leading politicians presented any EU-related decisions as the only possible and inevitable solution instead of searching for different options. They portrayed the EU criteria and acquis to citizens under the label “there is no alternative” thus trying to save the time that broader public discussion on alternatives would have required. The inclusion of parliaments, interest groups and civil society organizations would have just complicated and slowed down the administrative efficiency. The exclusion of civil society from the accession negotiations might accelerate the harmonization of legislation with EU law; nevertheless it contradicts the EU’s direct support for the development of civil society. The EU together with the US government belongs to the main donors of many non-governmental organizations in the region that participated in democratic transition and consolidation. As a consequence the EU’s promotion of democracy has not straightforwardly encouraged the emergence of a vivid civil society. At the beginning of the 1990s in Slovakia and Romania western aid to NGOs promoted an image of foreign ‘intervention’ in domestic politics and discredited the idea of civil society. For example, the Mečiar government directly attacked the main organizations monitoring human and minority rights and reporting on the government’s violations of democracy. On the other hand, the broad mobilization of voters in the 1998 elections would not have been possible without the coordinated collective action of many NGOs and foreign financial support. However, the relative weakness of civil society in NMS has resulted from the interplay of domestic structural and cultural factors as well as from the contradictory effects of the EU’s conditionality The pressures of the EU accession did not only preclude public debate over policy alternatives but indirectly shaped party politics. Limiting public discussions over policy choices constrained responsive and accountable party competition. Parties did not compete so much over the content of public policy as over its management and administration. Politicians used populist and nationalist appeals, and the EU paradoxically encouraged both technocratic competition and populist response. The political party systems in the region have 77 thus offered electoral accountability but not political accountability, since the electoral system has been capable of getting rid of parties but not, it seems, of shaping policies in critical areas of government (Grzymala-Busse and Innes 2003, 66). Conclusion On the one hand the EU conditionality has helped to establish many democratic institutions and policies, and on the other hand it has promoted the isolation of the pro-accession’s elite, and executive dominance in the political systems. It has increased citizens’ mistrust in democratic politics and thus paved the way for the return of populist and nationalist forces. The EU’s conditionality worked mostly through the initiation of new policies and the establishment of new agencies. The domestic political elite focused on accountability to international organizations more than on being accountable to their own citizens. The enlargement promoted a specific pattern of democracy in CEEC; a model which secures the separation of powers, horizontal accountability, protects political opposition, and human and minority rights. These institutions were considered sufficient to prevent new members becoming politically unstable and eventually creating security risks for the EU. Political conditionality has also shaped the ruling elite’s behavior as politicians had to demonstrate respect for democratic norms and rules. The elites subordinated vertical accountability to the final goal—EU membership. As elections became the main channel for participation after the successful accession voters in several countries punished previous governments by electing nationalist and populist forces. In rhetoric these political forces put national and popular interests above accountability to the European Union. Apparently as the case of Slovakia demonstrates it may work well (see Tables 2 and 3). References Berg-Schlosser, D. The Quality of Democracies in Europe as Measured by Current Indicators of Democratization and Good Governance. Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 20 (1), 28-55, 2004. Brusis, M. The European Union and the Interethnic Power-Sharing Arrangements in Accession Countries. 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Freedom House – Freedom in the world 2006 Edition: http://www.freedomhouse.org/template. cfm?page=363&year=2006. 79 Freedom House – Nations in Transit 2006 Edition: http://www.freedomhouse.org/template. cfm?page=17&year=2006. Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2006: http://bti2006.bertelsmann-transformation-index. de/11.0.html?&L=1. Polity IV 2006 country reports: http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity06.htm. Avis (Commission Opinion on the Country’s Application for Membership of the European Union). http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/key_documents/index_archive_en.htm. Regular Reports, http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/archives/key_documents/reports_1998_en.htm, http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/archives/key_documents/reports_1999_en.htm, http://ec.europa. eu/enlargement/archives/key_documents/reports_2000_en.htm, http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/ archives/key_documents/reports_2001_en.htm, http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/archives/key_ documents/reports_2002_en.htm Department of Political Science Comenius University Gondova 2 818 01 Bratislava Slovak Republic E-mail: malova@fphil.uniba.sk 80