rjea vol6 no3 oct2006

RomanianJournalof European AffairsVol. 6, No. 3, October 2006

EUROPEAN INSTITUTE OF ROMANIA

DirectorNicolae Idu

Editor-in-ChiefOana Mocanu

Associate EditorsElena BotezatuGilda Truic„

Editorial BoardFarhad Analoui – Professor in International Development and Human ResourceManagement, the Center for International Development, University of Bradford, UK

Daniel D„ianu – Professor, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, formerMinister of Finance

Eugen Dijm„rescu – Vice Governor of the National Bank of Romania

Nicolae Idu – Director General of the European Institute of Romania

Andras Inotai – Professor, Director of the Institute for World Economics, Budapest

Mugur Is„rescu – Governor of the National Bank of Romania

Alan Mayhew – Jean Monnet Professor, Sussex European Institute

Costea Munteanu – Professor, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest

Jacques Pelkmans – Jan Tinbergen Chair, Director of the Department of EuropeanEconomic Studies, College of Europe – Bruges

Andrei Ple∫u – Rector of New Europe College, Bucharest, former Minister ofForeign Affairs, former Minister of Culture

Cristian Popa – Vice Governor of the National Bank of Romania

Tudorel Postolache – Member of the Romanian Academy, Ambassador of Romaniato the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg

Helen Wallace – Professor, Director of the Robert Schuman Centre for AdvancedStudies, European University Institute, Florence

CONTENTS

BETWEEN RHETORIC AND ACTION: REFLECTIONS ON ROMANIA’SEUROPEAN UNION ACCESSION AND POLITICAL CONDITIONALITY – THE VIEWS FROM BRUSSELS AND BUCHARESTGeoffrey Pridham 5

GLOBALIZATION, REGIONALIZATION AND THE EU – JAPAN – U.S. TRIADAdrian Pop 25

THE BALKANS BETWEEN THE EU AND NATO: FOCUSING ON THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA ?Mamoru Sadakata 38

THE IMPACT OF EU ACCESSION ON THE DEVELOPMENT OFADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITIES IN THE STATES IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE. SIMILAR DEVELOPMENTS IN RUSSIA?Alfred E. Kellermann 46

THE LEGAL PERSONALITY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION – BETWEEN THE MAASTRICHT TREATY AND THE DRAFT TREATY ESTABLISHING A CONSTITUTION FOR EUROPE — REALITY AND PERSPECTIVES –Octavian Gabriel Pascu, Caius Tudor Luminosu 52

RECENT ADVANCES IN TERRITORIAL COMPETITION ANDCOMPETITIVENESS ANALYSISDaniela-Luminita Constantin 71

BETWEEN RHETORIC AND ACTION: REFLECTIONS ONROMANIA’S EUROPEAN UNION ACCESSION AND POLITICALCONDITIONALITY – THE VIEWS FROM BRUSSELS ANDBUCHAREST

GEOFFREY PRIDHAM∗

ABSTRACT. The role of political elites is an important theme in the study of EUenlargement; but how this relates to domestic politics is often neglected. This theme isapplied to Romania, with a focus on the problems of implementing the EU’s politicalconditions. Firstly, attention is given to the conditionality policy adopted by Brussels withrespect to Romania; and then, secondly, attention turns to Bucharest. The analysis ofRomanian responses is based on a distinction between political will and politicalcapacity. While there are some positive elite characteristics relating to the will factor,although complicated by instrumental attitudes towards conditionality, various problemsof political capacity help much to explain Romania’s persistent difficulties for much of theaccession period in meeting Brussels’ demands.

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1. INTRODUCTION

The role of political elites in EUaccession – meaning in particulargoverning elites in candidate countries –is a much recognised though under-explored theme in that process, boththeoretically and empirically. Studies ofEuropean enlargement have invariablyremarked on this process as elite-drivenor top-down – which is broadly true.However, when focussing on interactionsbetween European and domestic politicsin this context, the picture may looksomewhat more complex than hierarchicalassumptions about top-downness.

Thus, while national governments arecrucial in this process in both responding

(effectively) to Brussels’ demands aswell as, obviously, negotiating on behalfof their countries, implementation of bothEuropean legislation and the variousconditions (economic, political and `thecapacity to assume the obligations ofmembership’) depends to somesignificant degree on state capacity (asdistinct from national governments) butalso other domestic actors whether(party-)political or economic interests,NGOs and, in certain respects, publicopinion – though depending on the kindof legislation and conditions in question1.EU enlargement therefore involvesdomestic politics to a fuller extent thanoften envisaged in the elite-driven

∗ Geoffrey Pridham is Professor of European Politics at the University of Bristol, UK. He has authoredmany books and articles on problems of democratisation in post-Europe. These include The Dynamicsof Democratization: a Comparative Approach (Continuum, 2000) and Designing Democracy: EUEnlargement and Regime Change in Post-Communist Europe (Palgrave, 2005). Currently he is workingon the continuing effects of the EU’s political conditionality in Slovakia, Latvia and Romania with athree-year fellowship from the British Economic & Social Research Council.1 G. Pridham, Designing Democracy: EU Enlargement and Regime Change in Post-Communist Europe(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp.130-31 which distinguishes between three complementaryapproaches when conceptualising the implementation of EU conditionality: the Eurocratic; the national-level top-down (the role of national governments); and, the national-level bottom-up (the importance forcompliance of other domestic actors notably at the sub-national and societal levels.

scenario. Furthermore, political elites arenot operating in a political vacuumnotwithstanding the fact that accessionrequirements are dictated from above byBrussels, the enormous time pressure ofmembership negotiations and theoccasional impatience of the EuropeanCommission with the complexities andconstraints of domestic pressures onnational governments.

There are of course broaderimplications of this question both for theEU itself and for democratisation in post-Communist countries. On the one hand,there is the growing problem in memberstates of the EU’s legitimacy which isalso linked with other pending issues likeits constitution. This problem is also likelyto arise in new member states for muchthe same reasons (to do mainly with theperceived remoteness of EU institutionsfrom national publics, their vast ignoranceof EU affairs but also the very complexityand disputed meaningfulness of the EUsystem). In addition, EU legitimacyproblems might arise in new memberstates from the top-down and speedynature of accession especially in the lightof the considerable credibility gapbetween political elites and publics in thepost-Communist new democracies ofCentral & Eastern Europe (CEE), despitethe formal consultation of public opinionwitnessed in the series of referenda onEU membership conducted in the EU-8during 2003 (all of which provedp o s i t i v e ) .

On the other hand, as indicated bythis last problem, there may also beimplications for democratisation from EUaccession, or more precisely for post-Communist democratic consolidation.For, accession from the later 1990sessentially occurred during theconsolidation rather than transition yearsof these new democracies (it is,

however, possible in a few cases likenotably Romania that extended transitionproblems spilled over into the accessionperiod). In any case, since EUenlargement and the later stages ofdemocratisation have in CEE runconcurrently, it is reasonable to assumethey have interacted to some extent ifnot to a significant extent. This isespecially because of the extensivealbeit not comprehensive politicalconditions demanded by Brusselsconcerning democratic development incandidate countries. Such a concurrencehas been true of both the enlargementto the EU-8 in 2004 and to Bulgaria andRomania in 2007; and, judging bypresent trends, it is likely to be broadlytrue too of further accession states fromthe West Balkans (Turkey notionallypresents a rather different case in thisrespect) and maybe also post-Sovietcountries like Ukraine. In this context,elite/mass relations acquire a vitalimportance for the prospects forconsolidation due to the relevance ofboth levels for its achievement as wellas the example-setting influence of newdemocratic elites on still unformed (if notto some degree still undecided) nationalpublics and the various constraints onelites that come from mass opinion.

2. DEMOCRATISATION ANDEUROPEANISATION

The role of political elites indemocratisation is a much accepted,indeed much emphasised, variable in theliterature on regime change. Empirically,there is considerable evidence fromdifferent countries that such elites, if notindividual political figures, may play adecisive part in how transition pathsdevelop. This not least because of theuncertainty that usually predominatesespecially at the start of regime change,

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allowing great scope for elite orindividual initiative. Certain transitiontasks in particular are largely subject toelite decisions notably institutional designin new democracies and – as highlightedin Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) –the way in which sensitive matters ofhuman and minority rights are handled.

Most of all, the role of elites hasbenefited from the dominance of politicalchoice thinking in democratisation theory.Notions like “elite settlements”, “politicalcrafting”, “elite convergence” and “eliteadaptation” demonstrate this approach;and they underline how much elitechoice and behaviour can impact onwider developments in regime changeand especially public responses2. Forexample, elite consensus on the newdemocratic settlement may well havesome formative effect on its eventuallegitimation, perhaps all the more whenthe new democratic elites includeelements from the former regime. This isof course a variation on the importanceof elite support for the rules of the gamewhich features in elite theory.

Thus, while elites are commonly seenas central in the chances of success indemocratic transition, they maynevertheless continue to have aninfluence in some ways crucial todemocratic consolidation. At the sametime, especially in the light of transitionexperience in CEE, it is now seen thatpolitical choice has been exaggerated tothe neglect of structural determinants andthat it is the interplay between the twothat provides the best analytical handleon regime change dynamics. This isbecause of the presence in CEE unlikein Southern Europe of paralleltransformations (notably economic), a newattention to the role of the state in regime

change and above all the decisiveinfluence exercised by internationalorganisations in democratisation.

The relevance of this argument forstudying the role of elites for EUenlargement depends on how far thisprocess may be seen as “systemic”.The EU does of course provide a setof structural determinants with whichnew democratic elites, ambitious to jointhat organisation, have to engage. In aliteral sense, accession countries areentering a particular, rather unique,form of political system, although onethat is clearly incomplete whencompared with conventional, i.e.national, political systems such as thosein member states which are primarilyparliamentary democracies. It maycertainly be argued that Europeanintegration has various profound effectson accession or new member statesespecially on policy matters. This alsoapplies to some extent to institutionalmatters insofar as countries accedinghave to adapt their state machinery tothe business of EU policy-making andfor the purposes of liaison with EUinstitutions. Undoubtedly, political elites– especially those in government – areincreasingly subject to intensivetransnational socialisation through theirmultiple contacts at different levels.

Countries wishing to negotiate formembership and eventually join the EUhave to satisfy Brussels that they meetthe Copenhagen conditions of 1993 thatthey have `achieved stability of institutionsguaranteeing democracy, the rule of law,human rights and respect for andprotection of minorities’. It is in thiscontext that we focus on political elitesand the democratic conditionality of theEU: their motivation, response but also

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2 G.Pridham, The Dynamics of Democratization: a Comparative Approach (London: Continuum, 2000),chapter 5.1.

their interaction with domestic pressuresand how these facilitated or inhibited theirability to implement the politicalconditions. In short, this theme ofdemocratic conditionality provides arelevant and focussed approach topolitical convergence between CEE andthe EU as seen through elite responsesto the political demands of Brussels: whatis the understanding of and expectationsconcerning democratic conditionality in theEU?; how much is the democraticimperative crucial to elite attitudes inCEE, and how much were these basedon conviction or alternatively instrumentalfor the sake of accession?; and, withwhat effect has this conditionality beencarried through for it is at this level ofimplementation that one is most able toassess the impact of European integrationon democratic consolidation in post-Communist countries? Answers to thesequestions should provide evidence onpolitical elite as well as democraticconvergence between CEE and the EU3.

The term “convergence”, which arisesin transnational theories on regimechange, refers to gradual movement insystem conformity based on aninstitutionalised grouping of establisheddemocratic states that has the power andmechanisms to attract regimesundergoing change and to help securetheir democratic outcomes. The EU is themost ambitious example of this kind ofgrouping, all the more as its promise of

incorporation (i.e. EU membership) givesa direction and purpose to convergenceand, of course, it reinforces considerablyits power to attract. Depending on thedetermination of new democracies toaccede, the EU is provided with acompelling leverage over their politicalelites. It is in this context thatconditionality acquires its bite. Democraticconditionality is normally achieved byspecifying (pre-)conditions in return forsupport (material or other) or politicalopportunities, as in this case membershipof a prestigious international organisation.Hence, while convergence has its gradualand mildly intensifying pressures,conditionality adds a sharpness to theprospects of convergence.

At the same time, democraticconditionality is dependent for itsimplementation on the responsivenessof different domestic actors and notmerely governments. It is for thisreason that the basic focus in thispaper is on both political will andpolitical capacity. The former involvesan unqualified strategic commitment onthe part of political elites to joining theEU with meeting conditionality seen asa component of that strategy. Politicalcapacity refers however to thefunctioning of the political system; and,it therefore is especially relevant to theimplementation of European demands.In practice, this points to state capacity,although over some of the political

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3 This paper draws on project work from an ESRC Fellowship (2002-7) as well as from a LeverhulmeFellowship (2002-4) looking at conditionality impacts in accession countries of CEE. Altogether, inaddition to documentary sources nearly 500 elite interviews have been carried out since 1993 in thefollowing accession countries as well as in the EU institutions (European Commission, EuropeanParliament but also heads of CEE missions in Brussels): Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia,Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia. The ESRC Fellowship concentrates on the three countries ofLatvia, Romania and Slovakia. Altogether, some hundred interviews have been carried out in Romania,the subject of this paper, during three field trips in May 2001, October 2003 and November/December2005. Categories of interview respondents have included government ministers, ministerial advisers andsenior civil servants; chairs or members of European and also foreign affairs committees in parliaments;party leaders and international secretaries of parties; heads and members of EU delegations inaccession countries; NGO leaders; colleagues in policy institutes; and, journalists working on EU affairs.

conditions the involvement of non-governmental actors is also important.

The case of Romania is chosen fora number of reasons as a test ofintegration effects during accession. Thecountry presents a difficult case incomparative terms both in itsdemocratisation path, with severeCommunist legacy problems, and in itsEU accession, being commonly regardedin Europe as the “laggard” of the post-Communist enlargement process. Largelyfor this reason, Romania has acquired anegative image in Europe; and this hascoloured the EU’s conditionality policytowards that country. The country hasoften been accused, not least by EUofficials dealing closely with Bucharest,of a marked disparity between rhetoricand action in its accession process. Atthe same time, Romanian elites haveshown a fairly strong dependency culturein looking to the EU (and otherinternational organisations) for assistanceand policy initiative to a degree greaterthan in other countries of Central &Eastern Europe (CEE), namely thosethat joined the EU in 2004. It may thusbe supposed that both the scope andthe limitations of the EU’s politicalconditionality will be particularly testedand highlighted by this case study.

The paper first discusses theconditionality policy of the EU and thethinking behind this as well as the view ofEU elites towards Romania. There thenfollow two sections, the first dealing withthe questions of political will and thesecond with problems of political capacity.Lessons are then drawn from the 2004and 2007 enlargements with someattention to possible post-accessiontendencies with respect to completing theimplementation of democratic conditionality.

3. DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATIONAND EU ACCESSION: THE BRUSSELSPERSPECTIVE – INNER-DIRECTEDLINKAGES

Pravda has emphasized the degreeof inclusion in the internationalcommunity as an important yardstick inassessing the impact of conditionalityand the prospects for democraticconsolidation. By this was meant theposition of states in queues formembership in the main Westernorganisations, notably NATO and theEU, with the following categories:double insiders, insiders, outsiders andextreme outsiders (with Ukraine andthen Belarus and Serbia underMilosevic representing respectively thelast two categories)4. As of today,Romania is now top of the queuetogether with Bulgaria having movedthrough several of these categories andso may be taken as a test case ofpolitical convergence on Europeandemocratic standards through theaccession period.

Such a categorisation is relevant tothe pull of the EU’s leverage withregard to conditionality for the dynamicsof accession and the prospects forfirstly negotiations and then eventualmembership are crucial in determiningthe willingness of governing elites tomeet conditionality demands. There istherefore a trade-off between thecredibility of the EU in carrying throughits conditional promise of membershipand the drive for change by candidatecountries. This consideration thusmodifies the common view thataccession is asymmetrical with Brusselsdictating the terms which are hardlyopen to real negotiation.


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4 A. Pravda, `Introduction’ in J. Zielonka and A. Pravda (eds.), Democratic Consolidation in EasternEurope, vol. 2: International and Transnational Factors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 22-24.

Over the past decade, the EU hasexpanded its democracy agenda withregard to CEE. While the Copenhagencriteria as defined in 1993 covered thestability of democratic institutions, the ruleof law and human and minority rights,the EU’s political conditions have alsosince then come to specify thestrengthening of state capacity, theindependence of judiciaries, the pursuit ofanti-corruption measures and theelaboration of a series of particularhuman and minority rights (as well ashighlighting the severe condition of theRoma), but also economic, social andcultural rights such as relating totrafficking in women and children andgender equality. It is worth noting at thispoint that several of these conditionshave consequences for different elitessuch as bureaucratic elites (over statecapacity), the judiciary over its reformand independence (i.e. from politicalinfluence) and economic as well aspolitical elites (including especially theirinter-relations) with regard to fightingcorruption. In other words, the EU’sdemocratic conditionality has importantimplications for elite behaviour in thecause of strengthening democraticdevelopment. This significant evolution ofthe EU’s conditionality from the mid-1990s was partly in response toemerging problems in the new post-Communist democracies (notably thequestion of minorities), but it alsoexpressed an underlying concern inBrussels over their functionability(notably, state capacity) as prospectivemember states not to mention the impactof a mega-enlargement on the EU itself.

The EU’s political conditions haveevolved pragmatically without thisinvolving any comprehensive view ofliberal democracy. This is shown by some

important gaps in the Commission’sattention to democratic actors for politicalparties are omitted (although their activityis catered for by the Europeantransnational parties), while civil society isnarrowly defined as the development ofNGOs (which is handled more via thePhare Programme than the politicalconditions properly speaking). TheCommission’s reluctance to engage withpolitical parties is an admission of itsmore bureaucratic than political approach,preferring the EP to take up certain morecontroversial political issues that it mightfind difficult to handle publicly5. In broadterms, the EU’s conditionality’s focus wasdetermined by its timing in relation topost-Communist democratisation for, ineffect, it aimed at its consolidation not itstransition. Conditionality was not aboutmacro-institutional choice just as it did notengage with types of liberal democraticregimes. As the Copenhagen conditionsstressed, the EU concern was about the`stability of institutions guaranteeingdemocracy’ – whatever they were. Inshort, the relationship between the EU’spolitical conditionality and democraticconsolidation is in one sense about areinforcing process, for the range ofpolitical demands is fairly extensive. It is,however, more limited in scope comparedwith consolidation’s tasks. That isespecially true in certain non-institutionalareas, for the focus on civil society isrestricted to NGO activity. And politicalconditionality is of course limitedtemporally to the period of accession,which amounted to less than a decade inthe case of the 2004 enlargement thoughslightly longer for the two countries joiningin 2007.

Over Eastern enlargement, theCommission has come to insist that itsdemocratic standards are satisfied

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5 Pridham, Designing Democracy, p. 43.

before accession takes place (incontrast to the more relaxed approachin previous enlargements, notably theSouthern European); and that theoriginal Copenhagen criteria as definedin 1993 are met before membershipnegotiations are opened. At the sametime, the EU developed newinstruments for furthering thisconditionality, such as the RegularReports (the annual monitoring reportsof the Commission on candidatecountries), the Phare DemocracyProgramme and twinning arrangementswith individual member states.

The European Commission’ssuccessive Regular Reports on Romaniahave tracked democratic standards in thatcountry during the accession process,thus enabling patterns to be identified.While some problems were cross-nationally common among CEEcandidates, notably difficulties with judicialreform and fighting corruption, variousother problems were particular toRomania. These were either problems ofdegree (e.g. Romania was continuouslyrated the most corrupt country in Europe)or problems that were more unique suchas a marked slowness with economicreform (which had a political significance),low state capacity and a weak policy-making environment as well as thespecial issue of institutionalised childrenwhich was treated in European circles asa reflection on the state of human rights.

Implementation was the subject ofpersistent concern after negotiationscommenced, and increasingly so asRomania’s likely membership drew

nearer. It is no surprise that theCommission has tended to be particularlyinterventionist over the political conditionswith regard to Romania. Early in 2004,for instance, when Brussels wasbeginning to become uneasy aboutconcluding negotiations with Romania,the Delegation had acted on the ideathat special conditions should beimposed on Romania to convey theserious need for reforms. The famous“To Do List” that followed EP criticismsin February 2004 was conceived by theDelegation, presented to Prime MinisterNastase on the plane to Brussels withthe message he should accept these andtell Commissioner Verheugen theserepresented his government’s efforts toanswer unease in the Commission6. Afew months later, the EU Delegation inBucharest together with the Ministry ofJustice helped to draw up a majorpackage of judicial reforms that wasinspired by West European ideas ofjudicial organisation. Among other things,this ended the political appointment ofjudges.

The European Parliament was rathermore blatant and overtly political in itsapproach to conditionality matters. Itwas also in the EP that the influence ofRomania’s image problem was more inevidence reflecting as this did someparty-political viewpoints and perhapsalso national press coverage ofRomanian problems7. The particularissue that the country rapporteur duringthe negotiations, Emma Nicholson,highlighted doggedly was that of themiserable state of institutionalised


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6 Author interview with Jonathan Scheele, EU Ambassador to Romania, in Bucharest, November 2005,in which he also noted that the Delegation sought `regular contact with administrations [in Bucharest]that work in a better way – a form of peer pressure [on weaker administrations]’ and that `it’s notlooking great’ on the question of administrative capacity.7 A.U. Gabanyi, Rumanien vor dem EU-Eintritt, Studie 31, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, October2005, p. 9.

children, a legacy of the Ceausescuregime. Her commitment to the issuewas such that in 2001, with governmentinaction, she raised the question ofinterrupting negotiations; and this impliedthreat produced some results. InFebruary 2004, the EP report was harshin its criticisms of Romania’s record onpolitical conditions, casting doubts onthe government’s seriousness and therewere again moves for suspendingnegotiations. Various measures werethen listed as necessary, includingfighting corruption at the political level,implementing the independence of thejudiciary, reinforcing the freedom of themedia, stopping ill treatment at policestations and action on the moratoriumon adoptions. On corruption, the EPdemanded that `first and foremost theremust be the political will to eradicatecorruption, for only this will lead to achange in attitudes’8. The result was the“To Do List” mentioned above of somethirty items with a short deadline in July2004 that formed an agreementbetween Commissioner Verheugen andPrime Minister Nastase.

One should add here that Romaniahas encountered an image problemabroad, especially in EU circles, which toa great degree has reflected past andcontinuing doubts about the state ofRomanian democracy. With thebackground of Ceausescu’s harshregime, this image surfaced quickly inRomania’s transition with one event inparticular making a strong impact onEuropean opinion – the highlycontroversial suppression of anti-

government protestors in June 1990 bygovernment-backed miners who ranamok in Bucharest. As a result, Brusselsdelayed the signing of its trade andcooperation agreement with Romania forseveral months. Uncertainty and uneaseover Iliescu’s systemic intentions –provoked by his praise for the miners’action and coloured by his ownCommunist past under Ceausescu –combined with incidents of inter-ethnicstrife to maintain this negative image.The second reason for the image wasthe continuously poor performance duringthe 1990s and beyond of the Romanianeconomy which overlapped with the firstproblem insofar as Iliescu’s reluctanceover system change includingmarketisation was seen behind thisproblem. The third reason wasRomania’s gathering reputation from themid-1990s onwards for implementationfailure through organisational inefficiencyover the a c q u i s and conditions.Sometimes, this reputation wasreactivated by specific issues, such as in2002 over that of institutionalised children– an emotive question in Europeancircles – and illegal immigration byRomanians in Europe.

While implementation became theEU’s predominant concern during thenegotiations for membership in 2000-04,the country’s image problem abroadcontinued to be fed by these three factorsthroughout the past decade-and-a-half ofRomania’s post-Communist regimec h a n g e9. Romanian diplomats were onlytoo aware of this problem and sought toovercome it through a patient emphasisthat Bucharest was gradually if belatedly

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8 European Parliament, Report on Romania’s Progress towards Accession, 24 February 2004, pp. 5-7and 16. 9 According to Romania’s Chief Negotiator with the EU 2000-04, Romania’s image problem `didn’tinfluence a lot’ the negotiations, but it was `a strong problem, not in Brussels only but in all EUcapitals’ and especially in northern European ones (author interview with Vasile Puscas, in Bucharest,November 2005).

putting changes into effect1 0. Whileexploiting this image problem could beseen as a form of special pressure onRomania to deliver on EU affairs, effortsat reconstructing the country’s imagewere always vulnerable to domesticdevelopments, all the more as the pressin Europe has for long tended to look for`bad news’ from Bucharest. Nevertheless,in spring 2006 Club Romania-EU (a NGOfor Romanian public officials in Brussels)launched a survey of EU affairsprofessionals from and outside Brusselsand produced a report on this veryquestion, aimed at confronting thecountry’s image problem. It concludedthat `many of those surveyed indicatedthat Romania is perceived as a poor, old-fashioned, messy country, and, worse,that Romanians do not seem aware ofthis situation’1 1. The timing of this projectwas significant for it took place whenRomania was in limbo between theaccession treaty and the final decision onthe date of EU entry (a sensitive issue inBucharest circles).

It was evident from thesedevelopments that EU criticisms ofRomania had in fact become strongerover time. The reason was a fear, withnegotiations ended, that the lessening ofthe EU’s leverage would weakenRomania’s will to attain conditionalitytargets. As it was, on the eve of endingnegotiations in December 2004 there an

agreement to operate a special “safeguardclause” of eleven points over whichRomania continued to be monitored forthe following year and a half. This“safeguard clause” amounted to anunprecedented extension of conditionalitybeyond the end of negotiations and thesigning of the accession treaty 1 2. Theclause also provided for one year’s delayin entry from 2007 to 2008 `if seriousshortcomings have been observed in thefulfilment by Romania of one or more ofthe commitments and requirements’relating to four specific items of thecompetition chapter and seven of the JHAchapter (including `the acceleration of thefight against high-level corruption’)1 3. TheCommission fully exploited this extensionof the conditionality period so thatRomania (and Bulgaria) were placedunder constant pressure to improve theirimplementation right up to the finaldecision over entry in September 2006.Even then, membership for Romania andBulgaria as from January 2007 would behedged with further monitoring (inRomania’s case concerning judicial reformand the fight against corruption) andsafeguards or sanctions including thewithdrawal of EU funds1 4

It should, finally, be added thatRomania and Bulgaria encountered at thislast stage of accession a much tighter andmore demanding conditionality policy thatcame into play following the 2004enlargement. There were four factors


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10 E.g. the comment of Romania’s ambassador to the EU that `perceptions change slowly’ and theanswer to the problem was `the capacity to show and convince that important transformations havebeen taking place’ (author interview with Lazar Comanescu, in Brussels, October).11 Club RO-UE, Footprint Romania: Based on a Survey of European Affairs Circles (Brussels, July 2006),p. 16.12 According to the EU Ambassador to Romania, the “safeguard clause” was `intended to preserveleverage’ on the part of the EU, for the thinking was that `we need to find some instrument that willmaintain pressure after the Treaty is signed’ (author interview with Jonathan Scheele, in Bucharest,November 2005.13 European Commission, press information, 5 January 2005.14 European Commission, Monitoring Report on the State of Preparedness for EU Membership of Bulgariaand Romania (Brussels, 26 September 2006).

behind this change: lessons drawn fromthe 2004 enlargement over conditionality,especially concerning implementationproblems; the approach of CommissionerRehn who – unlike Verheugen’s ratherrelaxed line – was risk-averse, paid a strictattention to the detail of conditionalitycommitments and imposed newbureaucratic hurdles (called “benchmarks”);pressures from “enlargement fatigue” insidethe EU and the crisis over the constitution– which brought to the fore publicdeclarations by some political figurescautioning about further enlargement; and,not least, the fact that in the West Balkansinterested countries faced more difficultpre-accession transformation problems of astatehood, political, ethnic and socio-economic kind. This tougher line onconditionality matters was evident over thenew issue of handing over war criminals,for lack of progress here was the occasionfor postponing membership talks withCroatia in spring 2005 for half a year andfor interrupting talks with Serbia over astabilisation and association agreement inspring 2006. In other words, Romania andBulgaria experienced the thin edge of aforthcoming wedge over accessionconditionality. This showed that Brusselsintended enlargement in the future to be afar more stringent, rather less predictableand by no means automatic process.

4. ROMANIAN POLITICAL ELITESIN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE: THEQUESTION OF POLITICAL WILL –OUTER-DIRECTED LINKAGES

Since political will is interpreted as astrategic commitment to Europeanintegration, the focus here is on eliteoutlooks and motivation. This is explored

by looking at: relevant elite characteristicsin Romania; the attitude towards thedemocratic imperative behind accession;and, behavioural aspects of the conductof the country’s European policy.Frequent complaints in EU circles (whichfeatured in the author’s elite interviews inBrussels and Bucharest) were themarked gap between rhetoric and action(paralleled by a noticeable tendency toproduce impressive paperwork whichoften remained as such – the“yes,yes,yes” response); the inefficiencyof pubic administration; and, the lack ofinternalisation of EU-driven reformsamong political elites. These complaintsoverlapped with the country’s imageproblem but, substantially, they alsocame from EU representatives most inregular contact with Romania’s Europeanpolicy-makers. How much does the studyof elite outlooks and motivation in thatcountry reflect on these problems?

Looking general ly at el i techaracteristics (insofar as these arerelevant to EU accession), the mostdiscussed feature has been continuitywith the previous Communist regime 1 5.This is an inevitable research concernespecially when assessing countries indemocratic transition although, in thecourse of time, once democraticconsolidation is well underway, itbecomes less pertinent. In Romania’scase, this concern has been especiallypronounced because of the persistence ofex-Communist political and economicelites through the transition period andbeyond. Romania was not unique in thisrespect in post-Communist Europe; but itwas the degree of this and its effects onboth policy and political life that counted.

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15 E.g. see A. Gabanyi, `Die rumanischen Eliten in der Systemtransformation’ and A. Sterbling, `AlteEliten in jungen Demokratien? Das Fallbeispiel Rumanien’ in H-J. Veen (ed.), Alte Eliten in JungenDemokratien?: Wechsel, Wandel und Kontinuitat in Mittel- und Osteuropa (Cologne: Bohlau Verlag, 2004),respectively pp. 313-31 and 363-75.

In the words of Tismaneanu, following thedramatic revolution of December 1989`the most abrupt break with the old orderseem to have resulted in its least radicalt r a n s f o r m a t i o n ’1 6. The experience of theCommunist period continued to be feltduring the accession period notably inpersistent difficulties facing elitereplacement and the creation of newdemocratic cohorts1 7. Some research hasnevertheless specified that the percentageof old regime cadres in the power elitewas in the transition rather smaller thanassumed and they included circles thathad opposed the regime from within 1 8.Most prominent was the figure of IonIliescu, President 1990-96 and again2000-4, who at one time was considereda successor to Ceausescu but wassidelined by the dictator and played acrucial role in the 1989 revolution againsthim. Despite this, he became inEuropean circles a symbol of old cadresin Romania’s new democracy.

The implicit relevance of thisbackground is that old-style elite culturewas somehow a hindrance to embracingEuro-Atlantic integration both because ofa form of conservatism and an assumedinnate reservation if not submergedhostility towards the former inimicalWestern organisations. This is, however,a rather static view of elite outlook abovewith regard to regime change.

Democratisation studies have emphasizedthe factor of elite adaptation in transitionas a precondition for consolidation,whereby old regime elements opt for thenew democratic order1 9. In their doing so,opportunism and careerism may beaccommodated if these accord with theaims of transition. One may, byextension, apply this pattern to Euro-Atlantic integration. Did this happen in theRomanian case?

Three elite characteristics are worthmention as affecting the politicalambition to join the EU; and, theycontextualise attitudes to conditionality.Firstly, there was a distinctly Romaniancultural disposition towards Europe asreflected in the impressive linguisticdiversity among the political elites; and,traditionally, it had a Francophile edgeto it. This has obviously made for easytransnational elite communication,although it cannot be taken as anabsolute indicator of understanding ofEuropean affairs. In fact, both Romanianand Bulgarian elites were criticisedearlier in their accessions (before theirnegotiations started in early 2000) forevidencing more political rhetoric aboutEurope than a true understanding ofwhat integration involved2 0.

Secondly, one salient attitude hasbeen beneficial to the acceptance ofpolitical conditionality. This is a


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16 V. Tismaneanu, `Romanian exceptionalism?: democracy, ethnocracy and uncertain pluralism in post-Ceausescu Romania’ in K. Dawisha and B. Parrott (eds.), Politics, Power and the Struggle for Democracyin South-East Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 403.17 A. Mungiu Pippidi, Transformation Reloaded?, SAR Policy Brief, Romanian Academic Society,Bucharest, August 2005, p.2.18 Gabanyi, `Die rumanischen Eliten’, pp. 327-28.19 Pridham, The Dynamics of Democratization, p. 150.20 Economic Policy Institute, Sofia, and Centre for the Study of Democracy, Sofia, `Bulgaria andRomania’ in H. Tang (ed.), Winners and Losers of EU Integration: Policy Issues for Central and EasternEurope (Washington: The World Bank, 2000), pp. 99-100. Cf. the comment of a member of the EUDelegation to Bulgaria that elite understanding of EU affairs in Bulgaria was `more technical than deep’,for they were `not used to this [European] kind of legislation’ (author interview with Christian Stock,EU Delegation, in Sofia, September 2001).

pronounced desire to please the West,for reasons of international acceptance,and to conform often uncritically to whatthe West requires21. This has producedan outlook among political andeconomic elites of accepting outsideactors as being in command, wherebypoliticians know how to say the rightthings to EU partners and politicalagendas are often reactions to whatBucharest is told from abroad, includingadopting even critical observations fromCommission documents in governmentpriority programmes22.

Thirdly, one has met a markedoptimism about Romania and Europe inBucharest. This differed markedly fromthe more cautious or pessimistic viewsof Romania in Europe, aware of thatcountry’s political as well as socio-economic backwardness compared withEuropean standards. Romanian elitesnevertheless looked to the EU as theessential anchor for its futuredevelopment and for moving away fromthe past. For this reason, there wasoverwhelming support in elite interviewsconducted there by the author during2001-05 for the idea that integrationwould secure democratic consolidation.Both political and economic elites butalso NGO leaders emphasised thepositive dynamics coming fromaccession because of the EU’s driving

force, the necessary discipline itimposed on public authorities but alsoin particular the direction for changewhich it provided. But there was asense of a dependency culture behindsuch optimism which helped to explainRomania’s difficulties in transmittingpolitical will into political capacity.

References to the democratic motivebehind integration in author interviewswith European policy-makers inBucharest during 2001-05 invariablypraised in a bland way integration’spositive impact on democratisation. Atthe same time, elite responses towardsthe EU’s political conditionality as suchalso indicated a positive response at anabstract level23. But this was oftencombined with an instrumental view ofconditionality as a means towards theobjective of winning EU membership, asexpressed in an expert analysis dealingwith the rule of law:

`It might be argued that the generalperspective of the ruling elite regardingRomania’s development is distorted. Itis not democratisation, but EUintegration that matters most. The onlylong-term objective is EU accession,and short-term objectives are objectivesset under EU conditionality, nothingmore. Under such circumstancesreinstating the rule of law in Romaniawas never seen as a goal per se, but

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21 T. Carothers, Assessing Democracy Assistance: the Case of Romania (Washington: CarnegieEndowment, 1996), pp. 90-91.22 Interviews with Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea, EU Delegation to Romania, with Florin Pogonaru, ExecutivePresident, Central European Financial Services, and with Codru Vrabre, Transparency International, inBucharest, October 2003. See also S. Jora, `Patterns of democratisation through Europeanisation: thecase of Romania’ in R. Di Quirico (ed.), Europeanisation and Democratisation: Institutional Adaptation,Conditionality and Democratisation in European Union’s Neighbour Countries (Florence: European PressAcademic Publishing, 2005), p. 118.23 Cf. the statement in the Bulgarian case that `Bulgaria accepts from the very beginning all theseprinciples of the European political life and thus the building of a democratic state from the very startin compliance with the European standards’ A. Todorov and A. Ivanov, `European standards in theBulgarian political life’ in I. Bokova and P. Hubchev (eds.), Monitoring of Bulgaria’s Accession to theEuropean Union 2000 (Sofia: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2000), p. 27.

rather as a means of achievingaccession’24.

Former President Iliescu, in officeagain 2000-2004, had in the previousfour years of opposition becomeconverted to the cause of Europeanintegration though not unreservedly toall its conditions 25. He commented inretrospect rather ambiguously that theEU’s political conditions were`necessary’ as they represented`substantial issues (referring inparticular to `the big inertia of stateinstitutions with EU pressure over [this]as positive’); but with some irony notedthat he regarded this conditionality `asthe preoccupation of our friends [in theEU] – we have no quarrel with them’26.It is true that Romania’s very politicalapproach to joining the EU (heightenedas this was as in other CEE states bythe lack of a viable external policyalternative) essentially explained thisinstrumental mentality.

Back in the early 1990s, a committedespousal of integration ideology amongpolitical elites was less in evidence inRomania and if present was primarilyrhetorical overlaying traditional attitudes.Since then, a more genuine outlook hasbecome evident especially afternegotiations commenced in early 2000,producing as it were strong andmounting convergence pressurestowards the EU. Involvement innegotiations and preparations for themwas already producing a more informed

elite. Moreover, evidence from Nastase’sclose associates indicates that his owncommitment to Euro-Atlantic integrationand the EU in particular grew once inoffice as Prime Minister from autumn2000; and that this came from holdingdirect responsibility for Romania’sfortunes and from close and regularcontact with EU representatives2 7. Onecan therefore see in the two prominentexamples of Iliescu and Nastase (bothleaders of the PSD which drew itsgenealogy from the former CommunistParty) how the experience of democraticlife (in Iliescu’s case political opposition)and of accession dynamics (in Nastase’scase with executive office) combined tocreate a more positive though notnecessarily a strongly rooted attitude toEuropean integration. Calculation andsome opportunism played a certain part;but so too did a growing appreciation ofpolitical and material advantages ofnational concern.

In short, this analysis of outlook andmotivation suggests both positive andnegative attitudes among political elitesconcerning the EU’s politicalconditionality. There is an unquestioningespousal of these conditions at theofficial level; but here Romania did notdiffer much from other CEE accessionstates. But, at the same time, there aresome indications that this conditionality– which must be seen as the focus ofthe democratic motivation behindaccession – was not as such a high


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2 4 S. Parvulescu and B. Vetrici-Soimu, Evaluating EU Democratic Rule of Law Promotion: Country Report –R o m a n i a, National Association of Romanian Bars, Bucharest, June 2005, p. 38.25 Pridham, Designing Democracy, p. 81.26 Author interview with Ion Iliescu, President of Romania 1990-96 and 2000-04, in Bucharest,December 2005.27 Author interviews with Alin Teodorescu, adviser to Nastase on administrative reform and later PSDdeputy, in Bucharest, October 2003 and November 2005. This commitment was replicated in Nastase’sstrong wish for his party to be accepted into the Socialist International. According to Florin Lupescu,adviser to President Iliescu on EU and NATO affairs, Nastase `needs acceptance [by the SI] like hell;they will at last belong to a European political family’ (author interview in Bucharest, May 2001).

priority or that it was, perhaps, takensomewhat for granted in comparisonwith other motivations of an economicand security kind.

Certainly, a marked opportunismwas evident in the way political elites inBucharest sought to make animpression on Brussels over thisconditionality as well as other accessionmatters. This achieved a pronouncedform in Nastase’s regular habit oflobbying selected heads of EUgovernments (including especially TonyBlair) and utilising bilateral linkssometimes to bypass the EuropeanCommission (also over conditionalitymatters). This did not prevent Nastasemaking fairly frequent visits to Brussels,often at crucial sometimes threateningmoments during Romania’s accession.One such occasion was over the criticalEuropean Parliament report of May2001 which made an issue of lack ofaction over institutionalised children andrecommended breaking off membershiptalks. This time Nastase sought tolobby the Commission among otherinstitutional contacts in Brussels. Thispractice of trying to exploit theinstitutional fragmentation of the EUsystem became quite visible after awhile and induced one observer ofRomanian affairs to comment that`cynical Bucharest politicians quicklyunderstood that political sympathies withcapitals could trump the worries ofBrussels technocrats’ 28

Such cynicism did not, however,have to mean a lack of conviction overthe EU’s political conditions – or worse,a lack of conviction over democracy(which is not the same thing). Such animperfect state of affairs may benevertheless sufficient for achieving

formal compliance with conditionality.The main problem however comes fromdrawing a distinction between theabstract (stated agreement with thisconditionality) and the concrete whereeither traditional attitudes or particularinterests may conflict with action onconditionality. This leads us to considerthe problem of political capacity.

5. ROMANIAN POLITICAL ELITESIN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE:PROBLEMS OF POLITICAL CAPACITY

Political capacity refers to thefunctioning of the system both in thecentral sense of state capacity and inthe wider sense of political capacitymeaning effectiveness of governancesuch as in the way different domesticactors interact as over European policy.Naturally, being liberal democracies, it isexpected CEE systems like establisheddemocracies elsewhere encounterproblems of conflict as well asresolution, thus reminding us of theimportance of political participation andthe need to part from the ratherhierarchical and indeed also bureaucraticapproach of Brussels. But they are alsostill new democracies insofar as thesecountries are with some possibleexceptions (notably, Slovenia) not yetfully consolidated; and, so, how theyfunctioned and perhaps improved underaccession pressure was itself anindicator of democratic development.

Romania’s difficulties of statecapacity arose early on in the country’saccession process. For, while most ofthese difficulties were also met in otherCEE accession countries, the degree ofthem was rather pronounced inRomania’s case. The European

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28 A. Postelnicu, `Why Romania needs help to stay on track’ in European Voice, 27 October-2November 2005, p. 9.

Commission’s avis on Romania in 1997already identified the root problem hereand this reflected on the state of thecountry’s bureaucratic elites:

`The central administration isoverstaffed. However, some ministriessuffer staff shortages, particularly inthe area of qualified personnel.Salaries in the private sector aremuch higher than in the publicsector. This has led to an element of“brain drain” to the private sector...Public confidence in the civil serviceis low. There can be little doubt thatmuch of the distrust which existsarises from the widespread corruptionin the public administration… Theconcept of the civil service as aprofession is still developing… Theeffectiveness of the civil service isalso hindered by an unwillingness totake personal responsibility fordecisions, with the result that theseare passed too high up the chain ofcommand, causing overload onsenior staff, and delay’ 2 9.

Difficulties of coordination betweenministries (a vital factor in managingaccession business), a habit of repeatedadministrative reorganisation (some ofthis due to political interference, some toaccession requirements, but generallyinhibiting for efficient management) anda marked lack of continuity of personnelmore than in other CEE candidatecountries (a special problem given theeffort required to master EU affairs) werethe most common problems over theaccession years. There has been a

tendency for these problems to persistthrough Romania’s accession period. Forinstance, traditional practices wherebyministries were often regarded as fiefsby party politicians and anti-reformmentalities in the bureaucracy hostile tomodern management methods wereparticularly strong. Thus, the theme of“old state, new rules” had a specialpertinence in Romania’s case; and thispresented serious obstacles to meetingthe EU’s own “third condition” concerningadministrative capacity or ability to copewith the demands of EU membership.

It followed that progress withadministrative reform was at best slowand rather piecemeal3 0. Beyond inherentbureaucratic conservatism, it was nothelped by a reluctance on the part of theruling PSD during the negotiations periodto abandon its effort to reinforce politicalcontrol over the state machine. It wasthis politicisation, building on old habitsfrom Communist times, that powerfullychecked administrative professionalisationnotwithstanding fine sounding strategiesfor administrative reform such as civilservice laws produced to pleaseBrussels. In the end, it was typically thepressure of regular direct contact with theEU over negotiations and otheraccession business that brought aboutlimited change. There was a noticeableimprovement in working methods in thosesectors of the administration –specifically, integration departments in thedifferent ministries – which were inregular contact with Brussels, leading tothe phenomenon of “islands ofe x c e l l e n c e ”3 1. By and large, these


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29 European Commission, Agenda 2000: Commission Opinion on Romania’s Application for Membership ofthe European Union (Brussels, 1997), p. 73.3 0 This was the basic conclusion to the Commission’s Regular Report on Romania published in October2005 (European Commission, Romania: 2005 Comprehensive Monitoring Report, Brussels, 2005, pp. 10, 21).31 Pridham, Designing Democracy, pp. 120-121. Some saw these “islands of excellence” within an“archipelago of incompetence”.

changes made for better management ofthe negotiations. But there was not muchsign of wider effects from improvedgovernance that might have counteredpublic mistrust.

One possible effect of these limitedimprovements in state capacity wasover implementation of the EU’s politicalconditions. Obviously, implementingthese conditions was initially a matter ofgovernment response or initiative and oflegislation; but there have been nospecial difficulties in Romania overpassing necessary laws (once thegovernments decided to act), exceptwhen the parliament proved reluctant topass anti-corruption legislation in early2006 thus placing the government in anembarrassing position with regard toBrussels (where outrage was expressedover this act of apparent parliamentaryirresponsibility). The overriding problemhas been putting these EU politicalconditions into practice; but here thedifferent conditions vary significantly asto what factors – or, for that matter,what actors – are responsible for this.Thus, while some conditions areessentially dependent on institutionalaction such as the stability andaccountability of democratic institutions(or, changes like decentralisation wherein fact Romania has been rather slow),other conditions depend on bothexecutive action and behavioural orcultural compliance. The two mostdifficult examples in Romania of theEU’s democratic conditionality werejudicial reform and corruption, whichpersisted through the accession period– although there were some belated

improvements on both fronts – andwere repeated as an area for continuedmonitoring and possible sanctions byBrussels after EU entry in 2007. Bothproblems were complex. Judicial reforminvolved not merely changingprofessional structures but also dealingwith a judiciary largely appointed underthe Communist system and still subjectto political influence under the post-Communist democracy. Judicial eliteswere thus not only inherentlyconservative but also inhibited by apattern of political subservience 32.

Corruption was, if anything, evenmore difficult a matter to confronteffectively because it affected differentlayers of public life (and Romanianotoriously was repeatedly rated theworst country for this in Europe byTransparency International). Above all, itconcerned respect for the rule of lawand affected other issues of reform,notably administrative and judicial, theoperation of the public services (notablythe health sector), the conduct of post-Communist economic transformationand, in particular, the will of the politicalelite (especially of the ruling PSDduring the years of EU negotiations) toembrace reforms since they challengedembedded party-political interests inseveral ways. These different aspectsall had consequences for the rooting ofdemocratic life whether procedural orbehavioural including the effects ofpolitical and economic elite practices onpublic opinion.

All this referred back to the outlooksand motivation of Romanian politicalelites as being a central factor in the

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32 Cf. the comment of a Bulgarian human rights lawyer that the traditional education and understandingof lawyers in former socialist countries – that they should act as “counsel for the state” – predeterminesthe lack of any concept for reform among members of the judiciary’ (Z. Kalaydjieva, `An independentjudicial system in the context of EU accession’ in European Institute, Sofia, Bulgaria’s Progress towardsEU Membership in 2000 – the NGOs’ Perspective (Sofia, 2001), p. 18.

implementation of EU conditionality.Resistance was apparent over certainpolitical conditions on the part of theNastase Government that held officethrough almost the whole period ofnegotiations from 2000 to 2004. It wasthis together with problems ofadministrative incapacity that most of alldifferentiated Romania from other CEEcandidate countries. The Governmentdrew up the necessary plans to fightcorruption but showed a lack of will inforcing through change not leastbecause the ruling party’s ownpatronage interests were at stake.However, in the course of time as the2004 election approached, withmounting scandals and growing publicsensitivity to this issue, EU pressureover corruption began to have moreeffect.

Furthermore, Nastase was evidentlynot that committed to administrativereform despite his ambition for Romaniato join the EU 3 3. He and his rulingPSD were reluctant to cede politicalcontrol over the national bureaucracywhich was an important precondition forthe development of a really competentcivil service. The same party-politicalapproach was evident in Nastase’s lackof conviction over judicial independenceand lack of enthusiasm for judicialreform. He was particularly strengthenedhere by pressure against such reformfrom President Iliescu. Furthermore, heshowed signs of wanting to continueexercising political influence on judges

through party networks even aftergranting judicial independence 3 4.

In November 2004, a clamorousscandal broke when the full transcripts ofa PSD executive meeting in 2003 wereleaked to the press. These revealedvarious party leaders, including some ingovernment, discussing blatantly ways ofmanipulating the judiciary and bribingjournalists over this matter. Some of thecrude language used about politicalmanoeuvres recalled that contained inthe Watergate tapes. Excerpts includedthe following comment from the Ministerof European Integration, HildegardPuwak: `I think we should reconsider thetransparency law and see if we couldamend it somehow, because it givesjournalists the right to get all over theplace, which means transparency foreverybody, in 24 hours they can getaccess to every little file which was notspecifically mentioned in the governmentdecision regarding classified information –I believe this law is excessivelypermissive’ 3 5 .

One marked difference between thepolitical parties concerned this issue offighting corruption which by the end ofRomania’s accession emerged as themost difficult condition to implement. Onboth occasions when the centre-Rightcame to power, in 1996 and 2004, theseparties concerned made a major issue ofcorruption. In the December 2004election, it was even the top issue –being highlighted by the above-mentioned scandal – not least because


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33 Author interviews with Alin Teodorescu, adviser to Prime Minister Nastase on administrative reform,in Bucharest, October 2003; and with Marius Profiriou, former State Secretary in the Ministry of PublicAdministration and Interior, in Bucharest, November 2005.34 Author interviews with Sorin Ionita, Director, Romanian Academic Society, in Bucharest, October2003; and, with Alin Teodorescu, former adviser to Prime Minister Nastase and parliamentary deputyof the PSD, in Bucharest, November 2005.35 Parvulescu and Vetrici-Soimu, Evaluating EU Democratic Rule of Law Promotion, p. 71. Shortly after,Mrs Puwak resigned as minister after being accused of embezzlement.

of the PSD’s reluctant and hardlydisinterested approach to fightingcorruption while in office during theprevious four years. Clearly, the centre-Right saw political and electoraladvantage in exploiting this issue – acase where partisan interests convergedwith an EU political demand – althoughelements of conviction were also presentin their position3 6.

The new government made decidedefforts with several of the politicalconditions at this late stage to meetBrussels’ requirements in time for theend of negotiations. This was mostnoticeable in the area of judicial reform.This owed much to the committedactivism of the Minister of Justice,Monica Macovei, a former NGO leaderand human rights lawyer turnedpolitician. Her unhierarchical approachto reform, which also had implicationsfor fighting corruption, was that nobodywas above investigation. This relentlessapproach produced rancour inestablishment circles, but it was onethat had the blessing of Brussels whichstrengthened this last-minute drive tomake several significant changes in thejudiciary37.

In general, Romania presents acomplicated and rather weak policy-making environment when viewed in theEU context. And, this affected the roleof other actors including NGOs which inthe accession period were not stronglydeveloped outside Bucharest, althoughthe involvement of some in accessionissues did help to promote their activity

vis-à-vis the government. By and large,the public was not engaged with theEU’s conditionality except when issueslike corruption became politicised, asjust noted. During this period the strongmistrust in political elites and publicinstitutions remained, although publicattitudes expressed some hope that theEU (which was accorded high prestige)might promote better Romanianinstitutions38. It therefore remained tobe seen whether EU membership wouldin any way meet this rather highexpectation.

6. CONCLUSION: LESSONS FROMEASTERN ENLARGEMENT AND POST-ACCESSION TENDENCIES.

Elite attitudes and behaviour andpolitical convergence with the EU have,by focussing on democratic conditionality,been the concern of this paper. Fromthis, it is clear that EU enlargement is notas straightforward a matter as suggestedby those who emphasise this process asasymmetrical and top-down. Thatassumption is broadly true but it doesnot, with regard to the implementation ofthis conditionality, take sufficient accountof domestic factors in candidate countries.Also, as shown above, however muchpolitical elites are willing to go along withthe demands of Brussels – and this wasindeed a crucial factor – it did not followthat implementation of conditionality wasautomatic because with some of itsissues the compliance and cooperation ofother domestic actors were necessary. Inother words, governing elites and their

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36 cf. the comment of President Basescu’s foreign political adviser that on the corruption issue his`motivation here is intrinsic, but the EU factor strengthens it’ (author interview with Anca Ilinoiu, inBucharest, November 2005).37 See portrait of Macovei in European Voice, 27 April-3 May 2006, pp. 10.38 Author interviews with Mircea Kivu, Director of Institute of Marketing and Polls (IMAS), in Bucharest,October 2003 and November 2005; Romanian and European Values and Beliefs: Are They Different orNot?: a Quantitative Survey, IRSOP Market Research and Consulting, June 2005, pp. 12, 40 and 43.

commitment to Euro-Atlantic integrationare not entirely free agents in theenlargement process.

This paper has chosen to examinethis problem for analytical purposes bydiscussing political elites under twoseparate headings – political will andpolitical capacity. In the case of Romania,it is seen that this distinction is relevantto understanding elite behaviour in thatcountry during accession. Some elitecharacteristics proved positive whenexplaining political will notwithstanding thecynical game of some top politicians intheir dealings with Brussels. There was apronounced pro-Europeanism, whichhelped to drive agreement with politicalconditionality, even though this was linkedto national pride, the strong desire forfinancial advantages from membership, adependency culture and a certain elementof passing on national responsibilities tothe European level (a feature evident inpostwar Italy’s attitude to Europeanintegration). Romania’s political capacitywas problematic even though somelimited improvements occurred duringaccession as in parts of the stateadministration. Political and party-politicalinterests came to the fore andcomplicated implementation of some ofthe conditions although in the end EUpressures with some persistencecombined with the changing domesticsituation to push through changes at alate stage. Altogether, Romania presenteda weak policy-making environment andone that is likely to complicate thecountry’s early membership. Thisunderlined that EU’s criticisms about thegap between rhetoric and action inBucharest were justified; and, of course,this lay behind the EU’s decision tocontinue conditionality monitoring beyondthe accession treaty but also into the

early membership phase in the case ofboth Romania and Bulgaria.

What lessons may be drawn fromEU enlargement given the angleadopted of political conditionality? Firstand foremost, conditionality’s prospectsdepended crucially on the dynamics ofaccession. The pressure on candidatecountries to satisfy these and otherconditions is relentless and takes clearadvantage of the leverage that Brusselsenjoys over them of promisingmembership at the final stage. Muchtherefore depends on unqualified elitecommitment in candidate countries; and,this was present in Romania althoughsome elites were slow in becomingconverted (and here the onset ofnegotiations proved decisive). But,leverage notwithstanding, there was anunderstood (and sometimes expressed)trade-off between the EU’s credibilityhere and the readiness of prospectivemember states to produce change. Inthe case of Romania, this more or lessworked but Brussels’ hand wasstrengthened by the extension ofconditionality beyond the point adoptedin the case of the 2004 enlargement.

By all accounts, EU pressures was thedecisive factor in explaining Romania’scompliance with and implementation ofconditionality – more so than on averagewith the EU-8 that joined in 2004.Romania was a difficult accession case,but that was recognised early on and thisinfluenced the EU’s policy towards thatcountry. But it is possible also to see inthe Romanian case some soberingquestions for the future. What will happennow that Romania has achieved itsoverriding objective of attaining EUmembership? Will the newly constructeddecision on sanctions work? Or, willsomehow Romania’s governing elites relaxcompared with the accession years? Early


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indications from the EU-8 about thecompletion of conditionality are mixed: withsome of the issues other actors (notablyNGOs) have taken over the role ofpressure agents and it is true thatbacktracking moves by Bucharest wouldrun into problems of credibility at homeand abroad. Some in the enlargementliterature have argued for a “status quobias”, whereby new EU rules become“sticky”; but it is difficult however to see acontinuing post-accession dynamic over

conditionality matters and evidence ofsocial learning from the experience ofconditionality during accession has yet toappear. But the Romanian case is alsoindicative for future enlargement in thatnew candidate countries from the WestBalkans are at least if not much moredifficult cases than Romania. Whether themuch tougher conditionality policy adoptedby the EU since 2004 deals effectivelywith this greater challenge remains to beseen.

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GLOBALIZATION AND REGIONA-LIZATION

The development of the regions is acrucial part of the emerging global orderin the era of globalization. The twoprocesses are closely intertwined, theregionalization – at both supranationaland sub-national levels – being at thesame time an intrinsic part of and aresponse to globalization.

For a long period of time, the debatesconcerning the regionalization werefocused on trade and trade policies,especially when regional trade agreementswere reinforced by ultraliberal traderegimes. But globalization is a multifacetedphenomenon, comprising not only aneconomic dimension, but a social, political,security and cultural dimension, too.Accordingly, how the relationship betweenglobalization and regionalization is takingshape depends on which dimension ofglobalization one is referring to.

From an economic viewpoint, theregionalization is triggered, to a certainextent, by the trans-national corporations’quest for new markets and foreign directinvestments. The regionalization ofinvestments has become so importantthat affects the nature of production andtrade. To take just one example, alreadyin 1995 more than 10 percent of theJapanese companies’ output wasproduced outside Japan, as comparedwith 4 percent in 1986. Whereas nearlyall goods produced by Japanesecompanies in the U.S. are sold on theAmerican market, a significant part ofconsumer goods produced by Japanesecompanies’ branches in South East Asiais imported by Japan. In 1992, theseimports represented 16 percent out ofthe total Japanese imports, as comparedwith 10 percent in 1982. As rapidly asthey are attracted by favourableeconomic circumstances, the foreigndirect investments are fleeing to othermarkets when these circumstances are


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∗ Adrian POP, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of the Political Sciences Department at “Dimitrie Cantemir”University in Bucharest, and Associate Professor with other universities in Bucharest. A member of theScientific Board of the Institute for the Memory of Romanian Exile, he is also a member of the AdvisoryBoard of History’s Files journal. He was Deputy Director of the Institute for Political Studies of Defenceand Military History in Bucharest, Senior Visiting Fulbright Scholar with the Department of Government andPolitics at the University of Maryland, College Park, U.S.A., and International Research Fellow with theNATO Defence College in Rome, as well as the editor-in-chief of Romanian Review of International Studies.

GLOBALIZATION, REGIONALIZATION AND THE EU-JAPAN-U.S.TRIAD

ADRIAN POP∗

A b s t r a c t . The globalization triggers macro-regionalization, which, in its turn, generatesmicro-regionalization – the EU being a good example of both. Second, in virtually allscenarios of geopolitical future the recurrent theme is regionalism, which comes in various“shapes and sizes”. That is why maybe we should start to live with the idea of a sort ofregionalization by default. Third, how the relationship among the members of the EU-Japan-U.S. triad will look like in future will depend to a large extent on how the Americanpower is going to prevail within the Western world and how it is going to handle thereassertion of countries belonging both to the Western and non-Western worlds. Thevarious possible outcomes entail a plethora of varieties of geopolitical realignments.

changing and the more so when they aredeclining. As proven by the Asian crisis,starting 1997 the fleeing of capitals andthe time needed for designing adequateresponse strategies have led to adramatic destabilization of the economicand political set up of some countries.

The EU, as heir of the EEC, is thefirst economic region of the world. TheAsia-Pacific region is characterized by anemerging regionalism focused on marketeconomy development and regionalcooperation promoted by organizationssuch as the Asia- Pacific EconomicCooperation (APEC), the Association ofSouth East Asian Nations (ASEAN), andthe South Asian Association for RegionalCooperation (SAARC). Established in1994, the North American Free TradeAgreement (NAFTA) is the second mostpowerful form of regional economicintegration, after the European one. Itssignificance should not be underestimatedas it accomplished a significant shift inU.S. foreign policy, which started in themid-1980s, from multilateralism andinternational cooperation to economicr e g i o n a l i s m .1

All three regional structures havealready acquired a geopolitical personality.Moreover, each of the three big economicregions of the world has a leader whichplays the role of an “engine”. That role is

performed by Germany for the EU, byJapan for the Asia-Pacific region, and bythe U.S. for the NAFTA region.Consequently, when we speak aboutcompetition among the three we shouldtake into account the ability of the“engine” to “push” the region forward,securing the advancement of the regionas a whole. From this point of view,ample evidence points to the fact that theEU is lagging behind U.S. and Japan interms of high-tech products and services.The increased competition from boththose developed countries and lessdeveloped countries such as China andmore recently India have led keyEuropean countries to resort in 2005-2006to a series of protectionist measures – atendency which weakens the EU efforts toadapt to the challenges of globalization,including and most notably throughe n l a r g e m e n t .2

Turning to the political dimension ofglobalization in relation to the above-mentioned triad, things look quitedifferently. All three big players share thesame commitment to democracy, andcollaborative ties for securing stability atthe global level, but whereas the U.S.upholds a unipolar world and are ready touse what Secretary of State CondoleezzaRice calls “transformational diplomacy” asa tool of exporting democracy worldwide3,

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1 See Robert Gilpin’s Introduction to his book The Challenge of Global Capitalism: The World Economyin the 21st Century, Princeton University Press, 2000.2 For details see Florin Bonciu, “European Union and the Challenges of Globalization”, RomanianJournal of European Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 2, July 2006, pp. 24-30.3 See Transformational Diplomacy, speech of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at GeorgetownUniversity, Washington, D.C., January 18, 2006, http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/59306.htm andits commentary in “Public Diplomacy Watch”, January 24, 2006, http://www.publicdiplomacywatch.com/2006/01/transformational_diplomacy.html. The approach has been heavily criticized by Henry Hyde,chairman of the House of Representatives international relations committee and a Republicancongressman: “A broad and energetic promotion of democracy in other countries that will not enjoyour long-term and guiding presence may equate not to peace and stability but to revolution ... Thereis no evidence that we or anyone can guide from afar revolutions we have set in motion. We canmore easily destabilise friends and others and give life to chaos and to avowed enemies than ensureoutcomes in service of our interests and security.” Quote by Martin Jacques, “Imperial overreach isaccelerating the global decline of America”, Guardian, March 28, 2006.

the EU and Japan are in a favour of amultipolar one and are more reluctant toimpose their political will upon othercountries’ domestic affairs (see Annex 1).What is more, in the case of the EU, itsfailure to adopt the Constitutional Treatyand to articulate common positions duringmajor international crises (including, mostrecently, the Lebanese one) as well as thedivisions between big and small countries4have made the efforts to develop a trulyCommon Foreign and Security Policy(CFSP) even more difficult, while the splitbetween the “old” and “new” Europe interms of opposing or supporting the U.S.war against Iraq has pointed out to bothan ad-hoc regionalization between themore pro-European and more pro-Atlanticcountries of the future EU-27 and anoverall weakening of the Union over thelong run.

From a security viewpoint, things areeven more complicated. We live in a“global risk society” in which is no longerpossible to externalize secondaryconsequences and threats which areintimately linked with the evolution ofsuper-developed industrial societies suchas global climate change.5 G l o b a l i z a t i o nhas exacerbated trans-national securitythreats to all states, obscuring somehowthe traditional borderline between them.Security threats such as terrorism, theproliferation of weapons of massdestruction (WMD), illegal trafficking ondrugs, radioactive materials, small andlight weapons (SALW) and humanbeings, ethnic and nationalist conflicts,man-made or natural disasters and

pandemics (one recent example beingthe avian influenza) have increasinglytrans-national consequences. All theseask for the worldwide implementation ofglobal agreements meant to counterthem. But whereas the European Unionand Japan are by and large committedto observe them, the United States hasgiven way to unilateralist impulses morethan ever. Within six months of takingoffice, the first Bush Administration pulledout of the Kyoto Protocol on globalwarming, announced its intention towithdraw from the Antiballistic Missile(ABM) Treaty, manifested its oppositionto the Comprehensive Test Ban Treatyand the pact setting up the InternationalCriminal Court (ICC), withdrew fromestablishing a body to verify the 1972Biological Weapons Convention, andreduced the effectiveness of a U.N.agreement aimed at controlling SALWp r o l i f e r a t i o n .6

Among the most dramatic challengesto global security have been the variousforms of international terrorism,compounded by the problem of failedand failing states. The gravity of theseasymmetric threats to internationalstability and global security issignificantly enhanced by the potential ofthe vast devastation that could resultfrom the use of WMD or a large scalecoordinated cyber attack directed againstthe global community’s criticalinformation infrastructure and financialnetwork. The main lesson of the terroristattacks in New York and Washington,D.C. (11 September 2001) and their

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4 Heather Grabbe, The Constellations of Europe: How Enlargement Will Transform the EU, Centre forEuropean Reform, London, 2004, p. 59.5 Ulrich Beck Ce este globalizarea?Erori ale globalismului-r„spunsuri la globalizare (translation of Was istGlobalisierung? Irrtümer des Globalismus- Antworten auf Globalisierung, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt amMain, 1997), Editura Trei, Bucure∫ti, 2003, pp. 61-66.6 Charles A. Kupchan, The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century, Council on Foreign Relations, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2002, p. 15.

European counterparts in Madrid (11March 2004) and London (7 July 2005)has been the fact that in order toefficiently combat the spread of terrorismbig players as well as minor ones shouldcooperate in ways which are at thesame time multidimensional, multilateral,flexible, consistent, and permanent.However, whereas the U.S. are firmlyguided by the “pre-emptive strike”concept in their global war againstterrorism, only the “new” Europe hasaligned itself with the U.S. approach, asevinced throughout the 2003 transatlanticcrisis. As for Japan, despite its growingmilitary potential, it has only reluctantlysent some peace-keeping troops in Iraq,being securely entrenched in the anti-militaristic ethic generated by its post-warsoul-searching process.

Whereas regional securityarrangements are evolving more slowlyand are likely to remain informal andflexible, against the background of arising involvement of non-state actorsand the collapse of internal control ofweak, failing or failed states a micro-regionalization occurs at the sub-national level in the form of crime-ridden “black holes”. What is more, itmight well be possible that using thenew information technologies, non-stateactors such as terrorists, illegaltraffickers, rebel armies and extremistreligious groups would get control overnon-lethal means of generating violencethus putting an end to an essentialcharacteristic of the nation-state, whichis, according to Max Weber, thelegitimate monopoly of violence.

As for the cultural dimension ofglobalization, one should bring intopicture the local rather than the regional.According to Roland Robertson, thelocal should be perceived as an aspect

of the global. In his view, globalizationis a process by the help of which localcultures are at the same timeconcentrated and intersected (leading toa “clash of localities”). Due to thismutual interdependence, rather speakingabout globalization and localization astwo different processes, one shouldspeak about glocalization. The latter, iscreating not a unified global culture buta glocal culture which, according toArjun Appadurai, has its own relativeautonomy.

Geopolitical Future(s) and GrandStrategies

The great powers, as the mainactors on the international stage, needa conceptual map in order to devise asustainable global environment. Thisnecessity is particularly felt in periods ofglobal change such as ours. This needoften translates itself into grandstrategies.7 More often than not, grandstrategies rely on scenarios of globalfuture. The last couple of years havewitnessed a proliferation of suchscenarios, the bulk of them being (notsurprisingly) American.

In the case of the EU, taking intoconsideration the failure of the LisbonAgenda to achieve its goal, and lettingaside the politically correct generalitiescomprised in the European SecurityStrategy (2003), only the EuropeanNeighbourhood Policy (ENP), could beconsidered something which remotelyresembles to an emerging Europeangrand strategy, as it entails theformation of a “ring of friends”surrounding the borders of the enlargedEU and its closest Europeanneighbours, having as its building blockthe concept of proximity and as its

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7 Ibidem, p. 3.

theoretical foundation the concentriccircle model.8

The Japanese grand strategy for thethird millennium was synthesized byTakashi Inoguchi, after a thoroughreview of statements made by variousJapanese opinion leaders – academics,journalists, bureaucrats, businesspersons, and politicians. He thinks thatthe Japanese grand strategy could bebest described as a mix of threedifferent scenarios, which he labels theWestphalian, Philadelphian and Anti-Utopian. The three scenarios havedistinct geopolitical, geoeconomic, andgeocultural features. In the Westphalianscenario the actors are “normal states”,the basic principle is state sovereignty,the behavioural modalities are balancingand bandwagoning, the key economicconcept is national economy, and thekey media is the state run radio-TV. Inthe Philadelphian scenario the actorsare liberal democracies, the basicprinciple is the ideology of liberaldemocracy, the behavioural modalitiesare binding and hiding, the keyeconomic concept is global market, andthe key media is the cable TV network.In the Anti-Utopian scenario the actorsare failed and failing states, the basicprinciple is loss of sovereignty, thebehavioural modalities are “hollowingout” and collapse, the key economicconcept is economic development, andthe key media is the undergroundnetwork/samizdat (see Annex 2).Speaking about a Westphalian-

Philadelphian-Anti-Utopian mixedscenario of the global future, Inoguchirefers to the fact that whereas the basicframework will remain Westphalian, thewaves of globalization (in the economicfield), unipolarization (in the securityfield) and democratization (in thegovernance field) will strengthen thePhiladelphian framework. In their turn,excessive Philadelphian practices arebound to lead to negative phenomenasuch as the peripheralization of manyparts of the South, anti-globalizationand anti-hegemonic movements anddemocratizing rhetoric which mighteventually bring about an Anti-Utopianscenario.9

As for the Americans authors, theyhave envisaged different grand strategies,whose various approaches depart fromopposite premises regarding thecontinuation or not of the prevailing U.S.hegemony. In addition to this, some ofthem have gone even beyond thetraditional assessment of the geopoliticalfuture broken down into short term (upto 5 years), medium term (5-10 years)and long term (10-20 years) scenarios,venturing to envisage how the worldwould look like up till the middle of thecurrent century.

The Pentagon’s view on what shouldbe the American post-9/11 grand strategywas formulated by Thomas Barnett, aprofessor at the U.S. Naval War College,in an essay entitled Pentagon’s New Map(2003) and then in a book based on it,The Pentagon’s New Map: War and


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8 For the ENP promoting a pan-European and Mediterranean region organized according to theconcentric circle pattern see Adrian Pop (coordinator), Gabriela Pascariu, George Angli˛oiu, AlexandruPurc„ru∫, Romania and the Republic of Moldova – between the European Neighbourhood Policy and theProspect of European Union Enlargement, European Institute of Romania, Pre-Accession Impact StudiesIII, Study No. 5, Bucharest, 2006, p. 163, available also at http://www.ier.ro/PAIS/PAIS3/EN/St.5_EN_final.PDF.9 Takashi Inoguchi, “Three Japanese Scenarios for the Third Millennium”, in Immanuel Wallerstein,Armand Clesse (eds), The World We Are Entering, 2000-2050, Luxembourg Institute for European andInternational Studies, Dutch University Press, Amsterdam, 2002, pp. 189-202.

Peace in the Twenty-first Century( 2 0 0 4 ).1 0 According to B a r n e t t , the worldis divided into two camps, the nationsthat have successfully implementedglobalization (the Functional Core) and thenations that have rejected globalization(the Non-Integrated Gap). Examples ofCore states are “North America, much ofSouth America, the European Union,Putin’s Russia, Japan and Asia’semerging economies (most notably Chinaand India), Australia and New Zealand,and South Africa, which accounts forroughly four billion out of a globalpopulation of six billion.” Examples ofGap states are “the Caribbean Rim,virtually all of Africa, the Balkans, theCaucasus, Central Asia, the Middle Eastand Southwest Asia, and much ofSoutheast Asia.” On the borders betweenthe Core and Gap states are the so-called Seam states, often used forexporting terrorism and instability from theGap to the Core. Examples of Seamstates are “Mexico, Brazil, South Africa,Morocco, Algeria, Greece, Turkey,Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, thePhilippines, and Indonesia.” Looking at aMercator projection of the world, solutionset countries lie in a ring along the edgesand potential problem countries largelyrest in the middle forming a black hole oftrouble for those embracing globalization(see Annex 3). The disconnectedness vis-à-vis globalization defines the current andfuture threats to global security.Consequently, recent military actions, aswell as future one, are and will beconducted in the Gap states or along theSeam states continuously throughout the21st century, until globalization takes hold.In order to win the war on terror, whichhe views as a result of problems withglobalization, the U.S. should increase the

Core’s immune system capabilities forresponding to 9/11-like systemperturbation events, work with the Seamstates to firewall the Core from the Gap’sexports (terror, drugs, pandemics), andshrink the Gap. This could be done by“exporting” security and globalization tothe Seam and Gap states. In order to dothat, the U.S. military should bereorganized into two components, aheavy force structured much like today’smilitary (L e v i a t h a n) and a light forcedesigned for nation building (S y s t e mA d m i n i s t r a t i o n). Barnett’s solution forworld stability is to reduce the size of theGap by recreating Iraq as a functionalsociety, let China become a near-peer ofUS, removing North Korea’s Kim Jong II,create an Asian NATO, depose Iran’smullahs, develop an Asian NAFTA, bringfree trade to all of the Americas, admitnew states to the United States, bringAfrica into the Core by 2050, and – onthe energy security side – move fromburning oil to natural gas.

In a follow-up study written withP r o f e s s o r Bradd C. Hayes, Barnettproposed four scenarios for the evolutionof globalization according to the states’ability to set new rules for guiding theglobalization and to cooperate forcontaining those who oppose it, includingsuper-empowered individuals such asOssama bin Laden a n d t r a n s n a t i o n a lnetworks such as Al-Qaeda. “If new rulesdon’t emerge and the developed worlddoesn’t get together to challenge thosewho oppose globalization, the world couldremain a very messy place in which tolive. We call this future G l o b a l i z a t i o nT r a u m a t i z e d. If the world cooperates toadvance globalization, but fails to adopt anew rule set, economic growth willproceed haltingly and governments will be

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10 Thomas P. M. Barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century, G. P.Putnam’s Sons, New York, 2004.

reactive rather than proactive. We call thisfuture Globalization Compromised. Thoseare the darker scenarios we posit. On thebrighter side, if developed nations agreeon some broad rules directing howglobalization proceeds (rules, for example,that would protect workers, theenvironment, and tax bases), but fail tocooperate when dealing with thoseopposing globalization, they should expectto be plagued by continual, large-scaleprotests. We call this future G l o b a l i z a t i o nS t a b i l i z e d. The best scenario would seedeveloped countries cooperating toensure that the world’s economy expandssmoothly and justly. They agree on rulesthat protect workers’ rights, local cultures,and the environment. They alsocooperate to contain disaffected groupsand work to bring opponents into the fold.We call this future Globa l iza t ionN o r m a l i z e d” .1 1

Alternatively, a comprehensivesurvey conducted by the NationalIntelligence Council with non-governmental experts on the maindrivers of global change and how theywould interact through 2015 led to fourscenarios of global future. The fourscenarios could be grouped in twopairs: the first pair contrasting the“positive” and “negative” effects ofglobalization – I n c l u s i v e G l o b a l i z a t i o nvs. Pernicious Globalization; the secondpair contrasting extremely competitivebut not conflictual regionalism and the

plunge into regional military conflict –Regional Competition vs. P o s t - P o l a rW o r l d. From the viewpoint of thisstudy, of particular interest are not somuch their differences, but thegeneralizations across the scenarios. Inall but the first scenario, globalizationdoes not create widespread globalcooperation. Rather, in the secondscenario, globalization’s negativeeffects promote extensive dislocationand conflict, while in the third andfourth, they bring about regionalism. Inall four scenarios, countries negativelyaffected by population growth, resourcescarcities and bad governance, fail tobenefit from globalization, are prone tointernal conflicts, and risk state failure,the effectiveness of national, regional,and international governance and atleast moderate but steady economicgrowth are vital, and the U.S. globalinfluence diminishes.1 2

Zbigniew Brzezinski’s short term andmedium term scenarios of futuregeopolitical realignments start from thepremise that “America does not have,and will not soon face, a global peer.There is thus no realistic alternative tothe prevailing hegemony and the role ofU.S. power as the indispensablecomponent of global security”.1 3Brzezinski’s optimistic scenarioenvisages a sort of U.S.- EU globalpartnership14 in which the two entities


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11 Thomas P. M. Barnett and Bradd C. Hayes, “System Perturbation: Conflict in the Age ofGlobalization”, in Raymond W. Westphal Jr, ed, War and Virtual War: The Challenges to Communities,Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford 2003, chapter available also online at h t t p : / / w w w . i n t e r -disciplinary.net/publishing/idp/War%20&%20Virtual%20War.pdf.12 Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future With Nongovernment Experts, December 2000,http://infowar.net/cia/publications/globaltrends2015/.13 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership, Basic Books, New York,2004, p. X.14 As Brzezinski puts it: “an essentially multilateralist Europe a somewhat unilateralist America makefor a perfect global marriage of convenience. Acting separately, America can be preponderant but notomnipotent; Europe can be rich but impotent. Acting together, America and Europe are in effect globallyomnipotent.” Ibidem, p. 96.

would act together, becoming the “coreof global stability,” on the one hand,and a “genuine European-Russianbonding” facilitated by Russia’s need forhelp in order “to develop and colonizeSiberia”, on the other. As for the FarEast, “the most likely pattern willinvolve the interplay of China’s overtrise to regional power, Japan’scontinued but ambiguous acquisition ofincreasingly superior military power, andAmerica’s efforts to manage both”. Inorder to foster a sort of informalChinese-Japanese-American triangle inthe region, the U.S. will have topromote a stable and cooperativerelationship with China and toencourage Japan to “become morepolitically engaged” against thebackground of its cautiously but steadymilitary build-up. On the long run, ifNATO would continue to expand andRussia would become one way oranother “an extension of it”, thecircumstances would be ripe for settingup a trans-Eurasian collective securitystructure that would involve Japan andChina and transforming the G-8 into aG-10, comprising China and India.15The pessimistic scenario put forward byBrzezinski would be a severe U.S.-EUrivalry stimulated by a Franco-Germanalliance combined with Russia’s relapseinto a nationalistic dictatorship, in thewestern regions of Eurasia, and anexclusive Asian economic and possiblysecurity regionalism spurred by China,followed by Japan’s rush intoremilitarization, in the eastern regions ofEurasia. The resulting anti-Americanpan-Europeanism and pan-Asianism,especially if aggravated by U.S.unilateralism could not only push the

U.S. out of Eurasia, but halt anyattempts to forge a framework forglobal security16 and plunge the worldof the twenty-first century into a newtwentieth century regionalism. Thatparticular scenario, envisaging anenlarged EU together with Russia andEast Asia (Japan and China) becomingcounterweights of the U.S., is sharedalso by Charles A. Kupchan, thepersuasive advocate of the need of anew American grand strategy in orderto smooth the transition from a unipolartowards a multipolar world.17

Other scenarios are those proposedby a June 2005 Power and InterestNews Report (PINR). It envisages aperiod of short term stability duringwhich each of the major regional powercentres would have a stake inpreserving it “either by a perceivedneed to retrench or by the goal ofprotecting processes of economic andmilitary development.” That periodwould be followed on the medium andlong term by the rise of the EU, China,India, Brazil and possibly Russia toworld power status and the turning of“several states that are currently eitherregional powers or are themselvesunder strong influence or domination bythe world’s major states” into either“second wave” powers or major hurdlesto global stability and security, includingIndonesia, Egypt, Iran, some Westernand Central African states (Nigeria, theDemocratic Republic of Congo Ethiopia,Uganda and Rwanda), Vietnam and thePhilippines. There are also goodprospects for China, India, Brazil andother states to establish strong linkswith these countries which wouldcomplicate even further the geopolitical

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15 Ibidem, pp. 103, 111, 115, 120-123.16 Ibidem, pp. 91, 103, 126-127.17 Charles A. Kupchan, op. cit., pp. 29 and 63.

picture. “This possible development –concludes the report – demands thatWashington and other power centresaround the world prepare themselvesnot just for the more obviousgeopolitical challenges stemming fromrapidly emerging new powers, but alsofor the upcoming difficulties anduncertainties in dealing with a dozennew regional players.”18

Obviously, projections longer than 20years are venturesome becausepossible contingencies multiply at ageometrical progression. However, onepossible useful, although schematic wayto go beyond sheer guess in predictinglong term plus geopolitical future (up to50 years) and understand globalizationis through the lenses of long cycles.According to the world-system theorypromoted by Immanuel Wallerstein,globalization is far for being somethingnew. In fact, it is the business as usualway of how capitalism works. For him,there is no evidence that the world isnow more globalized than it wasthroughout la belle époque period, beforethe First World War. What is really newin the post-war era, argues Wallerstein,is the fact that after a period of roughly20-25 years when the U.S. hegemonywas at its peak after the Second WorldWar (1945-1965/1970), due to theeconomic reconstruction of WesternEurope and Japan, by the 1970s wecould speak of a triad of centres ofcapital accumulation, whose forginginaugurated the competition for sharesin the world market and for control ofthe next generation of cutting-edge

industries. The U.S. tried to control thepolitical consequences of this economicpower shift by setting up the TrilateralCommission and then by escalating theCold War. Starting 1970 the worldexperienced one long Kondratieff B-cycle (downswing) characterized by asharp reduction of profits fromproductive activities. This, in turn, led toattempts “to export the consequences ofthe downturn, especially theunemployment, to each other” and “ashift in emphasis from accumulatingcapital via productive profits toaccumulating capital via financialmanipulations, in which the U.S. hasretained an advantage because of therole of the dollar as the reservecurrency”.

For the first half of the 21st centurythe world-system theorist envisages areturn to a Kondratieff A-cycle(upswing) during which cutting-edgeindustries based on informatics,biotechnology and new energyresources, largely monopolized, willtoughen the competition among thetriad. In order “to ward off the Europeanthreat”, the U.S. and Japan will unitetheir economic efforts. Other two bigactors, China and Russia, provided theymanage to preserve their nationalintegrity, will negotiate their entering inthe resulting dual structure of economicpower: China into the U.S.-Japanregional economic complex and Russiainto the western European one.19

Letting aside the issue ofglobalization being merely the workingof the capitalist world-system, which is


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18 “The Coming World Realignment”, Power and Interest News Report (PINR) drafted by Dr. MichaelA. Weinstein, Yevgeny Bendersky, 20 June 2005,http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id= 317&language_id=119 Immanuel Wallerstein, “The World We Are Entering, 2000-2050 (32 Propositions)”, in ImmanuelWallerstein, Armand Clesse (eds), op. cit., pp. 17-18, 46. For long cycles according to the world-systemschool see also Joshua S. Goldstein, Long Cycles: Prosperity and War in the Modern Age, Yale UniversityPress, New Haven and London, 1988, pp. 133-141.

a debatable point in itself20, there areseveral weak points in Wallerstein’sscenario. First, taking Wallerstein’sdefinition of a hegemonic state, namelya state that is imposing a structure ofworld order upon the world-system, withthe exception of few years after 1945,the U.S. hegemony never existedthroughout the bipolar era. It would bemuch fair to say that, by and large,because the omnipresence of the twosuper-powers – directly or indirectly –on the global stage, the bipolar era wasone of co-hegemony of the U.S. andSoviet Union. Second, the fact that theU.S. hegemony has started to faltersince 1970 seems contradicted by theleading role the U.S. have played in theGulf War as well as in the wars inKosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Third, itis not clear at all that China wouldaccept the role of a junior partner ofthe U.S.-Japan alliance and Russiawould opt out for an energy securitydeal with the EU instead of a strategicone with China and India. It is muchmore likely that China and Russia,provided that they manage to preservetheir territorial integrity (which is notentirely sure) and overcome the factorsthat undermine attempts to bring thetwo countries closer together,21 wouldtry to consolidate the close tiesdeveloped in recent years, in order topromote their mutual interests in energysupplies and defence sales and to

counter the perceived U.S. hegemony.Fourth, Wallerstein’s scenario of futuregeopolitical realignments is rooted intwo nowadays debatable theoretical andepistemological frameworks: theWestphalian tradition; and theconceiving of the world as being in alinear upward curve in a past-present-future time continuum. In a time of“bifurcation” (as Ilya Prigogine has aptlycalled it) and “butterfly effect”,22 whenthe nation-state is in decline, and weare facing an increase in theprivatization of power by legal andillegal groups, it is difficult to envisagewhich new actors apart states may stepinto the global arena – criminal groups,clans, tribes, provinces, regions,organizations etc – which may leadfuture geopolitical realignments to lookvery different to the ones we were usedto.23

Conclusions: Regionalization byDefault and Geopolitical Realignments?

At least three main conclusionscould be inferred from what has beenassessed. First, the globalizationtriggers macro-regionalization, which, inits turn, generates micro-regionalization– the EU being a good example ofboth. Second, in virtually all scenariosof geopolitical future the recurrenttheme is regionalism, which comes invarious “shapes and sizes”. That is whymaybe we should start to live with the

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20 Even if one concedes that globalization is nothing new, there are at least three new developmentsin the way capitalism has been working in the last 100-150 years: “the integration of the world interms of the speed of communication and the scale of trans-national exchange in cultural, economicand political matters”; the formation of “some 50-60,000 trans-national co-operations”; and “theemergence of a rather dense network of international organizations, which, to some extent, seem tocontrol the workings of the interstate systems, as well as of the workings of capitalism”. See “Debateon the Propositions”, in Immanuel Wallerstein, Armand Clesse (eds), op. cit., p. 65.21 “Russia’s changing relations with China”, Jane’s Foreign Report, 25 August 2006, http://frp.janes.com.22 The “butterfly effect” refers to the fact that we live in a world that is so interdependent that a smallchange somewhere could change the course of events completely. 23 “Debate on the Propositions”, in Immanuel Wallerstein, Armand Clesse (eds), op. cit., p. 93

idea of a sort of regionalization bydefault. Third, how the relationshipamong the members of the EU-Japan-U.S. triad will look like in future willdepend to a large extent on how theAmerican power is going to prevailwithin the Western world and how it isgoing to handle the reassertion of

countries belonging both to the Westernand non-Western worlds. The variouspossible outcomes entail a plethora ofvarieties of geopolitical realignments.The investigation of possible institutionalresponses to these significantglobalization challenges falls outside thescope of this study.24


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24 Nevertheless, one cannot help asking if Ulrich Behr wasn’t right in stating that a possible alternativeto the national state and the global hegemonic state is the trans-national state. The trans-nationalstates are not national, international or supranational states. Within trans-national states, the system ofpolitical coordination is organized along the axis globalization-localization. Therefore, trans-national statesare glocal states, provinces of the global society which are struggling to earn their position on theglobal market.

Annex 1Unipolar vs. Multipolar World

Annex 2

Outline of Westphalian, Philadelphian, and Anti-Utopian Legacies

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Source: Takashi Inoguchi, “Three Japanese Scenarios for the Third Millennium”, in ImmanuelWallerstein, Armand Clesse (eds), The World We Are Entering, 2000-2050, Luxembourg Institute forEuropean and International Studies, Dutch University Press, Amsterdam, 2002, p. 190, Table 1(adapted).

Annex 3

The Functioning Core vs. the Non-Integrated Gap


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Source: Thomas P. M. Barnett and Bradd C. Hayes, “System Perturbation: Conflict in the Age ofGlobalization”, in Raymond W. Westphal Jr, ed, War and Virtual War: The Challenges to Communities,Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford 2003, chapter available also online at h t t p : / / w w w . i n t e r -disciplinary.net/publishing/idp/War%20&%20Virtual%20War.pdf

THE BALKANS BETWEEN THE EU AND NATO: FOCUSING ONTHE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

MAMORU SADAKATA*

Abstract. The fragmentation of Yugoslavia has wrought extensive political andsocial changes in the Balkans and Europe more generally. After the collapse ofcommunism and the breakup of Yugoslavia, many Balkan countries have transformedtheir political system and have begun to forge new foreign and security policy. Some ofthem have already joined the EU and NATO, and some are about to access theseorganizations. But the Western Balkan states seem to be farther in the future. In regardto the former Yugoslavia, the United States, European states and internationalorganizations, such as the EU, NATO and UN, have attempted to engage and managethis breakup on an individual and collective basis. They have greatly influenced theprocess of the post-conflict nation building of this region. From this viewpoint, the paperdiscusses the political and social transformation of the Balkans after the breakup of theYugoslav conflict, and the role of the EU and NATO in the process of thedemocratization and nation building in the former Yugoslavia. Moreover, attention ispaid to the features of the involvement of the EU and NATO in the former Yugoslavconflict. In the process of Yugoslav fragmentation one can see the ‘Eastern Question’revisited and the ‘Powder keg of Europe’ once again rising to its brim.


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* Professor Mamoru Sadakata teaches International Politics at Nagoya University, Japan. 1 Cited in M. Todorova, Imaging the Balkans, Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1997,p.157. Chicago Tribune, 10 October 1994.

1. THE END OF COLD WAR ANDTHE DICHOTOMY BETWEEN CENTRALEUROPE AND THE BALKANS

Following the end of the Cold War,the meaning of ‘Balkan’ changedconsiderably in Eastern Europe.‘Eastern Europe’ as a political termdisappeared and a new dichotomycame to emerge – a dichotomy ofcultural and historical differencesbetween Central Europe (the CzechRepublic, Poland, and Hungary) andthe Balkans (Yugoslavia, Romania, andBulgaria). This dichotomy implied pastexperiences of parliamentary democracyand economic development in theseformer socialist countries. Historically,the division line between CentralEurope and the Balkans overlaps withthat of the Habsburg and Ottoman

Empires. In the case of the formerYugoslavia, this line cut the countryinto two halves, with Slovenia andCroatia belonging to Central Europeand the other republics to the Balkans.The Chicago Tribune made the followingstatement: “A new curtain is fallingacross eastern Europe, dividing northfrom south, west from east, rich frompoor and the future from the past. AsHungary, Poland and the CzechRepublic sprint into the future ofdemocracy and market economics,Romania and Bulgaria slide into Balkanbackwardness and second-classcitizenship in the new Europe.1 T h i sdistinction between Central Europe andthe Balkans was evident in the way inwhich democratic transitions in CentralEurope have been supported, and inwhich conflict in the former Yugoslavia

has been managed.2 While CentralEurope unquestionably featuredprominently in the strategic plans ofEuropean and transatlantic institutions,the place of the Balkans in these planswas not so clear throughout the 90s.The US directed its efforts at preparingCentral European states formembership of Euro-Atlantic structures.On the other hand, the EU took partialand in some cases contradictory action,due to changing policy preferences andinternal problems. “Balkanness” was frequently quoted as

both a cause and characteristics of theconflict. Such words as ‘genocide’, ‘ethniccleansing’, and ‘Vandalism’ (destructionof cultures) were bandied about toexpress the ‘barbarity’ of the Balkanconflict, foreign to ‘civilized’ Europe. Hereit is obvious that the word ‘Balkan’ isused not in the geographic sense, but inthe sense of creating an ‘other’ within theborders of Europe and the Westerncivilization. In the West, the dichotomybetween Central Europe and the Balkansis frequently interpreted as the East-Westo p p o s i t i o n .3

On this point, M. Todorova notesas follows.4 East is a relationalcategory, depending on the point ofobservation. The same applies to theBalkans with their propensity toconstruct their internal orientalisms,aptly called the process of “nestingorientalisms”. A Serb is an “easterner”to a Slovene, but a Bosnian would bean “easterner” to the Serb althoughgeographically situated to the west; thesame applies to the Albanian who,

situated in the western Balkans, areperceived as easternmost by the rest ofthe Balkan nations. Greece, because ofits unique status within the EuropeanUnion, is not considered “eastern” by itsneighbors in the Balkans although itoccupies the role of the “easterner”within the European institutionalframework. For all Balkan people, thecommon “easterner” is the Turk,although the Turk perceives himself asWestern compared to real “easterners”,such as Arab. This practice of internalorientalisms within the Balkanscorresponds to what Erving Goffmanhas defined as the tendency of thestigmatized individual “to stratify his‘own’ according to the degree to whichtheir stigma is apparent and obtrusive.

In related to this critical issue, S.Zizek puts an interesting question.“Where do the Balkans begin? TheBalkans are always somewhere else, alittle bit more towards the southeast….For the Serbs, they begin down there, inKosovo or in Bosnia, and they defendthe Christian civilization against thisEurope’s Other; for the Croats, theybegin in orthodox, despotic andByzantine Serbia, against which Croatiasafeguards Western democratic values;for Slovenes they begin in Croatia, andwe are the last bulwark of the peacefulM i t t e r e u r o p a; for many Italians andAustrians they begin in Slovenia, theWestern outpost of the Slavic hordes; formany Germans, Austria itself, because ofits historical links, is already tainted withBalkan corruption and inefficiency.” 5

THE BALKANS BETWEEN THE EU AND NATO: FOCUSING ON THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

39

2 M. Sadakata, “Regional Governance: Lessons from European Involvement in Yugoslav Conflicts”,Japanese Journal of Political Sciences, 4(2), 2003, p.316.3 M. Sadakata, “Changes in Intervention Theory and the Fragmentation of Yugoslavia”, V. Franicevicand H. Kimura eds, Globalization, Democratization and Development, MASMEDIA, Zagreb, 2003, p.232.4 M. Todorova, op. cit., p.58.5 S. Zizek, The Fragile Absolute, Verso, London and New York, 2000, pp.3-4.

2. THE EU AND THE STABILITYPACT FOR SOUTH EASTERN EUROPE

As the Eastern bloc collapsed,considerable differences surfacedbetween those countries which hadbeen a part of it. However, the vastmajority of them shared the commonaspiration of joining the EU. The EUfunctions as a reference point for themodernization of aspiring transitionalcandidate members. Europeanizationhas become a series of operationsleading to systemic convergencethrough the process of democratization,marketization, stabilization andinstitutional inclusion.6The EU had seized on the former

Yugoslav conflicts in an attempt todemonstrate its ability to prosecute aEuropean foreign and military policy,but it had failed twice. In Bosnia in1995, as in Kosovo in 1999, initialEuropean efforts resulted in the UnitedStates eventually taking control ofnegotiations and leading its NATO alliesinto conflict. According to Holbrooke,Dayton shook the leadership elite ofpost-Cold War Europe. Some Europeanofficials were embarrassed that USinvolvement had been necessary.7The EU intervention and assistance

policies in the Balkans have mainlybeen shaped in response to emergingcrisis, most frequently on a purely adhoc basis. Although in 1996, the EUdeveloped its Regional Approachinviting the Balkan countries toimplement regional cooperation, theapproach lacked in substance andconcrete measure of support. However,a turnaround in EU policies came

immediately after the NATObombardments of FR Yugoslavia in thespring of 1999. In view of its failure to stabilize the

Balkans throughout the 1990s, theinternational community, and in particularthe EU, decided to elaborate a new,more comprehensive, and longer-termstrategy for the Balkans. This led to theadoption of the “Stability Pact for SouthEastern Europe” in Cologne in June1999, which was designed to assist thereconstruction efforts of the sevenSoutheastern European countries(Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina,Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romaniaand Yugoslavia) which had beenaffected by the Kosovo conflict.8The Stability Pact was put forward by

countries from the Balkan region, and bymajor donor countries and internationalorganizations such as the EU, WorldBank, EBRD ( European Bank forReconstruction and Development), andthe OECD (Organization for EconomicCooperation and Development). TheStability Pact represented a politicalcommitment by all the countries andinternational organizations concerned toa comprehensive, coordinated andstrategic approach to the region. Crisismanagement would be replaced bypreventive diplomacy, and there wouldbe a focus on democratization, humanrights, economic development andreconstruction, and internal and externalsecurity. For European countries, this Pact

was interpreted as a means to link allBalkan states to mainstream Europeanpolitical processes, and in particular toEU integration and the EU enlargement

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6 L. Demetropoulou, “Europe and the Balkans: Membership Aspiration, EU Involvement andEuropeanization Capacity in South Eastern Europe”, Southeast European Politics, 3(2-3) 2002, p.89. 7 R. Holbrooke, To End a War, (New York, Random House, 1998), p.318.8 M. Uvalic, “Integrating Southeast European Countries into European Union: Problems and Prospects”,Paper at the Conference “The South-East European Countries in Transition”; Zagreb, 12–14 September2002, p. 4.

process. Briefly stated, it was an attemptto ‘Europeanize’ and ‘de-Balkanize’ theBalkans. 9The Stability Pact is the firstcreative response to a historic challengeto create a peaceful, stable, andprosperous region in an area wheresuch attributes have been rare.

3. TERMINOLOGICAL PROBLEMBETWEEN THE BALKANS AND THESOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

The most important aspect of theStability Pact is the fact that theBalkans are finally perceived as a partof Europe. This is expressed in thePact’s consistent use of the term ‘SouthEastern Europe’ instead of ‘theBalkans’; the drafters of the Pactexplicitly decided to shun the term ‘theBalkans’. This was an attempt totransform perceptions that the region is‘backyard’, ‘peripheral’, or that it is a‘border’ or ‘transition zone’ and promotethe notion that the region is part ofEurope.10So, the substitution of ‘Balkans’ with

‘Southeastern Europe’ is significant.Moreover, the principle of inclusivenessis further underlined by the use of theterm ‘countries of the region and theirneighbors’. References to Europe andto European integration make it clearthat the Stability Pact is intended to besomething of a springboard towards theultimate goal of European integration for

the region.11 The term ‘SoutheasternEurope’ is positive, compared with thepopular negative connotations possessedby the term ‘Balkans’ and reflected interms such as ‘Balkanization’. But theterm also contains the promise of abrighter future. EU strategies toestablish peace and promote regionaldemocratization entail redefinitions ofwhat the region is. The term‘Southeastern Europe’ has beenintroduced to convey the idea of anintegrated European region.12On this terminological problem, N.

Svob-Dokic clearly compares these twoterminologies. Regional self-identification,expressed as either acceptance orrejection of the notion of SoutheastEurope or Balkans, reflects today thespiritual background of the positioning ofthe Southeast European countries andsocieties in Europe and the differentvalue systems that such positioning maystand for. The Balkans appears to bethe term that is primarily associated withthe historical close links and historicalsimilarities between this part of Europeand the Near East that were establishedand maintained within the OttomanEmpire. On the other hand, SoutheastEurope is associated with modernizationof the area and its cultural andconceptual closeness to WesternEurope, developed mainly under theGerman and Austrian influences.1 3


41

9.Vucetic, “The Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe as a Security Community-Building Institution”,Southeast European Politics, No.2, October 2001, p.115.10 Ibid., p.112.1 1 D. Bechev, “Building Southeastern Europe: The Politics of International Countries in Transition”, Paper atthe Conference “The South-East European Countries in Transition”, Zagreb, 12-14 September 2002, p.14. 12 Ibid., p.1.13 N. Svob-Dokic, “The Transitional Changes in the Scientific Systems of Southeast European Countries”,V. Franicevic and H. Kimura eds, op. cit., p.456. The Balkans is burdened with very negative connotations.Stereotypes of cruelty, irrational, emotional and uncivilized behavior are ascribed to the Balkan heritage.The attempt to re-integrate the areas economically, politically, and perhaps, culturally has been stronglyresented by the nationalist movements and rejected through the processes of building up separate nationalstates. The EU strategies to establish peace and support democratization in the area are bringing forwardan attempt to redefine it conceptually. Following such ideas, Southeastern Europe has been re-introducedto express the main idea of turning the whole area into an integrated European region. N. Svob-Dokic“Balkan versus Southeastern Europe”. N. Sovob-Dokic ed., Redefining Cultural Identities?(Culturelink JointPublication Series No.4) Zagreb, Institute for International Relations, 2001, p.40.

4. DISCORD BETWEEN THE EU ANDNATO IN CONFLICT RESOLUTION

As it is clear that the countries of theregion lack power and strength to solvethe problems on their own, and there iscertainly no alternative, only the Americanand the European policy remain asrelevant actors that will in part compete,and in part undertake joint activities inorder to accomplish set goals.1 4The international community, in

particular the West, was urged tomanage the conflict that followed and tostabilize the region. However, theengagement and intervention by theWest reflected the competition forhegemony within the West itself andtheir dichotomous view of the culturesbetween Central Europe and theBalkans.Economic benefits are certainly very

important to the European Union. Bydefining the regional cooperation as analternative to instability and possiblenew war, the EU has clearly announcedits goal: advancement of cooperationbetween the neighboring states and thecreation of conditions for preventingpossible confrontation. The European approach is based on

well-established and already testedmethods of regional integration, whichhave yielded so far positive results andwhich are regarded by the EU as aprerequisite for potential integration of acertain region into the European one.The American SECI (SoutheastEuropean Cooperative Initiative), on theother hand, is designed with prospectsto assembly a larger number ofcountries, to diminish animositiesbetween former enemies, by the means

of which it would accomplish somehigher strategic objectives: securingpeace and stability and eliminating theRussian influence and presence in thearea.15

Discord between the EC (EU) andthe United States over leadershipregarding European security was amajor problem. The United States triedto play a leading role in the frameworkof NATO, while the EU began workingto have its own defence organizationnot reliant on the United States. ForEurope, the Yugoslav conflict was aEuropean affair and, therefore, anunavoidable problem. However, for theUnited States, it was a case study forthe construction of the new worldorder.16

America made it quite clear alreadyat the time of NATO-led militaryoperation that the Europeans wouldhave to deal with the reconstructionissue in wider terms. Having givenimmediately thumbs up to the idea ofthe Stability Pact for South-EasternEurope, the American policy supportedthe Pact as a joint Euro-AmericanProject. During the preparations, as wellas during the NATO action itself, theUSA didn’t actually suffer great materiallosses and after the intervention theyhave been trying to pass the bill forreconstruction works over to the EU.The American strategy was displayedagain which only highlighted theAmerican primacy and at the same timeit showed clearly that Europe could onlyrepresent a second-rate ally of theunipolar global power. If the burden ofthe reconstruction on the Balkans fallsto the maximum extent on Europe, then

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14 R. Vukadinovic, Security in South-Eastern Europe, Politicka Kultura, Zagreb, 2002, p.61.15 Ibid., p.61.16 M. Sadakata, “Changes in Intervention Theory and the Fragmentation of Yugoslavia”, op. cit, p.230.

it is to be expected that euro won’t getto a real rival to dollar.17There is an additional nuance that

separates the West Europeans fromtheir American counterparts. In the non-Yugoslav Balkans, the war in theformer Yugoslavia is referred toexclusively as the “Yugowar” or the warin Bosnia. In Western Europe, it isusually defined as the war in ex-Yugoslavia or in Bosnia, although thereis occasional mention of a Balkan war.In the United States, the war is usuallygeneralized as “Balkan war”, althoughthere is occasional mention of the warin the former Yugoslavia.18

5. NATION BUILDING AFTERDAYTON AND INTERNATIONALORGANIZATIONS

In the post-Cold War era, inter-national organizations such as theUnited Nations, NATO, the EC (EU)and CSCE found themselves in asituation where they needed to find newways of legitimating their cohesiveinternational roles without the frameworkof the Cold War. The language ofdemocratization, marketization andglobal ethics has provided a new set of‘mission statements’ that are particularlysuited to the needs of the new era.19The period of post-Cold War era is alsoseen as the age of globalization. Inresponse to these drastic political andeconomic changes, internationalorganizations have been guided orinfluenced by the notions of ‘liberalinternationalism’ and ‘democratic peace’,whether they liked it or not.

International organizations haveadopted democratization as a pillar fornation-building projects in post-conflictcountries. Theoretically, theirinvolvement in democratization is basedon the assumption of the so called‘democratic peace theory’, which statesthat democracies rarely go to war witheach other, and therefore assumes thatan increase in the number ofdemocratic states would imply, andindeed encourage, a more secure andpeaceful world. However, in practice, we can say that

democratization possesses some uniquecharacteristics. What first needs to beemphasized is that democratization is aprocess, a coherent cooperative projectwith no fixed definitions and time limits,a coherent mechanism that can last aslong as its practitioners require. This isdue to the circular nature of thedemocratization approach itself, whichtends towards the problematization ofrecipients of democratization assistance,making self-government increasinglyless likely.20 Based on this assumption,the democratization process hasprovided an ideal opportunity throughwhich international organizations havebeen able to reconstitute theirlegitimacy and given them the capacityto adjust themselves to post-Cold Warinternational relations. In the light of the role of international

organizations in nation-building, theBosnian case was of great importancein that it enabled the organizations toredefine their legitimacies and reshapethemselves in the post-Cold War World.According to Chandler, the


43

17 R. Vukadinovic, op. cit., p.139.18 M. Tdorova, op. cit., p.185.19 D. Chandler, Bosnia: Faking Democracy after Dayton, Pluto Press, London, 1999, p.18.20 M. Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security, ZedBooks, London, 2001, pp.188-189.

democratization process, through linkingdemocratization to internationali n stitutional mechanisms, has ensuredthat the international administrationoverseeing the post-conflict reconstructionof Bosnia will be prolonged for as longas it is in the interests of the majorinternational powers to use the countryas a focus for international cooperation.There are always new problems andnew institutional involvements.2 1 As aresult, democratization in Bosnia, farfrom realizing democratic and multi-ethnic civil society, has maintainedsocietal divisions and reinforced thenationalist power bases that controlBosnian society. Nevertheless, in the international

community, there is little challenge tothe democratization approach and littleconsideration given to the impact of theinternational administration on theBosnian political sphere. As to theassessment of democratization, theliberal critics view the only limitation tointernationally imposed democratizationas being the lack of will of internationalcommunity itself. On the other hand,the conservative critics argue that theproblem with international policy is thatBosnian cultural and ethnic divisionsmake it an idealistic proposal whichcould entail international embroilment inBalkan affairs with little possibility of asolution to the complex questions ofethnic division.22

In the drive towards extendedinternational intervention, it was clearthat the ‘division of labor’ ofinternational organizations in nation-

building in Bosnia, had less to do withthe problems of Bosnia itself and moreto do with the search for legitimacy andpolicy-coherence on the part ofinternational organizations. According toM. Cousens, senior officials at mostmajor implementing agenciespersistently described a chaotic blend ofdifferent mandates, incompatibletimetables, and divided leadershipamong their respective executivebodies.23Moreover, what should be pointed out

is that ‘market share’ competition or aturf battle was clearly revealed in thedivision of labor among internationalorganizations. We can easily detecthere disagreement between the US andthe UN, and also between the US andthe EU. The US-brokered Daytonaccords confirmed the unquestionablepredominance of the United Stateseven within the European continent, vis-à-vis its own Western European andEU allies and the successor to itsformer rival, Russia. The allocation of mandates under the

Dayton Accord is as follows: TheEuropeans, in the restrictive EU senseof the term, were granted the HighRepresentative, but the United State,through NATO, obtained the first role inthe military field. The pan-European(and North American) body, the OSCE,was given the elections, arms control,and regional stability, and part ofhuman rights and democratization,significantly with an American at thehelm of the Bosnia and Herzegovinamission.24

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21 D. Chandler, op. cit., p.189.22 Ibid., p.179.23 E. M. Cousens and C. Kumar, Peacebuilding as Politics: Cultivating Peace in Fragile Societies, Lynne

Rienner, London, 2001, p.141.24 G. Kostakos, “Division of Labor among International Organizations: The Bosnian Experience”, GlobalGovernance, 4(4), Oct.-Dec. 1998, p.474.

6. BALKAN GOVERNANCE ANDTHE INDIGENOUS APPROACH

Confronted with difficulties inherentin Balkan governance, we have topursue a more indigenous approach. AsBugajski suggests, the indigenousapproach should be introduced into thestability project. According to Bugajski,without more emphasis on“indigenization”, democratization, themarginalization of extremists, andstructural economic reform, long-termsecurity could be seriouslyundermined.25 The indigenous approachneed not entail isolation or segregationwhich would surely entail a re-Balkanization of the region. On thecontrary, the indigenous approachseeks an appropriate balance, in bothBosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo,between international engagement andindigenous self-dependence. The EUand other international organizationsshould re-examine the meaning andrelevance of European concepts suchas democratization and civil society, inthe context of the history and socialdevelopment of this region. It is important to understand that the

Stability Pact is not product of adialogue; instead, it is an institutionimposed onto the Balkan states by theinternational community. It sprang fromrepeated failures on the part of the EUto deal with the mounting crisis in

Kosovo and in the earlier wars inCroatia and Bosnia.26Moreover, international organizations

have to cultivate civic actors toparticipate in the decision-makingprocess, and implement stabilityprojects for the democratization andreconstruction of civil society. For theirpart, Balkan peoples have to boldlytackle the social inertia inherited fromcommunist regimes, and consciouslyand willingly participate in thedemocratization processes of their ownsocieties.

Viewed in this light, the indigenousapproach can be regarded as the onlymeans by which to put the governanceof the Balkans on a sound footing. AsCarothers claims, transitional countrieswill not necessarily move steadily alongthe assumed path from opening andbreakthrough to consolidation. Aboveall, Balkan countries have not made astraightforward transition fromauthoritarianism to democracy. Almostall the Balkan countries belong inCaruthers’ gray zone, characterizedeither by feckless pluralism ordominant-power politics.2 7 T oconsolidate a genuinely transition todemocracy, Balkan countries andinternational institutions shouldrecognize that the indigenous approachprovides effective and appropriatemeans for democratization and thecultivation of indigenous Balkangovernance.


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25 J. Bugajski, “Balkan in Dependence?” The Washington Quarterly, Autumn 2000, pp.189.26 S. Vucetic, op. cit., p.115.27 T. Carothers, “The End of Transition Paradigm“, Journal of Democracy, 13(1) 2002, pp. 10–12.

INTRODUCTION

In the following we will analyze andassess the impact of EU accession onthe development of the administrativecapacities of the ten New MemberStates in Central and Eastern Europe.One of the first assessments is that ifthese countries will not have adaptedtheir administrative capacities in time,this will cause problems for thefunctioning of the Union, as they cannotimplement the community obligationseffectively and in time.

The general development ofadministrative capacities of thesecountries has been analyzed andassessed in several EC Commissionreports. In these country reports themain factors that influence thedevelopment of modern and effectivesystems of public administration havebeen identified. After several years anincreasing importance has beenattached to meeting also administrativecapacity requirements and to improvethe quality of the administrative systemsof the candidate states.

As a consequence generaladministrative capacity criteria weredeveloped late in the process of

defining the EU membership criteria,which were in a general way defined inthe Copenhagen European CouncilSummit Conclusions in 1993.

The fulfillment of generaladministrative capacity requirementshave been added among many criteriafor EU Membership and were arelatively minor issue compared todemocracy, market economy and acquisimplementation capacity criteria.

The assessment of administrativecapacities has been complicated by thelack of competencies of the EuropeanUnion with regard to publicadministration. The EuropeanCommission, which plays a central rolein the enlargement process, lacksmoreover the necessary expertise.Therefore the debate on administrativecriteria for EU membership for a longtime has been limited mainly andespecially to a debate on technicaladministrative capacities to implementthe acquis communautaire.

Horizontal administrative capacities(professional civil service, well-developedaccountability system, clearadministrative structures) were assessedin a rather general and global way inthe Commission Opinions and the


46

1 Dr. Alfred E. Kellermann is General Policy Advisor at T.M.C. Asser Institute; Visiting Professor inthe EU Law T.M.C. Asser Institute, The Hague.

THE IMPACT OF EU ACCESSION ON THE DEVELOPMENT OFADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITIES IN THE STATES IN CENTRALAND EASTERN EUROPE. SIMILAR DEVELOPMENTS INRUSSIA?

ALFRED E. KELLERMANN1

Abstract. The developments of the civil service and administrative reform in Centraland Easter European countries and in Russia are more or less similar. For the Centraland Eastern European countries e x p l i c i t l y EU Membership is mentioned as an incentivefor reform, the accession criteria have even been enlarged with horizontal administrativecapacities, whereas for Russia there are no explicit references to incentives for reform.

Regular Reports on progress, due tolack of competences and powers of theEU in this area. The overall opinion wasthat the administrative organization ofthe member states belongs to thepowers and sovereignty of the memberstates. However there are also areaswere the Member States have to adapttheir public administration because ofseveral sources of indirect influence.

First the obligation by the MemberStates to fulfill the obligations arisingout of EU membership. The MemberStates must be able to ensure theeffective participation of its State inthe EU Decision-making process, beable to ensure timely-implementationof Regulations, Directives and Decisionsetc. etc.

Secondly as the Union respects theprotection of Human Rights, itsAdministration and Courts must be ableto guarantee the protection of Humanrights. The Member States must takecare in this case that system of legalprotection by the courts will functioneffectively.

The 1999 Regular Progress Reportson EU Enlargement used for the firsttime a new assessment system for theanalysis of horizontal administrativecapacities. The assessment system wasdeveloped by the SIGMA programme,which is funded mainly by the EUPHARE programme. The developmentof this assessment mechanism marksthe final stage in the process ofdefining horizontal capacityrequirements for EU Membership.

The baseline assessment of SIGMAcovered the following six core areas:

• Policy-making and coordinationmachinery;

• Civil service (legal status;accountability, efficiency inmanagement, professionalism)

• Financial Management and PublicExpenditure

• Public Procurement• Internal Financial Control

(presence of management controlsystems and procedures,functionally independent internalaudit, actions against irregularities)

• External Audit (Meeting auditingstandards, reporting regularly,fairly and in time).

In fact SIGMA has enlarged theaccession criteria for EU Membershipand therefore EU Membership is in thecountries in Central and Eastern Europethe main incentive for Civil andAdministrative reform.

SIMILAR DEVELOPMENTS INRUSSIA?

The transformation of administrativesystems, which were a key instrumentunder the former communist regimes,into professional and reliableadministrations ready to function in thecomplex of the EU system was anenormous task. The need for thistransformation into professional andreliable administrations is not only apriority for the Central and EasternEuropean countries, but also for theRussian Federation. However for Russiathe support for this transition is notgiven by PHARE, but by TACIS(Technical Assistance for CommonWealth of Independent States) basedon the Partnership and CooperationAgreement concluded between Russia,the EU and its Member States in Corfuin 1994.

After the expiry of that Agreement in2007, this Agreement might beautomatic renewed year by yearprovided that neither Party declares itsdenunciation. A Draft Agreement hasbeen proposed in which for example it

THE IMPACT OF EU ACCESSION ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITIES IN THESTATES IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE. SIMILAR DEVELOPMENTS IN RUSSIA?

47

will be mentioned that the Parties willprogressively consolidate their relationsin the framework of four commonspaces: Common Economic Space,Common Space of Freedom, Securityand Justice; Common Space ofExternal Security and Common Spaceof Research and Education, includingCultural Aspects.

To function effectively with anintensified EU cooperation, Russia willneed to adapt and modernize itsgeneral administrative capacities.Although Russia is not an EU MemberState nor a candidate country, thesenew international developmentsconcerning the enlarged EU as well asWTO accession, will have their impacton the administrative requirements inorder to be able to participateeffectively in the International system.

EXPERIENCES WITH CIVILSERVICE AND ADMINISTRATIVEREFORM IN CENTRAL AND EASTERNEUROPEAN COUNTRIES

The three main areas ofadministrative development are thecreation of new civil service systems (inparticular the development andimplementation of civil servicelegislation), the development of trainingcapacities and the reform ofadministrative structures andprocedures. These three areas in thedevelopment of professional and reliableadministrations are essentialrequirements for states to functioneffectively and to have a more effectiveand accountable administration.

1) Creating a professional andreliable civil service

Civil service laws create the basiclegal framework for the development ofHuman Resource Management in the

central administration, which is a basicrequirement for the development of aprofessional, stable and impartialadministration.

In the early stage of thedevelopment of new systems of centraladministration in Central and EasternEurope, the adoption of civil servicelegislation was generally considered thebasic condition. Civil Service laws wereconsidered the main reform tool foraddressing problems as politicization,fragmentation and instability.

From 1992 to 2000 most of thecandidate countries had adopted civilservice laws.

Civil service Law in Hungary wasadopted in 1992.

Civil service laws were adopted inEstonia, Latvia and Lithuania within ashort time span in 1994-1995. In Latviaand Lithuania the adopted civil servicelaws were never fully implemented.They have been subject to an ongoingrevision process, as the adopted lawswere never fully implemented.

In Estonia the civil service law,adopted in 1995, entered into force inJanuary 1996. Unlike the other twoBaltic States, the Estonian civil servicelaw has been implemented. In Bulgariain 1999 a civil service law was adopted.Czech Republic, Romania, Slovenia andSlovakia have adopted civil service lawsafter 2000.

However the implementation of allthe civil service laws was not alwayscompleted.

For example the development of awell-balanced recruitment and promotionsystem.

2) Developing training systems Training can play an important role

in bringing about administrative change

ALFRED E. KELLERMANN

48

and should be considered to be apowerful administrative reform pool.

It can further make a contribution tothe development of a coherentadministration.

Joint pre- or post entry training ofnew recruits can help creating a senseof community among new civil servants.

However the development of trainingsystems has for a long time beenignored or neglected by the Central andEastern European administrations.

A general problem with all the abovementioned training institutions is thatvery often they are little more thanmanagers of training programmes. Theydo not have a core body of permanenttrainers in their staff. Furthermore theylack the capacities to carry out reliableanalyses of training needs. Training hasbeen neglected as a reform toolbecause of financial constraints. Thecreation of government training schoolsrequires a considerable investment.Further the approach to publicadministration reform has been mostlylegalistic in nature, which is notsurprisingly considering the prevailinglegalistic tradition in many Central andEastern European states. The adoptionof legislation has been emphasizedrather than the reform tools like training.We have seen in Russia identicalexperiences.

3) Administrative reformCivil Service can only function

adequately if it is embedded in well-designed administrative structures andprocesses. The re-definition of the roleand position of ministries, theirsubordinated organizations and the coreexecutive unit in the administration is acrucial aspect of any administrativedevelopment process.

The reform of policy-making andimplementation structures and systemsis one of the most difficult elements ofthe administrative development processin Central and Eastern Europe. Thepolicy-making and implementation stillshowed many features of the previoussystems: top heavy coordination,leaving little or no space for conflictresolution before issues reach thegovernment, duplication of functions andespecially a lack of clearly definedaccountability structures.

Factors that contribute to failure ofreform process are:

• administrative reform strategiesare often designed in theorywithout sufficiently testing theirfeasibility or involving the mainstakeholders in the design;

• the value of legislation as areform tool has been generallyoverestimated. Adopting lawsdoes not necessarily lead tochanges in the operation of theadministration.

• Administrative developments doesnot win votes, politicians thereforetend to lose interest, even if theysubscribe in principle the need ofcreating efficient, professional andreliable administrations;

• The involvement of civil servantsfrom the start of the process ofchanging the administrative cultureis a highly underestimatedelement of reform programmes.

There are two factors that cancontribute to the success of reformefforts:

• the economic situation and thereal need for reform; efficient andeffective administrations arenecessary for budgetary reasonsand to attract foreign investment;


49

• external pressure to carry outadministrative reform; the EU isthe main organization; itsMembership requires the creationof a stable, professional andaccountable administration.

EXPERIENCES WITH CIVILSERVICE AND ADMINISTRATIVEREFORM IN RUSSIA

In Russia in 2003 and 2004 newcivil service laws have been adopted.However the implementation of theRussian civil service laws is still underdevelopment and support of TACIS,DFID and World Bank projects.

The general objective of the CivilService Reform (Administrative ReformII) Tacis project is to supportcomprehensive public administrationreform in Russia and contribute to thecreation of a merit-based professional,accountable and ethical civil service byassisting the Presidential Administrationand other key stakeholders in improvingcivil service policy and managementand developing programmes for the (re-)training of civil servants.

This general objective containsidentical elements as the program ofcivil and administrative reform in Centraland Eastern European countries.

Many reports have further beenwritten about civil service andadministrative reform in Russia (reportsfrom OECD, World Bank and DFID).

The Russian Government has lastlydrafted a concept for AdministrativeReform in the Russian Federation in2006 –2008. The objectives of thisreform were summed up as follows:

• Improving the quality ofgovernment services and makingthem more accessible;

• Reducing the costs of governmenteconomic regulation to business;

• Raising the efficiency of theexecutive authorities

The following goals need to bereached for the accomplishment of theabove-mentioned objectives:

• Introduction of the principles andmechanisms of results basedmanagement in the executiveauthorities;

• Development and introduction ofstandards of government servicesprovided by the executiveauthorities;

• Optimization of the functions ofexecutive authorities andintroduction of special regulationmechanisms in the spheres ofwork of executive authorities thatare especially prone to corruption;

• More efficient collaborationbetween executive authorities andcivil society, and also greatertransparency and openness of thework of executive authorities;

• Modernization of the system ofinformation support for executiveauthorities;

• Formation of appropriateorganizational, information,resource and HR support foradministrative reform

For the first stage of administrativereform implementation approximately 10measures are proposed. However onlyone measure concerns training:development, testing and initiation ofimplementation of personnel trainingprograms for the key areas ofadministrative reform.

Finally in this document the place ofRussia in international ratings for thequality of governance is mentioned.Reference is made to GRICS(Governance Research IndicatorCountry Snapshot). In 2004 the ratingcovered 209 countries. The following

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indicators are proposed for theevaluation of governance in Russia:

• Governance efficiency- thisindicator reflects the quality ofgovernment services, thequalitative characteristics ofgovernment institutions, thecompetence of civil servants, thecredibility of government policy;

• The quality of governmentregulation – this indicator isconnected with the assessment ofgovernment regulation in theeconomy. It is used to measuresuch factors as governmentregulation of prices for goods andservices, inadequate control in thefinancial sector, excessiveregulation of business etc. TheRussian Government in thisConcept states that theadministrative reform eventsshould improve governance andgovernment regulation.

In this context it is interesting to seethat it has been proposed to use valuesclose to those in East Europeancountries as benchmarks for theseindicators.

FINAL REMARKS

After comparison of the assessmentand analysis of civil service andadministrative reform in Central andEaster European countries and inRussia, we may conclude that thesedevelopments are more or lessidentical.

However for the Central and EasternEuropean countries e x p l i c i t l y E UMembership is mentioned as anincentive for reform, the accessioncriteria have even been enlarged withhorizontal administrative capacities,whereas for Russia we could not findexplicit references to incentives forreform. We assessed EU- Russiarelations (Tacis), WTO, Worldbank,DFID as implicit incentives for reform.These incentives were not mentioned atall in Russian documents concerningreform, however we found onereference with regard to use for theindicators values. In the RussianGovernment document it was explicitlymentioned that they should be close tothose in the East European countries.


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1. EUROPEAN INTEGRATION – AREALITY AFTER MAASTRICHT

Article 1 (3) of the Treaty on theEuropean Union (TEU) stipulates thatthe basis of the European Union (EU)is represented by the EuropeanCommunities. The beginning of theEuropean Communities is marked bythe formation of the European Coal andSteel Community (ECSC) on 23 July1952, initiated by the French foreign

minister Robert Schuman and hiscollaborator Jean Monet. This Treatyhad been signed on 18 April 1951 bysix European states. The next step isrepresented by the signing of theTreaty establishing the EuropeanEconomic Community (Treaty of Rome)and the Treaty establishing theEuropean Atomic Energy Community(Euratom Treaty) in Rome in 1957. TheMerger Treaty led to the creation of asingle Commission and Council for the


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1 Octavian Gabriel Pascu graduated the Faculty of Law at the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napocain 1999. He completed the LL.M programme at the Law School of the University of Augsburg in 2003.Since April 2004, he is a PhD candidate at the Law School of the University of Augsburg, researchingon European Merger Law.Caius Tudor Luminosu graduated the Faculty of Law at the West University in Timisoara in 2002. Hecompleted the LL.M programme at the Law School of the University of Augsburg in 2003. He worksas a research assistant for the Chair of International Public Law and European Law at the Law Schoolof the University of Augsburg where he also earns his PhD.

THE LEGAL PERSONALITY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION -BETWEEN THE MAASTRICHT TREATY AND THE DRAFTTREATY ESTABLISHING A CONSTITUTION FOR EUROPE –REALITY AND PERSPECTIVES -

OCTAVIAN GABRIEL PASCU1

CAIUS TUDOR LUMINOSU

Abstract. The scope of the present article is to present an overview of the prevailingand accepted opinion on the legal personality of the European Union. The starting pointof the presentation is the analysis of the structural differences between the EU and theEuropean Communities. Then followed by the institutional delimitation and thedifferentiation of these bodies within the European Construct with regard to actualEuropean Law. After a brief presentation of the legal nature of the EU and its lack oflegal personality and legal capacity, a scrutiny of the international law requirements tointernational law subjectivity of the EU is performed with the same result, but this timeon international law level, denying the state character of the Union. This also representsthe prevailing opinion in German literature, denying the existence of a legal personalityof the EU on a public and international law level with respect to the actual European law.Further, we undertake an analysis on the international law effects of the lacking legalcapacity of the Union. This is followed by a short exposition of the effects on Europeaninstitutions of the awarding of legal personality to the EU. In the final part of the presentarticle the focus is on the new European Constitution, still to be adopted by the memberstates, which expressly provides the fact that the Union is granted the legal personalityand its implication on the present situation in the literature.

three Communities. The moment theseCommunities started to enlarge byaccepting new members signified theprocess of European integration proper:the adoption of a “financial constitution”of the European Economic Community(EEC) in 1969, the creation of theEuropean Monetary System in 1978and, last but not least, theinstitutionalisation of the summits ofheads of state and government ofMember States in 1974 marked by thecreation of the European Council(officially called the European Council ofHeads of State or Government).

The first step towards the EuropeanUnion is represented by the signing bythe members of the European Council ofthe Solemn Declaration on the EuropeanUnion (Stuttgart, 1983), stipulating theexamination and assessment of thepossibilities of a treaty for the setting upof the European Union. But before sucha structure could be created, the alreadyexisting European bodies had to bethoroughly reformed, and this was doneby the Single European Act (SEA) whichentered into force on 1 July 1987. TheAct paved the way for a deeper andmore regulated co-operation between thevarious community bodies, for theconsolidation of the internal market ofthe Communities, and to changes in thedecision-making process at communitylevel and of the legislative process.

Signing the Treaty on establishingthe European Union at the MaastrichtEuropean Council in 1991 representedthe decisive step in achieving a deeperco-operation at European level. Despitevarious divergent opinions between

signatories, the most notable beingGreat Britain’s refusal to accept theprovisions regarding the social union (asituation remedied only after internalpolitical changes in this country), acompromise was reached under themediation of the President of theEuropean Commission, Jacques Delors,at the Amsterdam European Council in1997. The European structure afterMaastricht has been marked byintergovernmental regulations, such asthe Common Foreign and SecurityPolicy (CFSP) and the co-operation inJustice and Home Affairs (JHA), as wellas by changes in the EC, Euratom andECSC Treaties. The EuropeanEconomic Community was turned intothe more comprehensive EuropeanCommunity (EC), and European Unioncitizenship was introduced, including theactive and passive right to vote on locallevel, the right to vote for the EuropeanParliament in the home country and theEuropean right to file petitions (articles17–22 EC Treaty).

As a consequence of the difficultiesarising from the necessity – ofconstitutional law – of organising areferendum for the ratification of theTEU, signed in Maastricht on 7February 1992, the Treaty entered intoforce only on 1 November 19932.

Article N3 (2) of the MaastrichtTreaty stipulates that an inter-governmental conference should beheld in order to revise this document.This conference took place inAmsterdam, in June 1997, and the newTEU entered into force on 1 May 1999,

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2 Observe the negative result of the referendum in Denmark and the contesting of the constitutionalityof the ratification law of the TEU in Germany.3 Currently Art. 48 TEU.

once the ratification procedures wereconcluded in all Member States4.

After having entered into force on 1February 2003, the Treaty of Nicestipulates the abrogation of the Protocolof the Amsterdam Treaty regardingCommunity bodies with a view to theextension of the EU, and brings somealterations to the constitutive treaties,alterations made necessary by theprospective enlargement of thesestructures.

The European Council of Laeken ofDecember 2001 created the EuropeanConvention on the Future of Europe,under the leadership of the formerFrench president Valerie Giscardd’Estaing who, according to the LaekenDeclaration on the Future of the EU,was charged with preparing the DraftTreaty establishing a Constitution forEurope. This new document was meantto mark the development of theEuropean Union and, at the same time,a reformatory act of the Europeanstructures aimed at simplifying thealready existing constitutive treaties. Itwas also meant to facilitate a clear andtransparent distribution of thecompetences of the European Unionand the Member States and, last butnot least to consolidate democraticvalues and transparency in Europe. TheEuropean Convention concluded itsworks once this project was drawn up.On 29 October 2004, the Heads ofState or Government of the 25 MemberStates and the three candidatecountries (at that time Bulgaria,Romania and Turkey) signed the Treaty

establishing a Constitution for Europewhich was unanimously adopted on 18June of the same year. The Treaty canonly enter into force when it has beenratified by each Member State inaccordance with its own constitutionalprocedure. The French and Netherlandsrejected the Constitution by referendumon 29 May and 1 June 2005. Underthese circumstances a period ofreflection is currently under way in allcountries. However the process ofratification by the Member States hastherefore not been abandoned.

On 23 July 2002, according to theprovisions of article 97, the ECSCTreaty expired. A protocol annexed tothe Treaty of Nice, regarding thefinancial consequences of the expirationof the ECSC Treaty, stipulates that theentire patrimony and all the obligationsentailed by this treaty are transferred tothe European Community. According tothe protocol, the net value of thispatrimony is destined for research inthe field of the industrial use of coaland steel and, to this end, a ResearchFund for Coal and Steel is to be setup. As the entire patrimony of theECSC has been returned to theMember States once this communityhas ceased to exist, the decision hasbeen made that the patrimony shouldbe administered by the EuropeanCommission until the Treaty of Niceenters into force. As far as the non-patrimonial juridical effects areconcerned, in all the agreementsconcluded by the ECSC, the ECSC hasbeen replaced5 by the EC starting with

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4 A referendum was necessary in Ireland and Denmark, while in France the ratification required analteration of the Constitution.5 See Decision of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States 2002/596/EC, OJ2002 L 194/35.

24 July 2002, the EC bearing all therights and obligations of the dissolvedorganisation.

2. THEORETICAL PREMISES: THERELATION BETWEEN THE EUROPEANUNION AND THE EUROPEANCOMMUNITY

The Maastricht Treaty on thecreation of the European Union6structurally alters the construction of theCommunity by intensifying the processof integration and by setting up the“three-pillar” structure based on theEuropean Communities and theintergovernmental co-operation policies,the Common Foreign and SecurityPolicy and the Justice and HomeA f f a i r s7. The ratification of theMaastricht Treaty triggered ampledebates in German literature, bothregarding the legal nature of the EUand the existence of a legal personalityof the Union. The German FederalConstitutional Court qualified the Unionas “a confederation of states”8, a notionthat was widely accepted and whichreflects the co-existence of theCommunities and of intergovernmentalpolicies within the Union. TheCommunities maintain their ownindividual status, having legalpersonality9 and forming the Communitypillar of the Union. Institutionally, theUnion is closer to the other two pillars,the CFSP and the JHA, whose

existence and functioning entailprinciples and procedures different fromthose of the Communities. Thus, theprinciples of the direct applicability andof the supremacy of Community lawrepresent procedures specific to theCommunity pillar, while the second andthird pillar presuppose a jointintergovernmental co-operation betweenMember States based on the principlesof international public law. Thisdistinction, which is dogmaticallyessential, between the EuropeanCommunities and the European Unionrepresent the most important premisesfor defining the legal status of theUnion.

a) Defining European Union law andCommunity law

Primary Community legislation ismade up by the constitutive treaties ofthe European Communities, with all theprotocols, annexes and theirsubsequent completions and alterations.A new category of primary legislationwas created by adopting the SingleEuropean Act in 1987. This legislationaltered the constitutive Treaties of theEC and, as a precursor10 to theMaastricht Treaty, the SEA envisionedan organism of intergovernmentaldecision aiming at European co-operation in foreign policy andestablished outside the already existingEC Treaties (article 30 SEA).


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6 OJ 1992 C 191/1.7 The Amsterdam Treaty altered the structure of the JHA pillar, by transferring the policies on the freemovement of persons, covering visas, asylum, immigration and judicial co-operation in civil matters intothe body of the EC Treaty, the first pillar (articles 61-69), the remaining subjects in the TEU beingcurrently called “Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters”; this alteration will be furtherconsidered when talking about the JHA pillar.8 BverfGE 89, p. 155.9 Art. 281 EC Treaty.10 Pechstein/Koenig, Die Europäische Union, p. 5.

As far as the effectiveness ofCommunity law is concerned, this is alegal source that takes precedence overnational law, its regulations havingpriority by virtue of the supra-nationalcharacter of Community law order. Onthe other hand, the effects ofintergovernmental law, represented bythe norms of the CFSP and of the JHA,are the same with those of regularinternational public law treaties1 1.Community legal norms take directeffect in or on Member States withoutrequiring national adoption. This directapplicability leads to the supra-nationalcharacter of Community law order.Intergovernmental regulations in CFSPand JHA require, however, an act ofnational law in order to becomeeffective in Member States, namely anact of transformation, adoption orcarrying into effect. This principle hasalso been formulated in the AmsterdamTreaty – article 23 (2) TEU – which,despite the introduction of the majorityprinciple in CFSP, in cases where“important reasons of internal policy”are invoked, stipulates the possibility ofapplying the unanimity rule. Thus,Member States mostly maintain theirsovereignty in these fields that are verysensitive for each of them.

As far as the term supra-nationalityis concerned, it should be noted that itis not used in a unitary way. Aninternational organisation wascharacterised as being supra-nationalfor the first time in the ECSC Treaty atthe Paris Conference in 1950, whenthis term was introduced in article 9 ofthe respective Treaty. In a wide sense,

this characterisation is used for anydecision of an international organisationor legislative body which immediatelycreates obligations for the MemberStates. In a narrow sense, the termapplies mainly to the decision-makingprocedures of the EC, in thosesituations when the Member States maycarry certain obligations even withouttheir own accord, as a consequence ofa majority decision12. Politically, theterm supra-nationality is used as asynonym for indicating a structuredintegration within a process13.

The Maastricht Treaty has, similarlyto the SEA, a heterogeneous structure:on the one hand Union primarylegislation is made up by regulationswhich alter the EC treaties (articles 8-10 TEU), and which have become partof Community primary legislation oncethe Maastricht Treaty entered into force.On the other hand, Union primarylegislation is based on theintergovernmental legal sources of theCFSP and JHA (articles 11-42 TEU).These two fields, so different in nature,are comprised in the commonregulations (articles 1-7) and the finaldispositions (articles 46-53) of the TEU.

As for the relationship betweenUnion primary legislation, as stipulatedby the CFSP and JHA provisions, andCommunity primary legislation,represented by the EC Treaties, thesetwo parts of the European primarylegislation are not totally independentfrom each other. The TEU aims atcreating a single institutional framework(article 3 (1) TEU) which would ensurethe coherence and continuity of the


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11 Ibidem.12 Schweitzer/Hummer, Europarecht, p. 275.13 Oppermann, Europarecht, p. 275.

measures meant to achieve the goalsof the Union, at the same timemaintaining and developing the acquiscommunautaire. Despite this intention,stipulated in article 3 (1) TEU, one cannotice that unlike the Communities, inthe CFSP and JAH it is not the jointbodies that act as legal subjects, butthe very Member States.

Unlike the EC Treaties, the TEUdoes not hold provisions referring to thecapacity, in the fields of CFSP andJAH, of creating secondary legislationwith direct applicability in the MemberStates based on a competenceconferred by primary legislation. Inother words, neither the TEU, norsecondary legislation acts passed on itsbasis, such as council decisions onjoint actions (article 14 (1) TEU), havedirect applicability for the citizens of theUnion. Neither the CFSP, nor the JHAcontain norms of Union legislationwhich take precedence over nationallaw. We are only dealing with treatiesof international public law which committheir signatories to a tighterintergovernmental co-operation.However, in contrast with the factsmentioned above, the draft EUConstitution stipulates in its very firstarticle the consecration of the Union’ssupra-national character, thus changingthe current situation and placing theUnion’s structure on a positionequivalent to that of the EC at present.

b) The relation between the law ofthe European Union and Communitylaw

On the one hand, the AmsterdamTreaty brought about major changes inthe European structure, while on the

other hand, article 47 of the sametreaty stipulates that the treatiesunderlying the formation of theEuropean Communities are not affectedby changes other than those stipulatedby titles II-IV TEU and by the finaldispositions of the articles 46-53 TEU.As for these changes, they may be saidto represent only dispositions meant tocomplete Community law in certainfields, without bringing about majorchanges.

Starting from the premise that EUlaw is a separate entity from EC law,it should be pointed out that betweenthese two entities there are certainpoints of contact and, implicitly, thepossibility of conflicts between theirlegal norms14. At the same time, thereis the problem of the relation betweenthese two systems which, according toarticle 3 (1) TEU, form together a singleinstitutional framework. The hypothesisof the “three-pillar” structure of theUnion with a “roof” supported by threepillars – EC, CFSP and JHA – givesthe impression of a relation of supra-ordination of Union law versusCommunity law. Still, the TEU is anordinary treaty of international publiclaw, which entails obligations only forthe signatory states, not for the EC.Even a simple participation, as part ofthe TEU, would not lead to asubordination of Community law in thesystem of Union law, but would onlylead to assuming certain obligations aseffect of an international treaty.Potential collision problems betweennorms should be solved according toarticle 300 (5) and (6) EC Treaty,corroborated with article 48 TEU, byaltering Community law. By integrating


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14 Pechstein/Koenig, Die Europäische Union, p. 68.

Union law into the EC, this would takeprecedence over secondary Communitylaw norms15. However, until the draftEU Constitution has been drawn up,the possibility of integrating these twolegal entities and, implicitly, the twostructures, has not yet been consideredby their initiators.

c) ConclusionsWhen characterising the relationship

between the Union and theCommunities, namely the roof characterof the former and the pillar character ofthe EC, in the “three-pillar” structure, itshould be mentioned that therelationship itself has no specialdogmatic importance. The reason forthis is that neither the obligation ofobserving the principle of coherence(article 3 (1) TEU), nor other possibleobligations resulting from provisions ofthe TEU, respectively from actions ofUnion bodies, require dogmaticsanctioning in order to be substantiated.Assuming these obligations of the ECcan be explained by the modifyinginstruments of the EC Treaty. Only theeffect of carrying out these obligations,namely including the Communities invaster integrative structures, as well asobserving the principle of coherence byassuming the obligation of mutualalignment of Community policies withthe CFSP and the JHA, can berepresented for exclusively illustrativepurposes for the Union as being acomprehensive structure as comparedto the EC. All the above indicates that

one can not talk about a unioncharacter of the EC in the presentEuropean structure.

3. THE LEGAL NATURE OF THEEUROPEAN UNION

The character of subject of publicinternational law has to be denied if thethree conditions of the so-called theoryof the three elements have not beenmet. These refer to the threecomponents which have to be presentobligatorily for a structure to be definedas a state and, consequently to havelegal personality. The first element isrepresented by the people of that state,characterised by the fact that they liveon the territory of the respective stateon a regular basis and can be definedby the formal bond represented bycitizenship16. In the case of theEuropean Union the requirement ofcitizenship is missing, despite theintroduction of the “citizenship of theEuropean Union” by the MaastrichtTreaty. This union citizenship is verydifferent from the citizenship of a stateas far as its rights and obligations areconcerned17.

The second element is representedby the territory of the state, insidewhose borders a state exerts itssovereignty. This element is absentfrom the European Union, referring onlyto the territory of the EU MemberStates in which the TEU takes effect.This fact results from the character ofinternational public law of the TEU.Article 229 EC Treaty only refers to the


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15 ECJ, Case 181/73, Haegemann/Belgia, [1974], pp. 449, 460; on the matter of precedence, the Courtclassified the international treaties, in which the EC are part, as being situated between primary andsecondary Community legislation.16 Bothe/Hailbronner/Klein/Kunnig/Schröder/Graf Vitzhum, Völkerrecht, p. 205; Koenig/Haratsch,Europarecht, p. 29.17 Koenig/Haratsch, Europarecht, 2003, p. 29.

scope of the EC and not to a territoryof the Union, respectively of the EC.

The last element, according to theabove mentioned theory, is the actualexercising of sovereignty on thatterritory. Neither the TEU nor any otheracts grant the Union the possibility ofgranting itself its own competencesnecessary for its functioning, in otherwords it can not self-mandate itself inthis sense. This possibility is commonto all states and is essential forexercising their sovereignty on theirown territory. Article 6 (4) TEUstipulates that the Union has thenecessary means to achieve its goalsand implement its policies. As this normcould have been interpreted as amandate for the Union to grant its ownnecessary competences, the so-called“Maastricht Decision”18 of the GermanFederal Constitutional Court, whichrefers to the constitutionality of the lawof approving the Maastricht Treaty,states the contrary. In supporting thispoint of view, the German Court refersto the principle of conferral, stipulatedby article 5 TEU and article 5 (1) ECTreaty. According to this principle, theUnion may become active only if it hasbeen specifically mandated in therespective treaties, which contradictsthe possibility of self-mandating. In thesame context, the German Court, whichstates that the EU lacks the quality ofsubject of international public law,maintains that the norm stipulated inarticle 6 (4) TEU does not contain theprocedural disposition necessary for itsapplicability. One should also exclude

any reference to articles 202 and 205EC Treaty, involving the possibility ofaction through the European Council,because the applicability of thesearticles in the CFSP and JHA pillars ofthe Union has not been specificallystipulated in article 28 (1), respectivelyarticle 41 TEU. In conclusion, theGerman Federal Constitutional Courtinterprets article 6 (4) TEU only as astatement of the political-programmaticintent of the EU Member States toprovide the Union with the necessarymeans to achieve its goals. The Courtalso maintains that anotherinterpretation of the text of article 6 (4)TEU, such as one provided byEuropean bodies, would lack theobligatory character as far as theGerman state is concerned19.

Influenced by this decision, themajority opinion in the German doctrinemaintains that the EU is neither asubject of international public law noran international organisation20. Theconcept of a structured internationalorganisation, consisting of severalorganisations with legal personality – inthis case the EU and the EC –independent from the relations ofsubordination or co-ordination existingbetween these entities, is not tenable.In this context, the Union ischaracterised as “an internationalassociation without legal personality”21,the Member States, as they are calledin article 4 (2) or in article 11 (2) TEU,being, in fact, signatories of a treatyand not members in the sense given bythe EC.


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18 See footnote 7.19 Ibidem, p. 195.20 Koenig/Haratsch, Europarecht, p. 45; Schweitzer/Hummer, Europarecht, p. 23; for a generalpresentation of the opinions of the German doctrine see Koenig/Haratsch, Europarecht, p. 45.20 Koenig/Haratsch, Europarecht, p. 45.21 Koenig/Haratsch, Europarecht, p. 45.

4. THE LEGAL PERSONALITY OFTHE EUROPEAN UNION: ANALYSISAND CONTROVERSIES

From the very beginning it should bemade clear that the TEU does notspecifically stipulate the legalpersonality of the Union, as it exists inthe EC Treaty with reference to theCommunity. In this sense, legalreference materials contain a number ofconcepts and controversies regardingthe legal personality of the Union and,implicitly, the capacity of constituting asubject of international public law.According to the overwhelming majorityof the formulated opinions, the Uniondoes not have legal personality22. Thisspecification is necessary following theanalysis of the fundamental institutionsand principles stated both in Communitylaw and in the practice of internationalorganisations. The controversies foundin literature refer to the qualification ofthe legal status of the Union in thepractice of international public lawstarting from the quality of internationalorganisation to the existence orinexistence of legal personality.International organisations can besubjects of international public law ifthey have the capacity of holding rightsand obligations in their relations ofinternational public law. This capacitywas granted by the Member Statesthrough a specific provision in thefounding act, which, as we havealready noted above, does not apply tothe EU.

a) Legal personality by “implied-power”

The practice of international publiclaw, however, has other means ofacquiring legal personality byinternational organisations. One suchmeans refers to acquiring legalpersonality by the so-called “implied-power” effect. According to this theory,the existence of legal personality doesnot require any specific provision in thefounding act, but only presupposesdispositions from which, by applying theinterpretation principle of “implied-power”, results that the Member Stateshad the intention to attribute legalpersonality to the respectiveinternational organisation23. Thus, aninternational organisation has to havethe rights and obligations entailed bycarrying out its tasks. This is the wayin which the International Court ofJustice (ICJ), in the “Bernadotte”Report24, established that the legalpersonality of the UN (United Nations)implicitly arises from the extremelycomprehensive tasks and objectivesstipulated in the UN Charter (e.g., theprovisions about the necessity ofconcluding treaties of internationalpublic law). We will further analysewhether, based on the application ofthe “implied-power” principle in the TEUprovisions susceptible of conferring thecapacity of international public lawsubject, one can deduce the legalpersonality of the EU.

According to article 49 TEU, anyEuropean state can apply for accession


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22 Pechstein/Koenig, Die Europäische Union, pp. 28; the same opionion is shared by Schweitzer/Hummer,Europarecht, p. 23; Oppermann, Europarecht, p. 55; Herdegen, Europarecht, pp. 78.23 Pechstein/Koenig, Die Europäische Union, p. 40.24 ICJ Reports 1949 – Reparations for Injuries – p. 174.

to the EU. The applicant statesbecome, after carrying out theaccession procedures, members of theEU, without requiring a separateaccession to the EC as the latterrepresents one of the fundaments ofthe Union, namely the Communitypillar25. Paragraph 2 of article 49stipulates that accession takes place bysigning an accession treaty between theapplicant state and the Member Statesof the Union (just as in the case of theaccession of Austria, Finland andSweden26). Thus, accession treaties areconcluded with the Member States ofthe EU and not with the Union itself,which points to the fact that we aredealing with the second pillar of theEU, namely the CFSP, wherecompetences belong to the MemberStates and not to the Union. Ifaccession treaties were concluded withthe Union itself, the logical conclusionwould be that the EU does have legalpersonality27. This conclusion is alsosupported by the idea according towhich the foreign representation of theUnion is a matter of intergovernmentalco-operation in which the state holdingthe presidency of the council can notconclude international public law treatiesin the name of the other MemberStates. Pechstein/Koenig consider thatboth paragraph 1 of article 19 TEU andthe intergovernmental character of theCFSP convey a partial foreignrepresentation of the Member States onthe state holding the presidency of thecouncil. This partial representation is

limited to expressing points of viewcommon to the States of the Union,and it does not include concludingagreements that could generate legaleffects, such as concluding internationaltreaties. Consequently, theintergovernmental character underlinesthe inexistence of the Union’s legalpersonality.

b) The status of Community bodiesTightly connected to the problem of

the Union’s legal personality is thequalification of the EU bodies: does theUnion have its own bodies or does itresort to the bodies of the Communitiesin order to carry out its activities?Article 5 TEU enumerates, on the onehand, five fundamental bodies of theUnion (the Parliament, the Commission,the Council, the Court of Justice andthe Court of Auditors), but it makesexplicit reference to Community treaties.On the other hand, article 4 TEUassigns the co-ordinating political role tothe European Council, which is formedof the heads of state or government,but also of the President of theC o m m i s s i o n2 8. The systematicinterpretation of these two provisionsreveals that the intention of theEuropean lawmaker was to create abody proper to the EU that shouldcomplete the single institutionalframework postulated in article 3 TEU.This form of the Council,institutionalised by the MaastrichtTreaty, has been present in Communitypractice since 1975 in the form of the


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25 Streinz, Europarecht, p. 54.26 For example: OJ 1994 C 241/9.27 Pechstein/Koenig, Die Europäische Union. p. 42.28 The European Council is not identical with the European Communities Council stipulated in Art. 121EC Treaty.

biannual summits of the heads of stateor government together with thePresident of the Commission, and itpoints out its political-diplomaticcharacter. The European CommunityCouncil is responsible for the legaltransposition of the political decisionsmade by the European Council2 9. Thus,the European Council is the only bodyproper of the Union. This is the onlyway to account for the relatively reducedrole played by the other bodies –P arliament, Commission, Court ofJustice and Court of Auditors – withinthe Union. If the Union had had its ownexecutive bodies, it could have hadlegal personality3 0, considering that theexistence of its own bodies is essentialfor the qualification of the legal status ofan international organisation. The Union,therefore, carries out its tasks by meansof the specific bodies of the EC, whichpoints to the lack of legal personality.

At this point we should make someconsiderations as to the language usedby the mass media and in certainpolitical circles. As we have mentionedbefore, Community law presupposes thedistinction between the EC, characterisedby supra-nationality, and the EU, as afield of co-operation between MemberStates at intergovernmental level. Thisdistinction should also be considered asfar as the use of legal terminology in

Community law is concerned. It goeswithout saying that the terms used by themedia have the role of simplifying legalCommunity jargon which greatly reflectsthe level of difficulty of Communitys t r u c t u r e3 1. It is also true that legalanalysis requires the correct use of theterms and notions of Community law.The lack of legal personality and ofproper bodies reveals in this sense theterminological distinctions existing in thelegal community order. Thus, when wespeak about the Council, we keep inmind the difference between theEuropean Council, as a body of theentire Union, and the EuropeanCommunity Council, as a body specificfor the Community pillar of the Union. Asfor the term “EU Council”3 2 used by theCouncil in certain documents, Dörr pointsout, with good reason, that it contravenesto the provisions existing in the institutivetreaties, where the name “EuropeanCommunities Council” was established.This provision, already stipulated in theMerger Treaty in 19653 3, in articles 1and 9, has not been abrogated by article50 (1) TEU, but remained as an integr a n tpart of primary Community legislation3 4. Atthe same time, the Commission, as aspecific body of the EC, bears the nameof European Commission or EuropeanCommunity Commission3 5, and not the


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29 Oppermann, Europarecht, p. 96; on the other hand, Koenig/Haratsch, p. 352, consider that as theactivity of the European Council does not result in the Union acquiring legal capacity, the Council doesnot meet the necessary requirements to be qualified as a body specific for the Union, only having therole of intergovernmental conference at the level of international public law.30 Wichard, in: Callies/Ruffert, Art. 5 TEU, p. 51.31 Dörr, NJW 1995, p. 3163.32 For example: The Council Decision 95/358/EG, Euratom, OJ 1995 L 205/38.33 The Merger Treaty entered into force on 01.07.1967.34 Dorr, NJW 1995, p. 3164.35 The Resolution of the Commission of 17.11.1993, not published in the OJ.

EU Commission, as it is currently used bythe media. The Court of Justice of theEuropean Communities, as a Communityjuridical body, also comprises, starting with1989, a Court of First Instance. TheEuropean Parliament does not poseproblems in this sense, considering itsconsultative role.

The terminology used in the TEUoften refers to the Union as an entity(article 6 (3), according to which theUnion respects the national identity ofthe Member States or their fundamentalrights in paragraph 2 of the samearticle). This is however a purelydeclarative statement as it does notinfer the existence of the Union’s legalpersonality.

Last but not least, the foreign policyof the Union is not the foreign policy ofa proper subject of international publiclaw, as it might result from article1 8 (1) TEU, which confers thePresident of the Council the function ofrepresentation in the CFSP. This is onlya partial representation on behalf of thestate holding the Presidency of theCouncil for the other Member States36.

c) Legal personality acquired bysubsequent practice according toarticle 31 (3) (b) of the ViennaConvention on the Law of Treaties

Public international law practiceknows another way of acquiring legalpersonality by an internationalorganisation that is by subsequentpractice. This is a method which is

recognised by and stipulated in theVienna Convention on the Law ofTreaties in article 31 (3) (b). This wayof acquiring legal personality could bededuced from the activities of the Unionin the field of international public law,mainly from its concluding internationalagreements. The following treatiesmight fall into this category: TheEuropean Union Treaty with Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia concerning theadministration of Mostar37. A possiblediscrepancy with the lack of the Union’slegal personality, thus its incapacity ofconcluding international treaties in itsown name (and implicitly in the nameof the Member States), can be seenfrom the provision stipulating that therespective treaty is signed by thePresident of the Council in the name ofthe Union Member States, within theUnion38. However, the former foreignminister of Germany, Klaus Kinkel,makes a rightful observation referring tothis situation, namely, that from legalpoint of view, in the case of the abovementioned treaty it is not the Union thatacts, but the Member States and theCommunity39. The signing of the PeaceTreaty for Bosnia-Herzegovina on 14December 1995 by the Presidency ofthe Council on behalf of the EU fallsinto this category too. This is again acertification of the Union’s participationin this treaty in its quality of specialnegotiator40 and not a signing of thetreaty in the name of the Union. At thesame time, the treaties signed by theUnion with Yugoslavia41, respectively


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36 Koenig/Haratsch, Europarecht, p. 352.37 Bull. EU 7/8 – 1994, p. 74 and Bull. EU 6 – 1994, p. 98.38 Schröder, in: Europäisches Verfassungsrecht, p. 391.39 Kinkel, in Schlußveranstaltung des 61. Deutschen Juristentags am 20.09.1996: Außenpolitik derEuropäische Union – Rechtliche Möglichkeiten und politische Chancen, 1996, p. Q 14.40 “European Union special negotiator”, Dörr, EuR, 1995, p. 343.41 Council Decision 2001/352/CFSP, OJ 2001 L 125/1.

with M a c e d o n i a4 2, concerning the settingup of a surveillance commission onbehalf of the EU, treaties which explicitlystipulate the quality of participant of theUnion43, reinforce this conclusion.Recognising the right of the Union toparticipate in the relations of internationalpublic law by concluding internationalagreements in the form of association,may represent an argument for acquiringpartial legal personality for the Union byvirtue of article 31 (3) (b) of the ViennaConvention on the Law of Treaties4 4. Thisargument could be effectively invoked ifthe Member States hadn’t explicitlyopposed it by rejecting the proposals ofI r e l a n d4 5 and the Netherlands4 6 to grantthe Union constitutive legal personalityduring the negotiations that led to theconclusion of the Amsterdam Treaty.Being a fundamental provision ofCommunity structure based on primaryCommunity legislation, granting legalpersonality should have been the objectof the procedure of altering theconstitutive treaties, according to article48 TEU4 7. Paragraph 3 of the samearticle stipulates that in such a casedecisions are adopted according to therule of unanimity which, obviously, didn’thappen in the present situation.

d) The absorption of theCommunities in the Union

In German literature, v. Bogdandy/Nettesheim`s48 melting theory, which

starts from the idea of the unity ofCommunity legal order, kicked off anample debate. According to the opinionof the two authors, the Union is aunitary structure which also comprisesthe Communities and which adequatelyreveals the gradual intensifying of theEuropean integration process. Thefundamental legal ground of the meltingconcept is article 3 (1) TEU, whichstipulates the single institutionalframework of the EU. Thus, from thepoint of view of its organisation, of thelegal consequences and of the legalsystem, the Union would represent aunity, which is the constitutive basis ofthe Community legal nucleus49. Startingwith the Maastricht Treaty, Communitydevelopment enters a new phase,allowing the authors to state that theUnion represents a new structure whichreplaces the old one. In other words,the Union absorbs the Communities,whose substitute it becomesautomatically, a statement that alsoresults from the terminology used indrawing up Community legislation. Fromthis point of view, the authors maintainthat the terms “Community” and“Community law” would be obsolete andtheir use would not correspond to thepresent image of the Europeanstructure, more and more often referredto with the terms “Union” and “Unionlaw”50. The conclusion reached by v.


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42 Council Decision 2001/682/CFSP, OJ 2001 L 241/1.43 Schröder, in: Europäisches Verfassungsresrecht, p. 391.44 Dörr, EuR 1995, p. 343 defines this quality as legal personality “in statu nascendi”.45 CONF 2500/96, 05.12.1996, p. 91.46 CONF 2500/96, ADD. 1/20.3.1997, p. 47.47 Pechstein/Koenig, Die Europäische Union, p. 38.48 V. Bogdandy/Nettesheim, NJW 1995, p. 2324; by the same authors, EuR 1996, p. 3.49 V. Bogdandy/Nettesheim, NJW 1995, p. 2327.50 V. Bogdandy/Nettesheim, NJW 1995, p. 2327; in this sense, as the authors explain, the Regulationsissued by the EU Council are called Regulation (EC) only insofar they refer to Community legislationand not to Union legislation.

Bogdandy/Nettesheim is that, from thisperspective, the Union, as unitaryorganisation, meets all the objectiveconditions necessary to have legalpersonality, and it remains that thisdogmatic concept be accepted in thepractice of international public law51.

Considering the recent developmentsand legislative projects at the level ofCommunity legal order5 2, the meltingtheory proposed by v.Bogdandy/Nettesheim has a visionaryand innovative character. It represents away of simplifying the complicatedCommunity legal structures throughproposals that are more accessible tothe citizens. The melting concepthowever represents rather a social-political aspiration than a legal reality5 3.From a normative point of view, theauthors ignore the fact that the singleinstitutional framework stipulated inarticle 3 (1) TEU only conveys a partialunity of the Community bodies, whichdoes not directly lead to the immediatemelting of the structures they represent.Politically, the proposals referring to theabsorption of the Communities into theUnion and to a possible granting of legalpersonality to the latter were explicitlyrejected by the Member States.

Although there have been otheropinions presented in the literature,insisting on a structural melting of theCommunities within the Union54, as wellas on granting legal personality throughthe Amsterdam Treaty55 the majority of

the authors stick to the thesis that theUnion does not have legal personality,at least not until the EuropeanConstitution enters into force.

e) The European Union – a subjectof private law?

Another aspect connected to theEU’s legal personality is the questionwhether the EU can be a subject ofprivate law. This capacity offers thepossibility of engaging relationships atthe level of private law and ofconcluding legal documents, mainly legalcontracts in the Member States. Unlikethe EC Treaty (article 282) and theEuratom Treaty (article 185), the TEUdoes not contain explicit provisions inthis field. Although for being a subject ofprivate law, this is not necessary, aproblem arises where we deal with aninternational organization which does nothold the capacity of a subject of publiclaw. According to the majority opinion inthe theory of international public law, thecapacity of private law of an internationalorganisation does not result from itscapacity of international public law.Assigning the status of private lawsubject to an international organisationfalls under the regulations of nationallegal norms, so that there is nomandatory determining connectionbetween the two5 6.

The absence of the EU’s private lawcapacity, such as it is the case of theGerman legal system57, has no majorlegal consequences. As for the


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51 V. Bogdandy/Nettesheim, NJW 1995, p. 2328.52 We refer to Art. 6 of the Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe.53 Certainly, if we ignore the draft EU Constitution.54 Trüe, Verleihung, von Rechtspersönlichkeit an die Europäische Union und Verschmelzung zu einereinzigen Organisation – deklaratorisch oder konstitutiv?, Europa – Institut der Universität desSaarlandes, Nr. 37, 1997.55 Wichard, in: Callies/Ruffert, Art. 5 TEU, p. 51.56 Koenig/Harratsch, Europarecht, p. 52.57 In German international private law, the recognition of the private law capacity of a foreign legalpersonality depends on the latter’s statute in the country where it is based.

necessity of such a capacity forcarrying out its activity, it should bementioned that as far as the Union isconcerned its headquarters are notlocated in any specific country, theprivate law capacity being irrelevant inthis case. The other issue raised refersto the necessity of private law legalpersonality in the case of legalprotection for the citizens of the Union.The Union is not mandated to issueacts whose recipients are the citizensof the Member States58, so that theexistence of a private law capacity inthis situation is again not necessary.

5. THE LEGAL PERSONALITY OFTHE EUROPEAN UNION WITHIN THETREATY ESTABLISHING ACONSTITUTION FOR EUROPE

The Treaty for the future EuropeanConstitution explicitly stipulates in articleI-7 the legal personality of the Union.This provision together with article IV-438 lays down that the Unionestablished by the Constitutional Treatyis the legal successor to the EuropeanCommunity. According to the FinalReport of Working Group III of theEuropean Convention, which during itsworks discussed the problem of theUnion’s legal personality, the presentCommunity structure is liable to createconfusion as far as the legal capacityof European institutions is concerned.Based on this consideration, the

Working Group recommends theintroduction in the Treaty of theConstitution of an explicit provision thatshould regulate the granting of legalpersonality to the Union59. We shallfurther analyse the dogmaticimplications of this provision and itsconsequences on the relations ofinternational public law of the EU.

a) The explicit recognition of theUnion’s legal personality: implicationson the “acquis communautaire”

Based on the mandate entrusted bythe Presidium of the Convention,Working Group III analysed, in itsdebates, the effects of the explicitgranting of legal personality to theUnion, as well as the consequencesborn by the melting of the Union’s legalpersonality with that of the legalpersonality of the Communities wouldhave on the Community legal order60.Considering the disappearance of thepresent form of Community Treatiesand the drawing up of a singleconstitutional document that replacesthem, we think that it is not that mucha melting, as it is formulated in theReport61, but an absorption of theCommunities into the Union62, ideawhich is also reflected in the takingover of the Community legal institutionsin the new legal structure, under thename of Constitution63. Thus, we can


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58 BverfGE 89, pp. 155, 175; The German Federal Constitutional Court, in its decision in the Maastrichtcase, retained that the TEU does not contain provisions which should represent a mandate for anyactions of any nature on the possessors of basic rights, namely on the citizens of the Member States.This decision is based on the fact that there is no legal protection of the citizens’ individual rightsagainst acts of Union law neither in the field of JHA nor in that of CFSP either by the ECJ or bythe Court of First Instance (Art. 46 TEU).59 The Final Report of Working Group III of the European Convention on the legal personality of theEU – CONV 305/02 – can be found on the Internet on the Convention’s website www.european-convention.eu.int (on 02.10.2002).60 See the text of the Final Report, pt. 1, p. 1.61 See pt. 3 of the Final Report, p. 2.62 See also pt. 2. d) of the article – the v. Bogdandy/Nettesheim theory.63 See Art. I-1 of the Constitutional Treaty: “…this Constitution establishes the European Union…”.

see that the Community pillar of thepresent European architecture passeson materially its institutions andorganising principles (including its legalpersonality) to the future EuropeanConstitution. At the same time, the term“Union” reflects to a much greaterextent the intensification of the processof integration and the joint Europeanvalues that lie at the basis of drawingup a Constitution for Europe.

Following the explicit granting of alegal personality to the Union by articleI-7 of the EU Constitution, the“Community acquis” undergoesessential alterations as far as its legalstructure is concerned. The model ofthe “three-pillar” structure, establishedby the Maastricht Treaty disappears,the institutions comprised by thesepillars being integrated into a unitarystructure, under the form of aConstitution. At the same time, theconstitutive treaties cease to beeffective, but the institutions andorganising principles remain valid, thistime within a single text meant tosimplify the European legal structure.The members of the Working Group,together with the experts and legaladvisors heard during its works,reached the conclusion that a potentialmerger of the treaties would be thelogical consequence of recognising thelegal personality of the Union. Thiswould essentially contribute to

simplifying the European legal system,as the distinction between the Unionand the Communities would becomeirrelevant, thus eliminating a number ofprocedural and decision-makingdifficulties, mainly in the two fields ofintergovernmental co-operation, CFSPand JHA. It still remains to be seen towhat extent the procedural particulars ofthese two fields will be considered,taking into account the fact that theTreaty stipulates their integration intothe single constitutional text. A specialproblem is raised by the correlation ofthese two fields with the process oflawmaking, as the Treaty does notstipulate any specific methods ofpassing secondary legislation in thematters of intergovernmental co-operation, as it has been the case sofar64, which means that the range ofapplicability of the future legal actsproposed by the constitutional text65

also extends over the two former pillarsof the Union, CFSP and JHA66. Itfollows that, at least the co-operation inJHA raises the problem of the principleof direct applicability of the legal actsof the Union, if we consider that theEuropean legal instruments stipulated inarticle I-33 of the Treaty are applicablein this field as well67, and they do havethis effect. This represents a noveltycompared to the present Communityacquis, in which the legislative actsspecific for the JHA68 do not benefit


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64 General guidelines, common strategies, joint actions, common positions in the CFSP – Art. 12 TEU;common positions, framework decisions, decisions and conventions for the JHA – Art. 34 TEU.65 European laws, European framework laws, European regulations, European decisions,recommendations and opinions – Art. 32 (1) of the Treaty; European laws and European frameworklaws take over, in most part, the structure of the present regulations and directives, respectively, aslegal acts of secondary Community legislation.66 The CFSP is stipulated in part III, title V, chapter II of the Treaty, while co-operation in Justiceand Home Affairs is regulated under a new name “Area of Freedom, Security and Justice”, part III,title III, chapter IV.67 The Treaty stipulates, as far as the CFSP is concerned, European decisions which are legal actswithout legislative character.68 See footnote 63.

from direct applicability, which explainsthe reserve manifested by the MemberStates when talking about passing thecompetences at Union level in this verysensitive field of national sovereignty. Inorder to counterbalance this effect ofdirect applicability, Working Group X ofthe Convention, which discussed theregulations of the Project referring toco-operation in the field of JHA,recommended that the competences ofthe Court of Justice should be extendedover the field of justice and homeaffairs, as these measures couldimmediately affect individual rights ofthe citizen.

b) The effects on internationalpublic law of recognising the legalpersonality of the Union

By explicitly granting legal personalitythrough the EU Constitution, the Unionbecomes an international public lawsubject, a capacity currently recognisedonly to the European Community.Following the dissolution of the “three-pillar” structure that currently ensures thefundament of the European construction,the Union takes over the competencesexisting within the Community pillar,including the competences of the EC oninternational level, consequently thenegotiation and conclusion of treaties ofinternational public law. Working GroupIII of the Convention reached theconclusion that granting legal personalityto the Union would not require the

alteration of the distribution ofcompetences on international levelbetween the Union and the MemberStates, nor that of the procedures andcompetences of Community bodies, onlyan adaptation to the newly createdstructure, in the sense of correlatingthese provisions with those referring tothe foreign policy of the Union6 9.

It has to be noted that the Union’snewly acquired quality of being asubject of international public law is notoriginal but derived as it has beengranted by its member states.70 Thusthis quality of the Union is limited, asthe EU can be a subject of only thoseinternational rights and obligationswhich are necessary for reaching itsobjectives and the fulfilment of itscompetences.71 Even though, accordingto recent German literature, theinternational legal personality of thenew EU can not be described as beinglimited.72 Proof of this can be seenwhen considering the competence toconclude international agreementsprovided by art. III-323 (1), as well asthe exclusive competence rule of theUnion of art. I-13 (2). The wording ofthese regulations as well as the recordsof the debates and negotiations heldwithin the European Convention indicatethat the Convention intended awidening of the external powers of theUnion by referring to the ECJ’s AETRjurisprudence73 regarding the implicitcapacity to conclude agreements.74


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69 The Final Report of Working Group III, pt. 20, 21, p. 6.70 Von Heinegg, in: Vedder/von Heinegg, art. I-7, nr. 2; States, as opposed to internationalorganizations, do possess an original quality of being a subject of international law, Hermann, in: DerVertrag , p. 310. 71 Von Heinegg, in: Vedder/von Heinegg, art. I-7, nr. 2.72 Streinz/Ohler/Hermann, Die neue Verfassung für Europa, p. 89; also Cremona, CMLR, 2003, p. 1347(1351, 1362), Fassbender, AVR 2004, p. 26 (31); de Witte, in: Pernice/Maduro, A Constitution for theEuropean Union, p. 95 (101).73 ECJ, Case 22/70, Commission/Council, [1971], p. 263.74 Streinz/Ohler/Hermann, Die neue Verfassung für Europa, p. 89.

The rule of international public law,that international legal personality alsorequires the formal recognition by otherinternational legal persons e. g. byconcluding agreements with non-member states and internationalorganisations, should actually play aminor role in this situation. The newUnion is the legal successor of thepresent EC,75 which already has legalpersonality and is widely recognised bystates and international organisations.76

With a view to simplifying the foreignrepresentation of the Union, as aconsequence of its acquiring legalpersonality, the function of UnionMinister for Foreign Affairs has beenc r e a t e d7 7. The Union Minister forForeign Affairs is to ensure thecoherent representation of the Unionabroad by initiating political dialogues ininternational conferences andorganisations. The representation of aforeign unitary common position is,however, limited in the situation inwhich the conclusion of an internationaltreaty falls both in the competence ofthe Union and in that of MemberStates. Such a case requires theparticipation in negotiations and in

concluding of the treaty both of theUnion and of the Member States, whichhave to co-operate in such a tightmanner as to be able to adopt aunitary common position78, althoughWorking Group III recommended, in thissense, establishing a single delegationrepresenting the Union79.

As a consequence of recognising itscapacity of international public lawsubject, the Union acquires, besides itscapacity of concluding internationaltreaties, other similar rights whichensue from this quality: the right to filecomplaints in an international court, theright to become member of aninternational organisation or of aninternational convention (for example,the European Convention on HumanRights), and the right of its employeesto benefit from privileges and immunity.

Once the Constitution for Europe willhave entered into force, the legalpersonality of the Union will replace thatof the EC, and the Union willsubsequently take over all theobligations that the Community hastaken on by virtue of the internationalrelations it is part of.


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75 See also art. IV-438 of the EU Constitution and Fassbender, AVR 2004, pp. 26.76 Von Heinegg, in: Vedder/von Heinegg, art. I-7, nr. 3; see also Streinz/Ohler/Hermann, Die neueVerfassung furEuropa, p. 33.77 Art. III – 197 of the Treaty.78 Opinion 2/91 of the ECJ, 19 March 1993, ECR pp. I–1061.79 See pt. 37 of the Final Report, p. 11.

ABBREVIATIONS

ADD. AddendumAVR Archiv des Völkerrechts (law journal)Bull. EU Bulletin of the European UnionBverfG Bundesverfassungsgericht (German Federal Constitutional

Court)BverfGE Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts (Decisions of

the German Federal Constitutional Court)

CONF ConferenceCMLR Common Market Law Review (law journal)ECJ Court of Justice of European CommunitiesECR European Court ReportsEuR Europarecht (law journal)NJW Neue Juristische Wochenschrift (law journal)OJ Official Journal of the European Union

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bothe, Michael/Hailbronner, Kay/Klein, Eckart/Kunnig, Philip/Schröder,Meinhard/Graf Vitzthum, Wolfgang: Völkerrecht, Berlin, New York, 1997;

Callies, Christian/Ruffert, Matthias: Kommentar zu EU-/EG- Vertrag, 2nd edn.,Neuwied 2002 (Johannes Christian Wichard, in: Callies/Ruffert);

Cremona, Marise: The Draft Constitutional Treaty: External Relations and ExternalAction, CMLR 2003, vol. 40, nr. 6, pp. 1347;

Dörr, Oliver: Noch einmal: Die Europäische Union und die EuropäischeGemeinschaften, NJW 1995, pp. 3162;

Dörr, Oliver: Zur Rechtsnatur der Europäischen Union, EuR 1995, pp. 334;Fassbender, Bardo: Die Völkerrechtssubjektivität der Europäischen Union nachdem

Entwurf des Verfassungsvertrags, AVR, 2004, pp. 26;Herdegen, Matthias: Europarecht, 8th edn., München 2006;Jopp, Matthias/Matl, Saskia: Der Vertrag über eine Verfassung für Europa, Baden-

Baden 2005 (Cristoph Hermann, in: Der Vertrag);Koenig, Christian/Haratsch, Andreas: Europarecht, 4th edn., Tübingen 2003;Oppermann, Thomas: Europarecht, 3rd edn., München 2005;Pechstein, Matthias/Koenig, Christian: Die Europäische Union, 3r d edn., Tübingen 2000;Pernice, Ingolf/Maduro, Miguel Poiares: A Constitution fort he European Union: First

Comments on the 2003-Draft of the European Convention, Baden-Baden 2004(Bruno de Witte, in: A Constitution for the European Union);

Schweitzer, Michael/Hummer, Waldemar: Europarecht, 5th edn., Berlin 1996;Streinz, Rudolf: Europarecht, 7th edn., Heidelberg 2005;Streinz, Rudolf/Ohler, Cristoph/Hermann, Cristoph: Die neue Verfassung für Europa,

München 2005;Trüe, Christian: Verleihung von Rechtspersönlichkeit an die Europäische Union und

Verschmelzung zu einer einzigen Organisation – deklaratorisch oder konstitutiv?,Europa – Institut der Universität des Saarlandes, Nr. 37, 1997;

Vedder, Christoph/von Heinegg, Wolff Heintschel: EU-Verfassung – Kommentar (inprint) (von Heinegg, in: Vedder/von Heinegg)

von Bogdandy, Armin/Nettesheim, Martin: Die Europäische Union: Ein einheitlicherVerband mit eigener Rechtsordnung, EuR 1996, pp. 3;

von Bogdandy, Armin/Nettesheim, Martin: Die Verschmelzung der EuropäischenGemeinschaften in der Europäischen Union, NJW 1995, pp. 2324;

von Bogdandy, Armin: Europäisches Verfassungsrecht, Berlin 2003 (WernerSchröder, in: Europäisches Verfassungsrecht)


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RECENT ADVANCES IN TERRITORIAL COMPETITION ANDCOMPETITIVENESS ANALYSIS1

DANIELA-LUMINIfiA CONSTANTIN*

Abstract. This paper addresses the question of territorial competitiveness – atnational and regional level – from the perspective of the most important researchundertaken in the international arena in order to build-up competitiveness indicatorsable to reveal the complexity and dynamics of this phenomenon in thecontemporary society. A special emphasis is put on studies developed byprestigious organisations and research centres such as World Economic Forum,International Institute for Management Development, Cambridge Econometrics,ECORYS-NEI and so on.


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1. INTRODUCTION

In the widest meaning, the economicliterature defines territorial competitionas the actions undertaken by theeconomic agents in a specificgeographical area in order to ensurethe increase in the living standard forthe inhabitants of the respectiveterritory. One of the supporters of thisdefinition, Jaques Poot, uses the termof territorial competition so as toemphasize the fact that it takes placeat different levels: city level, region levelor state (national) level (Poot, 2000).

According to the view developed byMichel Porter, at national level thecompetitive advantages are understoodas the conditions that a country offersto firms in order to make them prosperand grow. In this way, the respectivecountry contributes to the reinforcementof its firms’ competitive capacity onboth local and global markets (Porter,1996). The competitive advantages areneither static nor immune to thegovernmental policies, the same idea

being applicable to regions as well. Thegoverning authorities, at different levels,consider the territory they adminstrateas competing for access to the globalmarket, to capital, to new knowledgeand technologies and, sometimes, tohuman resources. In this respect, theiractions, undertaken for strengtheningthe competitive position, influence theresults at both national and regionallevel.

This view supports the notion ofterritorial competition as a notion ofwide coverage, which does not restrictthe participants only to the territorialadministration category, but also refersto the behaviour of firms andhouseholds in the respective territory.

The territorial competition, definedthis way, is in direct correspondencewith the notion of t e r r i t o r i a lcompetitiveness (at regional and/orinternational level): the latter representsa measure of a territory’s potential toachieve high, sustainable rates of livingstandard growth in the respective area.

1 This paper has been developed during a two month stage at the University of Economics of Viennathanks to the research grant offered by the Elias Foundation of the Romanian Academy. TheFoundation’s kind support is gratefully acknowledged.* Daniela Luminita Constantin is Ph.D. Professor of Regional Economics at the Academy of EconomicStudies of Bucharest. She is also President of the Romanian Regional Science Association and memberof the Council of European Regional Science Association (ERSA).

The regional competitiveness (RC),as such, has been more rarely andmore poorly defined. According toCambridge Econometrics (2003) theclearest, most concrete proposal comesfrom the European Commission, whichrefers to this term as follows:

“[Competitiveness is defined as] theability to produce goods and serviceswhich meet the test of internationalmarkets, while at the same time highand sustainable levels of income levelsor, more generally, the ability (ofregions) to generate, while beingexposed to external competition,relatively high income and employmentlevels”…”In other words, for a region tobe competitive is important to ensureboth the quantity and the quality ofjobs” – The Sixth Periodic Report on theRegions (1999, p.4).

The GDP per capita is considered tobe the best representation of thisdefinition. It may be broken down inmore factorial components, each havingits own economic interpretation(Gardiner, 2003):

GDP / Total Population = [PIB /Total number of hours worked] * [Totalnumber of hours worked / Employment]* [Employment / Working agepopulation] * [Working age population /Total Population]*

This formula describes the relationbetween GDP per capita on the onehand and the labour productivity, work– leisure ratio, employment rate anddependency rate on the other hand.

Actually, the decomposing is notdone in totally independent componentsand some connections between theindicators can be noticed. For example,

the regions with high productivity, thatuse highly skilled labour force, mayalso record high employment rates.

In general terms, the economicliterature acknowledges two perspectivesin RC approach (Camagni, 2002): RC asa combined measure of thecompetitiveness of f i r m s in the regionand RC as a competitiveness derivedfrom the m a c r o e c o n o m i c c o m p e t i t i v e n e s s .

However, none of these perspectivesis totally acceptable: the first onebecause it focuses on firms’ productivityand profit without taking intoconsideration the level of employmentin the region, as an essential aspect forRC, while the second one does notconsider that certain laws governing theeconomics of international trade do notwork properly or do not exist at subnational level (for example: exchangerates variation, price – wage flexibility,etc.). Instead, other phenomena – suchas the interregional mobility ofproduction factors – capital, labour force– determine more important challengesto regions.

Therefore RC seems to be aconcept “stuck in the middle”(Cambridge Econometrics, 2003) andthe clarification of its determinantfactors is necessary in order to defineand understand it. This is possible byreferring to points of view with explicitor implicit implications on the RC notionexpressed by major economic schoolsas well as to the results of empiricresearch works concerned with theconcrete RC analysis by means ofspecific methodologies for which theselection of indicators and dataprocessing have an essential role.

DANIELA-LUMINIfiA CONSTANTIN

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* The regional implications of considering the total number of hours worked are more eloquent in thiscase than at national level. Regions may present a more important specialization from sectorialviewpoint (for example: agriculture), making the adjustment based on various characteristics of hoursworked represent more accurately the real working effort involved in producing the output in comparisonwith the measured one.

2. TERRITORIAL COMPETITIVENESSINDICATORS. EMPIRIC RESEARCHREGARDING THE COMPETITIVENESSFACTORS AT NATIONAL LEVEL

Taking into account the influence ofgovernmental policies upon theeconomic growth, the statisticaldimension of competitiveness is oftenused as a scorecard of these policies.Therefore many internationalorganizations and research institutesare concerned with measuring thecompetitiveness of nationaleconomies by means of a large set ofindicators, countries being ranked onthe basis of an index that represents aweighted average of the indicescorresponding to the indicatorsemployed. Most frequently thequantifications performed by the WorldEconomic Forum (WEF) and theInternational Institute for ManagementDevelopment of Geneva (IMD) areconsidered in this respect. Until 1996the WEF and the IMD published acommon index, afterwards the twoorganizations have modified theirmethodology independently andpublished separate reports oncompetitiveness.

Although it has been noticed thatthe measurement of competitiveness onthe basis of a too great number ofindicators is not as relevant as the onebased on a set of fundamental, target-indicators, the two institutes use morethan one hundred indicators, collectedfrom official statistics and surveys donewith business people in over 50countries. Both methodologies useregression functions for analysing thedeterminant factors of the economicdevelopment.

World Economic Forum p u b l i s h e sthe index known as G r o w t hCompetitiveness Index (GCI) w h o s e

construction is based on three pillarsconsidered as being fundamental forthe economic development, namely thetechnology level of the countriesanalysed, the state of their publicinstitutions, and the quality ofmacroeconomic environment. Each ofthem is taken into consideration withinthe GCI by means of a specific index.

In the latest GCI reports the WEFexperts have emphasised that the roleof new technologies in the economicgrowth process is different amongcountries, depending upon their generaldevelopment level and that thetechnology innovation is relatively moreimportant for the economic growth inthe countries close to the so-called“technology frontier”. For example, the2004 GCI Report mentions that thetechnology innovation is crucial for theeconomic growth in a country likeSweden, while the technology transfer(often associated with foreign directinvestments) is relatively more importantin countries like the Czech Republic(www.weforum.org).

For this reason, in order toestablish the GCI the countries understudy are separated into two groups:the first one comprises the economiesfor which the technologic innovation isa fundamental factor of the economicgrowth (core innovators); the secondone includes the economies which relyon the transfer of technologies fromabroad (non-core innovators).

The basic importance of technologyinnovation for the countries belonging tothe first group is taken intoconsideration by allowing a greaterimportance (weight) coefficient (than inthe case of the countries in the secondgroup) to the innovation sub indexwithin the technology index. For thecomputation of the technology index inthe case of the second group of

RECENT ADVANCES IN TERRITORIAL COMPETITION AND COMPETITIVENESS ANALYSIS

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countries a specific sub index isemployed, namely the technologytransfer sub index.

Finally, considering that thedeterminants of the economiccompetitiveness are different for the twogroups of countries, the weight placedon the three partial indices is alsodifferent. Thus, for the non-coreinnovators the weight is higher forpublic institutions index andmacroeconomic environment index. This

does not mean that the two aspects donot have a great importance for thecore innovators as well, but in theircase it is considered that they havebeen for a long time in a periodcharacterised by institutional stability,the need for technology innovationbeing relatively more important to theeconomic growth process.

Details about the composition of theGCI are presented in Box 1.


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Box 1

The Method of Composition of Growth Competitiveness Index

– The responses to the survey questions are ranked on a scale from1 to 7.

– The values of the data variables collected from official statistics areconverted to the same 1-to-7 scale by means of a linear interpolationformula:

6 * [(xi – xmin) / (xmax – xmin)] + 1where:xi = value of the indicator for the country analysedxmax = maximum value of the indicator (for the country with the best

result)xmin = minimum value of the indicator (for the country with the worst

result)

GCI (I) = 1/2 TI + 1/4 PII + 1/4 MEIGCI (II) = 1/3 TI + 1/3 PII + 1/3 MEIwhere:GCI = Growth Competitiveness Index for countries in the first group (core

innovators, I) and second group (non-core innovators, II)TI = technology indexPII = public institutions indexMEI = macroeconomic environment index

Each of the three indexes cumulates, with different weights in the caseof each group, a series of specific sub indexes. For example, TI (I) = 1/2innovation subindex + 1/2 ICT subindex (Information and CommunicationTechnology), while TI (II) = 1/8 innovation subindex + 3/8 technologytransfer subindex + 1/2 ICT subindex

The same method is employed for further composing of the subindices(see www.weforum.org)

The score of competitiveness(presented in World CompetitivenessScoreboard (WCS)) computed by theInternational Institute for ManagementDevelopment (IMD) in Geneva takesinto account four determinant factors:economic performance, governmentefficiency, business efficiency, andinfrastructure. Each of them is dividedinto five sub factors which emphasisethe fundamental aspects of the domainunder analysis, as follows:

Economic performance: domesticeconomy, international trade,international investment, employment,prices.

Government efficiency: publicfinance, fiscal policy, institutionalframework, business legislation, societalframework.

Business efficiency: productivity,labour market, finance, managementpractices, attitudes and values.

Infrastructure: basic infrastructure,technological infrastructure, scientificinfrastructure, health and environment,education.

In total, the 20 sub factors considerover 300 criteria; however, these arenot equally distributed by sub factor.For example, in order to evaluateeducation more criteria are used incomparison with prices. Regardless thenumber of criteria employed, each subfactor has the same weight, of 5% (atotal of 20 * 5% = 100%).

On the whole, the criteria for whichWCS elaboration is based on officialstatistics represent approximately two

thirds whereas one third counts for theinformation obtained by means ofsurveys.

Starting with the year 2004 the IMDReport comprises two absolutely newelements, as follows (www02.imd.ch/wcc/ranking):

– in addition to one global ranking(referring to all 60 countries examined),there are several customized rankingssplit by population size, by wealth or byregion (Europe – Middle East – Africa,Asia – Pacific, and the Americas) ;

– regional economies have beenalso included since 2004 for they playa particular role in the economicdevelopment at global level and show“pockets” of competitiveness withdifferent profiles in comparison with thecountries they belong to (for exampleBavaria – Germany, Catalonia – Spain,Ile de France – France, Lombardia –Italy, Maharashtra – India, Rhône-Alps– France, Scotland – United Kingdom,state of Sao Paolo – Brasil, Zhejiang –China).

At the same time other reports onthe competitiveness of nationaleconomies are elaborated, i.e., by theOrganization for Economic Cooperationand Development (OECD)* and by theUK’s Department for Trade andIndustry**.

A synthesis of the competitivenessfactors at national level analysed by themost important reports developed in theinternational arena is presented in AStudy on the Factors of RegionalCompetitiveness. A final report for The


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* OECD’s New Economy Report (2001) takes into account 5 groups of factors considered as having astrong causality relation with the economic competitiveness and which give a major importance to thenew economy: ICT usage, innovation and technology diffusion, human capital, entrepreneurship andquality of macroeconomic environment.** Published since 1999, the Competitiveness Indicators Report uses the benchmarking in order toevaluate the UK’s performance against the world’s leading economies as compared to its maincompetitors from the perspective of five drivers of productivity: investments, innovation, skills, enterpriseand competitive markets.

European Commission Directorate-General Regional Policy ( 2 0 0 3 ) ,elaborated by Cambridge Econometrics,the University of Cambridge andECORYS-NEI – Rotterdam. Therespective synthesis presents thefactors of competitiveness as beingdivided into three large categories,namely (page 2- 23):

Infrastructure and Accessibility• Basic infrastructure

– road– rail– air

• Technologic infrastructure– ICT– telecommunications– Internet

Human resources• Labour force characteristics

– productivity – flexibility

• Management skills– internationalised– level of professionalism– efficiency level

• Highly skilled work force– scientists and engineers– symbolic analists

• High participation rates in post schooleducation– tertiary education

vocational education • Educational infrastructure

Productive environment• Entrepreneurial culture

– low barriers to entry– risk taking culture

• Internationalisation– exports/ global sales– investment– business culture

• Technology– application– management

• Innovation– patents– R&D levels– research institutes and universities– linkages between companies and

research• Capital availability• Nature of competition• Sectoral balance

3. DETERMINANT FACTORS OFREGIONAL COMPETITIVENESS

As concerns the r e g i o n a lcompetitiveness (RC) analysis, twocategories of studies can bedistinguished: the first categoryapproaches RC as a cumulative resultof more determinant factors, while thesecond one focuses on a particulardriver of competitiveness (CambridgeEconometrics, 2003).

Internationally, the mostrelevant studies for the cumulativeapproach have been undertaken by theEuropean Commission (Second (2001)and Third (2003) Report on Economic andSocial Cohesion), the WelshDevelopment Agency in partnership withBarclays Bank PLC (Competing with theWorld , 2002), UK’s Department ofTrade and Industry (R e g i o n a lCompetitiveness Indicators (2002)), UKGovernment Offices in the East andWest Midlands (commissioned to Ernstand Young Ltd) (East and West MidlandsBenchmark, 1997)), Silicon ValleyNetwork (Silicon Valley ComparativeAnalysis, www.stanford.edu), and, themost comprehensive, CambridgeEconometrics in collaboration withCambridge University and ECORYS-NEIRotterdam (A Study on the Factors ofRegional Competitiveness, 2003). In this


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paper the most relevant aspects for thetopic envisaged have been selectedand presented below, in accordancewith Cambridge Econometricsconclusions.

In the context of the Second andThird Report on Economic and SocialCohesion, even though the EuropeanCommission does not weight the factorsof RC, it contributes to highlighting thefactors which have the greatestinfluence in this respect. Starting fromthe idea that regions are at differentstages of development and displaydiffering economic-social structures, thereports point out the relevance of RCfactors to various groups of regions.Accordingly, the factors of the greatestinfluence on RC are:

– employment and productivity level;– sectoral structure of employment;– demographic trends*;– investments;– investment in knowledge economy

assets;– infrastructure endowment;– level and nature of education;– innovation and R&D.T h e Third Report reveals that

interregional disparities with regard tocompetitiveness factors diminished at itselaboration date, but also draws theattention to the challenges generated byEU enlargement, especially afterRomania and Bulgaria will join the EU.

Of a special interest is the studyelaborated by Ernst and Young Ltd forthe UK Government Offices in East andWest Midlands, which had requestedthe application of benchmarking in orderto determine the level ofcompetitiveness of East and West

Midlands, as compared with other 12EU regions. The purpose has been toidentify measures for increasing thelevel of competitiveness for the regionanalysed. The study combines thestatistical benchmarking with anassessment of best practicesdevelopment in order to explain thedifferences in performance.

In the end, fifty five RC indicatorsresulted and were scored in accordancewith their relative importance. Thereport concludes that for the regionsincluded in the study competitivenessmostly depends on:

– knowledge-intensive skills;– innovation capacity;– investment level;– the degree of employment

concentration in high value addedindustrial activities;

– quality of financial and businessservices*;

– the level of foreign directinvestment.

Within the studies which areconcentrated on one single RC aspect,the following factors are the ones thathave enjoyed the greatest attention:

– clusters (Porter, 1990, 1998,2001);

– demography, migrations (Glaeserand Sheifer, 1995);

– hard / soft factors of localization(Kowalski and Rottengatter, 1998);

– entrepreneurial environment andinter-firm networks (Ritsila, 1999);

– institutional capacity andgovernment quality (Bradshaw andBlakely, 1999, Rondinelli, 2002);

– industrial structure (EC’s SixthPeriodic Report, 1999);


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* it is emphasised the negative effect of outward migration and ageing of population.* It is considered that this sector has a special importance, not only because at present is one ofthe domains of activity with the highest growth rate but also owing to its contribution to raising thecompetitiveness of other sectors.

– innovation / regional systems ofinnovation (Guerrero and Seró,1997), Cooke, 2003);

– property, models in the field offoreign direct investments(Cantwell and Iammarino, 2000).

The synthesis regarding RC realisedin the study drawn up by CambridgeEconometrics – mentioned before – isbased on many of the elementspresented in the synthesis ofcompetitiveness factors at national level,but also introduces a series ofcharacteristic features that mainlyconsist in:

• adding the quality of the territoryunder analysis in terms ofhousing, natural surroundings,cultural amenities and safety tothe “Infrastructure andaccessibility” chapter;

• including the demographic trendsbesides the high skilled workforcein “Human Resources” chapter;

• in the “Productive Environment”chapter the newly introducedelements refer to sectoralconcentrations (balance/dependency,employment concentration, aware ofhigh value-added activities),specialisation and governance andinstitutional capacity.

Also, this study has elaborated atypology of regions based on the key-factors of competitiveness. Consideringthe position occupied in a rectangularcoordinate system, where the populationdensity is configured on the horizontalaxis and GDP per capita on the verticalone, three major groups of regionshave been identified, as follows:

Regions attractive for productionactivities (production sites) appear asregions with a lower to medium level ofincomes. In these regions the economicefficiency derives, first of all, from the

inexpensive inputs. Herein, theendowment with production factorsstresses the availability of work force,land and capital. Their attractivity doesnot consist very much in the localisationor urbanization economies as it residesin the absence of losses and negativeeffects of urbanization.

The determinants of competitivenessare concentrated in the area of thebasic infrastructure and accessibility(low-price land, absence ofdemographic congestion, affordablehousing and available human resourcesalso at moderate costs). Such anendowment with factors attracts foreigndirect investments based on verticalintegration relations.

However, the development strategiesspecific to regions in this group, whichare not characterized by demographiccongestion, were also adopted byregions with a higher populationdensity, but, as a result of a loweconomic dynamism they are not facingdisadvantages of urbanisation.

Examples of regions in this groupare: regions in Ireland, CentralScotland, South Wales, NorthernEngland, North – Pas-de-Calais and,recently, some regions in West ofPoland, Czech Republic, Hungary.

Regions as sources of increasingreturns are the ones with high rates ofeconomic growth, with averagepopulation density and a robusteconomic structure. That is why theyare also called dynamic or vital regions.In these regions the activities areconcentrated in a selected number ofindustries, characterised by anincreased level of agglomerationeconomies, representing importantwealth sources.

The localisation economies,industry-specific in nature, favour the


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process of getting high, sustainableincomes. Determinant factors ofcompetitiveness are labour skills,division of labour between firms, theeffects derived from the marketdimensions, the existence of specialisedsuppliers.

Within the European Union well-known examples are the followingregions: Baden – Würtemberg, Emilia –Romagna, Zuid- Oost – Brabant, Oost –Vlaanderen (Gent), Rhône – Alpes(Grenoble) and Toulouse.

The regions – promoters of knowledge– are those which display a higherpopulation density and high andsustained GDP growth rates. Often theyconsist of large urban areas, gettingcloser to the archetype of cosmopolitanregions and specialised urban zones. Atthe same time, these areas benefit fromthe agglomeration economies, specificnot only to certain industries but alsocross-sectoral. Based on a diversified,vibrant city atmosphere and anelaborate offer of consumption goodsand services, even though difficult to bequantified, the urbanisation economieshave a great importance. As centrespromoting knowledge and ICT, thesecity regions are open to internationalactivities, offer the best careeropportunities, attract skilled and talentedworkers, determine naturally a goodcorrelation between labour demand andsupply, are characterised by highquality of R&D, of entrepreneurialrelations, new firm formation,registration of a great number ofpatents. This kind of regions – as onemay very well notice the case ofLondon and Paris – present alsoconsiderable disadvantages ofurbanisation, such as the high level ofwages, demographic congestion, highhousing costs and high rates of crime.

However, these drawbacks arecounterbalanced by the special qualityof human resources, by the excellentaccess to international markets andinformation, to venture capital, tobusiness services and by the culturalamenities.

Such a typology represents a usefultool for a better understanding of themechanisms of regional competition andcompetitiveness.

Moreover, by means of a large database, built-up for the NUTS2 level andof extremely elaborated statistical andeconometric instruments, the researchdone by Cambridge Econometrics hassucceeded to place at the disposal ofthe General Directorate for RegionalPolicy of the European Commission ahighly valuable material for assessingRC and interregional disparities. It hascontributed to the objective underlyingof the economic and social cohesionpolicy, which has set convergence –competitiveness – cooperation as basicpriorities of the 2007 – 2013 financialexercise.

4. CONCLUDING REMARKS

In its widest acceptance theterritorial competition refers to theactions undertaken by the economicagents in a certain territory so as toensure the raise of the living standardof inhabitants in the respective area. Ittakes place at different levels: city,region or state level.

The territorial competition,defined this way, is in directcorrespondence with the notion ofterritorial competitiveness (at regionaland/or international level): the latterrepresents a measure of a territory’spotential to achieve high, sustainablerates of living standard growth in therespective area.


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Usually, the competitiveness ofnational economies is measured bymeans of a wide set of indicators, thecountries being ranked on a complexindex basis. The respective indexrepresents a weighted average of thepartial indices employed. Thecalculations performed by the WorldEconomic Forum (WEF) and by theInternational Institute for ManagementDevelopment (IMD) and resultedhierarchies are most frequently takeninto consideration. Although it has beenemphasized that the measurement ofcompetitiveness on the basis of a toogreat number of indicators is not asrelevant as the one based on a set offundamental, target-indicators, the twoinstitutes use more than one hundredindicators, collected from officialstatistics and surveys done withbusiness people in over 50 countries.

As regards the analysis ofregional competitiveness, two differentcategories of studies have beenidentified: the first one considers the

RC as the cumulative result of moredeterminant factors, while the secondcategory is focused on single driver ofRC.

The typology of regions basedon the key-factors of competitivenesshas revealed three essential types:regions as production sites, regions –sources of increasing returns andregions – promoters of knowledge.Such a typology represents a usefultool for a better understanding ofregional competition andcompetitiveness mechanisms.

On the whole, the researchperformed in the international arenaaiming to quantify the territorialcompetitiveness has proven itsusefulness in underlying the economicand social policy at national andregional level. A suggestive example inthis respect is the European Union’seconomic and social cohesion policy,which will concentrate on convergence– competitiveness – cooperation in itsnext programming period.


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bachtler, J., “Reflections on the Third Cohesion Report on Economic and SocialCohesion”, ERPC Regional Development Seminar Series, February 2004

Barclays Bank PLC, Welsh Development Agency (WDA) and English RegionalDevelopment Agency (ONE), Competing with the World: World Best Practice inRegional Economic Development, 2002

Bradshaw, T.K., Blackley, E.J., “What Are ‘Third Wave’ State EconomicDevelopment Efforts? From Incentives to Industrial Policy”, In EconomicDevelopment Quarterly, 1999, vol. 13(3)

Camagni, R., “On the Concept of Territorial Competitiveness: Sound orMisleading?”, in Urban Studies, vol. 39, no.13

Cambridge Econometrics, University of Cambridge, ECORYS-NEI – Rotterdam, AStudy on the Factors of Regional Competitiveness. A final report for The EuropeanCommission Directorate-General Regional Policy, 2003

Canwell, J., Iammarino, S., “Multinational Corporations and the Location ofTechnological innovation in the UK Regions”, in Regional Studies, 2000, vol. 34 (4)

Cheshire, P., Gordon, I., “Territorial Competition: Some Lessons for Policy”, inAnnals of Regional Science, 32/1998

Department of Trade and Industry, UK, Production and Competitiveness Indicators,2002

ECORYS-NEI, International Benchmark of the Regional Investment Climate inNorthwestern Europe, 2001

European Commission, Sixth Periodic Report on the Regions, 1999

European Commission, Second Report on Economic and Social Cohesion, 2001

European Commission, Third Report on Economic and Social Cohesion, 2003

Gardiner, B., “Competitiveness Indicators for Europe – Audit, DatabaseConstruction and Analysis”, paper presented at Regional Studies AssociationInternational Conference, Pisa, April 2003

Glaeser, E., Sheifer, A., “Economic Growth in a Cross-Section of Cities”, in Journalof Monetary Economics, 1995, vol. 36

Guerro, D.C., Sero, M.A., “Spatial Distribution of Patents in Spain: DeterminingFactors and Consequences on Regional Development”, in Regional Studies,1997, vol. 31 (4)

IMD, The World Competitiveness Yearbook, www02.imd/ch

Kowalski, J. and Rothengatter, W. (1998), “Introduction to Soft Factors in SpatialDynamics”, Scientific Seminar in Honour of Rolf Funck, University of Karlsruhe,Germany, February 1998

OECD, The New Economy: Beyond the Hype, 2001

Poot, J., “Reflections on Local and Economy-Wide Effects of TerritorialCompetition”, in P. Battey, P. Friedrich (coord.), Regional Competition, SpringerVerlag, 2000

Porter, M., The Competitive Advantages of Nations, Free Press, New York, 1990

Porter, M., “Competitive Advantage, Agglomeration Economies, and RegionalPolicy”, in International Regional Science Review, vol. 19, 1996

Porter, M., On Competition, Harvard Business Review, Boston, 1998

Ritsila, J.J., “Regional Differences in Environments for Enterprises”, inEntrepreneurship and Regional Development, 1999, vol. 11

*** Silicon Valley Networks Analysis Project, www.standford.edu/group/esrg/siliconvalley/home.htm

World Economic Forum, The Global Competitiveness Report 2005, www.weforum/ch


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GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS

ROMANIAN JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN AFFAIRS is the firstRomanian publication to focus exclusively on the European integrationdebate and on Romania’s role in an enlarged European Union.

The publishers warmly welcome submissions of papers. The RJEAcomprises mainly articles. We also intend to develop a section ofbook reviews. The Romanian Journal of European Affairs may includearticles that go beyond the scope of European integration topics, butare, nevertheless, intrinsically connected to them.

The ideal length of an article (written in English or French) is from4 000 to 8 000 words, including a 200-word abstract in English orFrench and a very brief autobiographical note. Book reviews will beno longer than 2 000 words.

RJEA is published on a quarterly basis, therefore contributorsshould consider notifying us of their intention to submit articles assoon as possible (specifying title of the article, name of the author,abstract and a brief autobiographical note). Please send your articlesor book reviews before February 1st, May 1st, August 1st andNovember 1st respectively, so that your contribution may beconsidered for publication in the upcoming issue.

Authors should send notifications, as well as the final and revisedversion of their articles or reviews in electronic form to [email protected].

rjea vol6 no3 oct2006

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