Abstract
This paper examines the EU’s usage of conditionality for
democracy promotion within the European Neighbourhood Policy
and its conditions, possibilities and limitations. In doing
so, I will first develop a theoretical framework for
analysing mechanisms of democracy promotion in general and
conditionality as a state-centred, rational-choice mechanism
in particular. I will show that, apart from the
attractiveness of the incentives, there are other variables
crucial for a successful use of conditionality. Furthermore,
conditionality might be used as a promising strategy for the
formal implementation of democratic institutions. However,
in completing the consolidation of democracy, conditionality
is highly limited. The empirical part of the paper will
focus on EU democracy promotion in Ukraine and the
incentives the EU offers to Ukraine instead of a membership
perspective. With the help of this case study it will be
discussed whether these elements of flexible integration are
suitable for promoting democracy. Examples of such
incentives are a visa-free regime, a new enhanced agreement,
or a free trade area.
Keywords: Democracy promotion; democratization; EU
External Action; Ukraine; European Neighbourhood Policy
Introduction
The prospect of European Union (EU)
membership is often considered the most successful
instrument for the promotion of democracy in post-communist
countries. We can observe that all post-communist members of
the EU are now more or less consolidated democracies, whilst
all post-communist countries outside the EU are still on a
path between open authoritarianism and hybrid regimes. As
the democratisation of non-Member States is both a normative
and strategic aim of the EU, democracy promotion is a main
element of its foreign policy. It is reflected in its
relations with third countries in general,
particularly through the European Neighbourhood Policy.
The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) was designed in 2003
to “prevent the emergence of new dividing lines between the
enlarged EU and its neighbours and to offer them the chance
to participate in various EU activities, through greater
political, security, economic and cultural co-operation.”
At the same time, the prospect of membership for countries
is restricted by the EU’s limited capacity for further
enlargement due to its fear of internal efficiency problems
in an enlarged Union. Thus, policymakers have to think about
alternative integration models, keeping in mind the
normative and strategic aim of the EU to promote democracy
and ensure stability, peace and prosperity in third
countries, especially as countries like Ukraine, Georgia or
Moldova demand a membership perspective and have, according
to Art. 49 TEU, a formal right to apply for membership.
Conditionality serves in this context both as
a promising tool of the EU to promote democracy and a
theoretical framework to explain causalities between the
prospect of EU membership and a successful democratisation
process in the target country.
As conditionality is based on a “carrot and stick”
mechanism, the membership perspective is assumed to be the
only attractive “stick”. Following this assumption, critics
argue that the European Neighbourhood Policy cannot provide
attractive incentives without offering a membership
perspective. Thus, the ENP fails to exert a real influence
on the democratisation process through conditionality.
Even though the membership prospect might be a promising
instrument to promote democracy in external countries, the
underlying causal mechanisms have to be identified.
Questioning this causality assumption this study seeks to
discuss the following question: is conditionality a
promising strategy of the European Union to promote
democracy in post-communist neighbouring countries without
prospects for membership?
In doing so, this paper has two basic lines
of argumentation: First, it will show that, apart from the
attractiveness of the incentives, there are other variables
crucial for a successful use of conditionality. As
Schimmelfennig argues, the effectiveness of political
conditionality depends on three core conditions: the
attractiveness of the incentives, the size of domestic
adoption costs, and the credibility of political
conditionality.
Following this theoretical approach, it will be argued that
that there might be attractive incentives other than the
prospect of membership. These alternative incentives are
trade agreements (possibly leading to a free trade area),
visa-free regimes, special modes of cooperation in certain
policy areas or security cooperation enhanced in association
or partnership agreements. These elements of cooperation
might lead to a high level of integration between the EU and
third countries, but do not need to result in full
membership. Therefore, these elements can be named as “modes
of flexible integration”. Following this, the study will
further sketch out this terminology and concept and posit,
for the case of Ukraine, its chances and limitations.
The second line of argumentation relates to
the mode of action of conditionality itself. In this
respect, this study will employ transitions theory to
elaborate further conditions under which conditionality
might work to promote democracy, which has not been taken
into consideration so far. Conditionality might be used as a
promising strategy regarding the formal implementation of
democratic institutions, but not to complete the
consolidation of democracy.
The paper is structured along these lines of
argumentation. First, it will provide a theoretical approach
regarding conditionality as a tool for EU democracy
promotion and discuss the action mode of conditionality. In
the empirical part, a case study on Ukraine will outline the
limits and chances of conditionality without the incentive
of a membership perspective. On this basis, a concept of
flexible integration will be suggested, instead of a
membership perspective to offer neighbouring countries real,
attractive and credible incentives.
A Theoretical Approach
towards EU Democracy Promotion and Conditionality
Theorizing External
Factors of Democratisation
To assess whether conditionality is a
promising strategy to promote democracy, one first has to
identify possible causal mechanisms between EU policy to
promote democracy and the democratisation process in target
countries. Second, one has to give evidence for the EU’s
influence. EU democracy promotion in its external relations
is a growing research area and the impact of EU enlargement
on the democratisation process in new member states was
extensively analysed.
More recent studies focus on EU democracy promotion within
the European Neighbourhood Policy, a policy explicitly
withholding membership perspective. However, a generally
accepted explanatory concept for the analysis of democracy
promotion giving evidence for the influence of external
actors is still missing.
The possible tools and instruments of
democracy promotion are various: consultancy, political
dialogue and moral support, financial aid, loans or economic
cooperation, peace keeping interventions, election
observation, and the threat of financial or moral sanctions
in case of non-compliance, to name a few.
According to the used instrument, the “sender-recipient
relationship” in democracy promotion differs: on the side of
the recipient, it is the democratisation process, which can
be divided into actors and phases of the democratisation
process. On the side of the sender are external actors,
which undertake certain actions to promote democracy.
These actors can be divided into governmental or state
actors (national governments, international or regional
organisations like the EU, the Council of Europe, the OSCE
or the UN) and non-state actors (e.g. non-governmental
organisations (NGOs, foundations, interest groups).
Depending on the actors involved and actor constellations
(state-to-state, society-to-society, state-to-society)
different mechanisms of democracy promotion are in place.
Every instrument depends on different modes of action,
reaches different actors and stages of the democratisation
process and, consequently, needs different theoretical basis
and analytical tools on which to conduct research.
The mere coincidence between EU policy and
the democratisation process in a country does not provide
evidence for influence. The causal links and mechanisms
between the external EU policy and the domestic
democratisation process have to be identified. To deepen the
insight of these mechanisms and its interaction with the
democratisation process, we can learn much from theories of
international relations (IR), which have to be
cross-fertilized with theories of democratisation and
transition. Results from the field of democratisation and
transitional studies can be used to disaggregate the
democratisation process and split it into different stages,
to operationalize the term “democratisation” (see part ).
Theories of international relations give us insight into
possible interactions between external influences and
internal development, in general. Regarding democracy
promotion, they seek to answer the question of how external
influences can exert leverage on the democratisation
process. Two main schools of thought in IR theory, the
realist and the constructivist models, also serve as the two
main theoretical models behind studies of democracy
promotion: the realist model conceptualized democracy
promotion as a state-centred, rational process of
inter-state bargaining about interests and power on the
basis of cost-benefit calculations of the involved actors.
The influence on the democratisation process can be
top-down. The constructivist strand views international or
transnational cooperation on the basis of socialisation
processes, mutual learning and convergence of democratic
ideas and norms. This model sees the role of an external
actor in offering social exchange and bottom-up initiatives,
for example, by supporting civil society or local
administration. In the literature on democracy promotion,
conditionality and convergence are named as the main causal
mechanisms.
The first is related to the realist school and an external
incentive model, whereas convergence is based on social,
indirect processes of social learning and diffusion. This
paper focuses on the membership prospect as an incentive for
democracy promotion through conditionality. Thus, the
consequences of a missing membership prospect for democracy
promotion through convergence are not taken into
consideration in this incentive-based analysis.
However, in the ongoing debate a link to
transitional theory is missing. It should be argued –
building on the second line of argumentation in this study –
that the promise of conditionality as a strategy to promote
democracy does not depend only on the conditions derived
from a cost-benefit analysis. One has to take into
consideration the stage and actors of the democratisation
process to estimate the chances of success of a certain
strategy, which asks for combining insights from IR and
transitions theory.
How Does
Conditionality Work?
Conditionality can be defined as an agreement
between two actors, in which actor 1 offers a reward to
actor 2.
This reward is granted if actor 2 fulfils certain
conditions. In the case the conditions are not met by actor
2 the reward is simply withheld (positive conditionality)
or punishment follows (negative conditionality). To
exert conditionality as a reward-based policy between two
actors, asymmetric negotiation power has to be in place:
actor 1 has to be able to offer attractive incentives which
actor 2 wants to have and cannot achieve easily otherwise.
When analysing social interaction from an
incentives- and interest-based position, conditionality is
first of all understood as a mode of action. Additionally,
it can be used purposely as a political strategy to exert a
reward-based policy between two political actors and to
institutionalize asymmetric interaction. Conditionality can
be used to promote democracy by combining attractive rewards
with certain conditions of democratic development. In this
case, this study will adopt the term “democratic
conditionality”.
Hence, conditionality as a political strategy
depends on a number of basic conditions. Two actors have to
be in place with certain interests. These actors are state
governments or governmental international/regional
organisations. They have to be capable of acting in general,
plus acting rationally on a reliable cost-benefit
calculation. The incentives offered by one actor can be
either social (national and international prestige and
appreciation) or material (financial aid or trade
liberalisation), but they have to be of certain
attractiveness for actor 2. Following, the main
characteristics of conditionality are outlined:
-
Conditionality is a
top-down approach acting in a state-to-state
constellation.
-
Conditionality works
on a formal, direct, short-term level.
-
Conditionality depends
on clear conditions; compliance with these conditions
can be observed and measured.
Under Which
Conditions is Conditionality a Promising Strategy for
Democracy Promotion?
Apart from the attractiveness of the
incentives, there are other variables that are crucial for a
successful use of conditionality as a political strategy.
These conditions will be derived from IR-theory and from
transitional theory. Following the first line of
argumentation, the tested hypotheses of Schimmelfennig/Sedelmeier
and Kubicek will be presented, who assume a cost-benefit
calculation of the actors involved.
In this context, six conditions have to be taken into
account when assessing the promise of conditionality to
promote democracy:
-
Attractive incentive. The
incentives offered by the external actor have to be
attractive for the target country or, as Kubicek stated,
“carrots must constitute a sizeable stick”.
These rewards can be material (trade liberalisation,
financial assistance, military protection) or social,
such as international recognition or public praise.
-
Credibility. The “carrots
and sticks” offered must be real.
The external promoter must be able and willing to
realise and withhold the incentive in accordance to
democratic performance of the target country.
Credibility needs clear, measurable criteria and
evaluation mechanisms including time-frames to provide a
credible, comprehensible procedure.
-
Low adoption costs. The
merit gained from the incentives has to be higher than
the adoption costs of fulfilling the conditions. The
adoption costs for a country increase with alternative
incentives (see condition 4) and interests of important
stakeholders (see condition 6).
-
Lack of alternatives. The
lack of alternatives for the target country relates to
the attractiveness of the incentives offered. When the
target country has no alternative possibility to gain
the desired incentive, then the attractiveness of
cooperation or integration increases.
EU conditionality would not be effective if the target
government had other sources offering comparable
benefits at lower adjustment costs.
-
Asymmetry in negotiations in favour
of the EU. Asymmetry between the EU and the
target country results from a lack of alternatives for
the target country. But at the same time it demands from
EU side no serious interests in the target country.
Economic and political power between the target country
and the EU should be asymmetric in favour of the latter,
meaning that target is more dependent on the EU than the
EU on the target.
-
Interests of important stakeholders
and veto players should not be harmed. If the
incentives offered by the EU can benefit important
stakeholders, the adoption costs for the government
decrease. If the EU “can find domestic allies, who in
turn can apply pressure to the existing authorities”,
EU conditionality is likely to be successful; the other
way around, if democratisation is against the favour of
important veto players, the likelihood of compliance is
weakened due to the higher adoption costs for the target
government.
These assumptions are based on a
rational-choice model of action and an actor-orientated
analysis. From this perspective, actors take their decision
to comply with the norms set by the EU following a
cost-benefit analysis. The above conditions developed and
tested by Schimmelfennig / Sedelmaier and additionally by
Kubicek, provide us with useful insights into the possible
impact of conditionality in democracy promotion.
Unfortunately, a link to transitional theory is still
missing.
Conditionality
and Transitional Theory
The second line of argumentation posts that
one has to include the stage of the democratisation process
as a condition to estimate the promise of conditionality.
The question to address is: at which stage of the
democratisation process is conditionality applied best and
which democratic deficits can be best aimed at by
conditionality?
Pridham noted that the qualitative difference
between transition phase and consolidation phase “points to
different kinds of external impacts, which these being
longer-term and conceivably deeper in the latter case.”
However, he does not provide a systematic theoretical model
to analyse these differences. Results from the field of
democratisation and transitional studies can be used to
disaggregate the democratisation process and split it into
different stages, to operationalize the term “democratisation”.
From transitions studies we learn that the democratisation
process can be divided into three stages: liberalisation,
transition and consolidation.
More concretely, five “arenas of democratisation” can be
defined, each dominated by different actors and processes –
they identify the area of political society, civil society,
bureaucracy, rule of law/functioning judiciary and economic
society.
As conditionality is a top-down approach in
state-to-state constellations (see p. 4) it can only cause
changes at the governmental level; the democratisation
process can only be influenced top-down, by governmental
elites. Important actors of a democratisation process,
namely civil society, economic elites, political parties,
the administration or judiciary on local or regional levels,
cannot be reached through conditionality. In contrast to
convergence, conditionality works on formal procedures and
negotiations: conditionality depends on clear conditions
where compliance can be controlled and measured; the
conditions and rewards have to be formulated clearly in
intergovernmental agreements and they have to be measurable
to evaluate compliance transparently. From these logical
assumptions, consequences for democracy promotion through
conditionality can be derived: the institutionalisation of
formal democratic procedures, of a democratic constitution
or the codification of human rights or free and fair
election procedures can be formulated as clear conditions.
Accordingly, to promote these elements of democracy,
conditionality can be a promising strategy. In contrast,
elements of democratic consolidation as the spread of
democratic norms, a civil society, the establishment of a
party system and its root in society or a functioning
judiciary accompanied by a judiciary culture can only be
marginally influenced through conditionality: the legal
framework can be established through the threat of
conditionality but not compliance and real implementation.
The promises of condititionality for the arenas of
democratisation by Linz and Stepan will be discussed in the
following:
-
Civil society. The EU
as an external actor can demand to establish the
legal framework for a functioning civil society. But
civil society itself lies beyond the scope of
governmental influence as a civil society is per
definition non-governmental. The legal framework is
crucial for the establishment of a civil society,
but more important is the real constitution which
can hardly be measured and thus cannot be formulated
as a clear condition.
-
Free and fair elections.
In contrast, the performance of free and fair
elections can be influenced through conditionality.
Election procedures are first and foremost based on
an election law which is a formal process. The
democratic conduct of free and fair elections is
measurable as the reports of the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe show.
As the analysis shows, not all elements
relevant for democratic development can be tackled at with a
state-centred action mode such as conditionality. In the
field of institution-building conditionality seems to be a
quite suitable instrument, but in the field of consolidation
and in the entrenchment of democratic culture and behaviour,
including a civil society, conditionality fails to enjoy
certain influence, simply due to its mode of action.
Regarding the leading question whether conditionality is a
promising strategy to promote democracy it is clear that on
a theoretical level, conditionality is a promising strategy
to promote the formal institutionalisation of democracy.
However, conditionality is not a promising strategy to
complete the consolidation of democracy. Following from
this, if certain criteria of democracy are not met, other
mechanisms than conditionality might be more effective in
promoting democracy – regardless of whether the EU offers a
membership perspective or not.
Case Study on Ukraine:
The Temptation of Membership Perspective or Flexible
Integration
This paper will now focus on the incentives the EU offers to
Ukraine instead of a membership perspective. It will be
discussed whether these incentives are suitable for a
successful promotion of democracy. Ukraine is an appropriate
case study for the following reasons: after the eastward
enlargement of the European Union, Ukraine became a
neighbouring state of the EU of geographical, geo-strategic
and economic importance. While democracy is far from being
fully realized, Ukraine represents a comparatively hopeful
development towards democratic standards in some areas.
Furthermore, a EU membership perspective for Ukraine is – at
least theoretically – far from being absurd, taking into
account that countries like Turkey, Serbia or Albania have a
concrete membership perspective and that Art. 49 TEU
provides every European state a formal right for
application. Additionally, Ukraine has made demands for
membership and exerts constant pressure on the EU.
Nevertheless, Ukraine is only a target country within the
European Neighbourhood Policy and bilateral relations are
based on a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA).
As the EU is not willing to offer membership yet, it is a
main challenge to design a suitable alternative policy
towards Ukraine. After a short overview about the democratic
development and EU-Ukraine relations the conditions derived
in part will be employed to discuss the prospect of the
mechanism of conditionality for EU democracy promotion in
Ukraine.
The Democratic
Development in Ukraine
Ukraine cannot be classified as a
consolidated democracy. Independence from the Soviet Union
and the comparatively late adoption of a post-Soviet,
formal-democratic constitution were the first steps to
democracy. But the continuity of old elites and formal and
informal institutions hampered Ukraine’s democratic
development from the very beginning of the transformation
process.
The reports of “Nations in Transit” indicate continuing
shortcomings in the fields of electoral procedures, civil
society, the independence of the media, democratic
governance, an independent judiciary, and combating
corruption.
The Orange Revolution after the presidential
elections in the winter of 2004/05 was a signal of the
Ukrainian citizens’ and civil society’s movements towards
democracy.
After serious shortcomings in the election process, in
favour of candidate Viktor Yanukovych, citizens demonstrated
persistently for the elections to be repeated. In the rerun,
the reform-oriented candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, won and
was elected as president. The following parliamentary
elections in March 2006 were framed as a positive litmus
test for the prospect of democratic reform in Ukraine after
the Orange Revolution. The elections were conducted in a
democratic way, but the coalition-building that followed led
to Victor Yanukovych’s election as as prime minister. Only a
few months later, at the beginning of 2007, the coalition
failed to work effectively. President Yushchenko dissolved
parliament in a democratically and legally dubious manner
and new elections took place in September 2007. Again, the
elections were conducted democratically and a new government
under Yulia Tymoshenko came to power. Recent political
developments demonstrate that the consolidation of genuine
democracy is far from being realized. However, the country’s
liberalisation continues at a constant level. Freedom House
indicators show that the main democratic improvements in
Ukraine after the Orange Revolution are in the fields of
democratic elections, freedom of the media, and civil
society; slight improvements can be identified in the area
of national government. However, areas like corruption,
local government or rule of law failed to improve after the
Orange Revolution.
In the next section it remains to discuss whether the
outlined democratic improvements from 2004 onwards can be
traced back to the influence of the EU.
EU-Ukraine Relations
and the Use of Democratic Conditionality
Official relations between the EU and Ukraine
are based on bilateral agreements which could potentially
exert conditionality. The main bilateral agreement and legal
basis for cooperation is the Partnership and Cooperation
Agreement (PCA), which came into force in 1998. The Action
Plan (AP), which came into
force
after the Orange Revolution in
February 2005, is the most relevant document to identify
possible incentives and conditions for recent times. The PCA
will be replaced by a New Enhanced Agreement, on which the
EU started negotiations with Ukraine in March 2007.
Can democratic changes from 2004 up to now be
traced back to EU policy? Does the EU apply democratic
conditionality in EU-Ukrainian relations? Evidence shows
that after the Orange Revolution, the EU used conditionality
to promote democracy in Ukraine: before the Orange
Revolution, incentives and conditions were formulated very
vaguely and were not clearly related to each other, as an
analysis of the Action Plan shows:
some incentives are mentioned, as participation in the EU’s
internal market, possible negotiations for an Free Trade
Agreement, financial assistance, security cooperation,
support in the implementation of the acquis or
participation in EU´s cultural, academic and social exchange
programmes.
In return, the EU prioritizes a democratic conduct of the
presidential and parliamentary elections (2004, 2006), the
settlement of the Transdniestrian conflict, an improvement
of the conditions for foreign investments, and the
preparation for WTO membership, an agreement on readmission
and the use of nuclear energy.
However, in the Action Plan, the conditions were defined so
broadly and vaguely that Ukrainian governments might not
know precisely which changes are required of them and which
measures would satisfy EU conditions.
Directly after the Orange Revolution, the EU
(precisely the General Affairs and External Relations
Council) clarified the incentives and conditions and linked
them to each other in the ad hoc offered
10-point-plan to Ukraine.
In this document, the democratic improvements are explicitly
named as the motivation to enhance and concretise the
incentives: “[the] new commitment to democracy and reforms
opened new prospects for EU-Ukraine relationship.”
Further: “As Ukraine makes genuine progress in carrying out
internal reforms and adopting European standards, relation
between the EU and Ukraine will become deeper and stronger.”
Thus, an ex-post democratic conditionality is in place,
albeit a membership perspective was not under consideration.
The second important step towards democracy
was the democratic conduct of the parliamentary elections in
March 2006. After the elections the EU realized some of the
announced incentives. Following this pattern of democratic
conditionality, the EU enhanced the incentives after the
third important step, the forming of a government (August
2006). Negotiations on a New Enhanced Agreement were
launched in October 2006, while in March 2007 the
negotiations officially started. The establishment of a free
trade area and the negotiation on a Free Trade Agreement
will be launched, too. Additionally, an agreement for visa
facilitation was signed in October 2006, further
negotiations on visa facilitation will take place.
As this study has clearly identified by process-tracing and
analysing the relevant documents (agreements, EU statements
and press releases), there was a set of incentives offered
by the EU which became more attractive with an improvement
of democracy. The incentives were already on the table
before the Orange Revolution. After the Orange Revolution
significant changes can be observed in the speed and the
political will of realization. Every EU statement maintains
that the democratic conduct of the parliamentary elections
(in March 2006 and September 2007) was a basic pre-condition
for any further cooperation. The rhetoric provides
consistency in real EU action – after the democratic conduct
of the parliamentary elections in 2006 the main incentives
were realized. If the election had suffered serious
shortcomings, the EU would not have started negotiations on
a New Enhanced Agreement or visa facilitation.
Despite granting some incentives until the
end of 2006, Ukraine’s ultimate aims still remain open. It
is not clear to which mode of integration the launched
negotiations will lead – the negotiations on a New Enhanced
Agreement might lead to an Association Agreement (Ukraine’s
ultimate aim) but might also bring only slight changes in
bilateral cooperation. The same applies for the launched
negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement: it might lead to a
free trade area between the EU and Ukraine but could also be
on a much lower level of cooperation. The visa facilitations
are an improvement for Ukraine, but at the same time far
from the ultimate aim: a visa free regime, like Ukraine
offers to EU-citizens. The open question is whether these
incentives are suitable to support democratic development
through conditionality. Are the granted incentives – named
elements of flexible integration here – really less
attractive to Ukraine than membership prospects?
Elements of Flexible
Integration vs. Membership Perspective – the Ukrainian Case
It now remains to conduct
an assessment of the granted incentives and to distinguish
it from the missing incentive of a membership perspective.
The conditions about the use of conditionality have to be in
place, to identify a potential influence of the EU by these
incentives: the more conditions in place for a certain
incentive to be successful, the higher the potential
leverage of conditionality. An analytical assessment of the
potential influence cannot give valid information in
the real influence the EU has or had on Ukraine. As
the assessment of real influence is a methodological
challenge in social sciences, it may help to provide an
analytical framework that allows the assessment of the
existence of conducive context conditions. The following
table (1) shows the results of an examination of relevant EU
incentives and conditions about its potential efficiency. A
condition is given (+), not given (-) or the assessment is
mixed (+/-).
Table 1– Possible Interplay of Incentives and Conditions
EU-Ukraine
|
Conditions
Incentives |
Attractive Incentive |
Low Costs to fulfil the
Conditions |
Lack of Alternatives for Target
Country |
Asymmetric Negotiations in
favour of the EU |
Interestof Stake-holder |
Credi-bility
|
|
Free Trade Agreement/
Free Trade Area |
+ |
- |
-/+ |
-/+ |
+ |
+ |
|
New Enhanced
Agreement |
+ |
-/+ |
-/+ |
+ |
(?) |
+ |
|
Visa
Facilitation/ Visa Free Regime |
+ |
-/+ |
+ |
+ |
-/+ |
+ |
|
Membership
Perspective |
+ |
- |
-/+ |
-/+ |
- |
- |
Note: (+) = condition given; (-) = condition not given;
(-/+) = mixed; (?) = no estimation available
As
the table shows, a granted membership prospect does not
provide a guarantee for successful democratisation in the
target country. Taking the rational-choice base of
conditionality seriously, one has to state that the
membership perspective is not a panacea for successful
democracy promotion through conditionality, as the stated
conditions are by the majority not in place, respectively
the result is mixed.
Free trade agreement/Free trade area.
A free trade agreement might lead to a free trade area
between the EU and Ukraine. As a free trade area opens the
EU internal market for Ukrainian export products, this can
be assessed as an attractive incentive.
At the same time, the costs to fulfil the relevant
conditions are high: legal approximation in the field of
quality standards, consumer protection, intellectual
property rights and environmental standards, to name only a
few, have to be undertaken, which is costly for Ukraine.
In this respect, a prerequisite for a free trade area is
accession to the WTO, which demands further reforms and
legal adjustment. A free trade area with the EU is in the
interest of the oligarchs, as they hope for better trading
conditions. They are the most important stakeholders and at
the same time possibly the greatest beneficiaries of a free
trade area. This reduces the costs to comply with European
conditions. The results regarding alternatives for Ukraine
and asymmetric negotiations are mixed. Russia offers an
alternative integration space, and with the Single Economic
Space (SES), an alternative area for economic cooperation.
This reduces the asymmetry in negotiations between the EU
and Ukraine in favour of the latter. Even though economic
integration with the EU is financially more attractive than
integration with Russia, Ukraine has with the SES an
alternative and thus a better negotiation position towards
the EU. The existence of these both conditions is mixed.
New Enhanced Agreement. To
assess the attractiveness and costs of a new enhanced
agreement between the EU and Ukraine is difficult, as the
scope of this currently negotiated agreement is very broad.
It could preserve the status quo, but might also lead to a
substantive association of Ukraine with the EU. To evaluate
the possibilities of real alternatives to a membership
prospect we presume here a maximum of possible integration
areas within the new enhanced agreement. This would be an
attractive incentive for Ukraine, as it enhances the level
of cooperation. The costs are hard to estimate as they vary
among policy fields. In general they should be lower as for
a full membership in the EU, which requires the
implementation of the whole acquis communautaire;
this is only partially necessary in the framework of an
association agreement. Russia might be an important
integration space not only in economic issues but in various
policy fields, such as energy or security policy and thus an
alternative for Ukraine. Nevertheless, the possible degree
of integration with the EU contains more incentives than
with Russia.
Hence, an alternative exists, but the European option is
more attractive for Ukraine, which leads to a mixed
assessment. Ukraine has a great interest in negotiating a
new enhanced agreement with the EU and is in the weaker
negotiation position. The interest of stakeholders is hard
to evaluate by this rough estimation, as it is highly
dependent on the respective policy field.
Visa facilitation for Ukrainian
citizens/Visa-free regime. Visa facilitation
or even a visa-free regime, the maximum aim, might be a part
of a new agreement. Due to its importance it is evaluated
separately. Definitely, a visa-free regime is a very
attractive incentive for Ukraine. The EU did not state any
conditions so far. They produce rather low implementation
costs, as Ukraine already established a visa-free regime for
European citizens. On the other hand, a visa-free regime
with the EU might imply the establishment of a visa regime
with Russia,
which raises the political and social costs for Ukraine. A
visa-free-regime with Russia does not constitute a serious
alternative incentive to visa facilitations with the EU.
Even though there are many social ties with Russia,
especially young people and businessmen who would like to
travel and work in Europe. From this it follows that
negotiations on visa facilitation are quite asymmetric in
favour of the EU. Interests of stakeholders/oligarchs are
not harmed by visa faciliation, provided that the visa-free
regime with Russia will not be changed.
Prospect of membership.
In general, EU membership is an attractive incentive.
Ukraine has stated a few times its interest in joining the
European Union and a majority of the political elite shares
this aim, at least officially.
In any case, the prospect of membership would have a
positive symbolic meaning for the population and the
international business and foreign investors and, thus, is
an attractive incentive. The oligarchs as important
stakeholders wish for, first of all, integration into the
internal market of the EU, independence from the Russian
market and accession to the European Single Market. As EU
membership would enhance participation in the internal
market, they do not oppose membership. But the political
conditions of EU membership would marginalize their
influence: in a democratic system, economic elites should
not determine the political process, as they do in Ukraine.
All in all, the oligarchs as important stakeholders are not
in favour of EU membership, as they can gain the same
benefits from a less costly free trade area.
Despite the likely support of oligarchs, an
EU membership perspective might lead to high internal and
external costs. First, costs of adjustment due to the
adoption of the acquis communautaire and extensive
political and economic reforms. Additionally, only 43 per
cent of the Ukrainian population support integration into
the EU without reservations,
which raises the political costs for an EU-friendly
government. The costs related to Ukraine’s external
relations can be named as the “Russian factor”: on the one
hand, the benefits from an EU-membership are attractive and
unique, like financial aid from EU funds and participation
in the European decision-making process, plus the benefits
related to the internal market and visa-free regime outlined
above. However, theses advantages exclude benefits Ukraine
currently enjoys from Russia, such as a visa-free regime,
participation in the Single Economic Space (SES) and energy
supplies.
Additionally, the EU has a certain interest in integrating
Ukraine. The EU depends on energy supplies from Russia that
are transferred through Ukraine. A Russian-friendly
Ukrainian government might hamper the supplies. It follows
that the “Russian factor” provides Ukraine an alternative to
the negotiated agreement with the EU and thereby reduces
asymmetries between the EU and Ukraine in favour of Ukraine.
One might argue correctly that full integration with the EU
is more attractive than with Russia. However, in the short
term, Ukraine has to burden many costs arising from the
accession process itself and additionally from the costs
arising from the “Russian factor”.
The Russian Factor.
The main burdens for the attractiveness of the incentive
“membership perspective” are the high costs Ukraine has to
carry. The so called “Russian factor” raises the costs for
Ukraine to comply with European standards and conditions.
Three central aspects have to be considered:
-
Social Relations with Russia.
First, the costs resulting from integration into the EU
are comparatively higher for Ukraine than for the
Central European accession countries: politically and
economically these countries were not as closely related
to Russia as is Ukraine;
second, their populations were unambiguously
pro-European.
Due to the large number of Russian people living in
Ukraine and the close historic, cultural and social
ties, the social costs of EU integration are much higher
for Ukraine than for CEECs.
-
Economic Relations with Russia.
The second aspect of the “Russian factor” is
advantageous for Ukraine, but at the same time lowers
the effectiveness of EU conditionality. Russia and the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as an
alternative integration space for Ukraine lessens the
asymmetry in negotiations. The Central and Eastern
European countries did not have such an alternative
integration space. Taking into account that the EU has a
certain interest having Ukraine in its sphere of
influence, Ukraine can assert pressure to lower the
adoption costs. At the same time, the adoption costs for
integration with Russia are lower: from a material point
of view, participation in the Single Economic Space may
not be as attractive as participation in the European
market. On the other hand, the costs are lower: there is
no implementation of technical standards or strict
consumer protection laws or even the entire acquis
communautaire. Additionally, language and cultural
ties causing lower transaction costs for political and
economic actors might lead to an orientation towards
Russia.
-
“Carrots” from Russia. In addition
to the factors described above, Ukraine gains further
benefits from Russia. Ukraine hosts the Black Sea Fleet
on the Crimea Island. This allows Ukraine to exert
pressure on Russia and improves its bargaining posture
for commodities such as energy supplies. In the long
term, EU integration also implies NATO membership. This
leads to conflictive situation with Russia and the
withdrawal of the Black Sea Fleet. This implies tension
between those countries and the withdrawal of the
benefits offered in turn. Both issues – the hosting of
the Black Sea Fleet and NATO membership – are highly
divisive among the population.
The raising costs make it even more difficult
for Ukraine to achieve a favourable cost-benefit calculation
regarding the offered incentives including a membership
perspective. The “Russian factor” raises the costs for
Ukraine and thus the attractiveness of the incentives is
reduced.
At the same time, the EU might fear loosing
its influence in Ukraine. The EU needs cooperation with
Ukraine as a transit country for energy supplies but also to
secure EU frontiers and to fight drug trafficking and
migration. As a reaction the EU can and offer certain
benefits (like technical assistance, visa facilitation,
economic integration) to Ukraine. This demonstrates that
Ukraine can pick and choose the benefits and gains offered
by both, Russia and the EU: this is a beneficial situation
and there is less incentive for Ukraine to change it.
Generalizing the Findings
Presuming that state actor’s behaviour in the
target country is based on a strict cost-benefit analysis,
EU membership prospective offers under certain conditions
fewer real incentives than commonly assumed. This is evident
for the case of Ukraine. A free trade agreement with the EU
might bring full participation in the common market,
including the “four freedoms” (free movements of goods,
services, persons and capital); a visa-free regime would
bring much facilitation for the population, especially free
movement of people, possibly including workers; technical
assistance programmes like TACIS already include financial
assistance, which could be easily increased. As
demonstrated, many interests of Ukraine can be satisfied
without an offer of EU membership. Additionally, by staying
apart from the EU, Ukraine can avoid high costs of legal
adjustment towards the acquis communautaire and the
threat of a tough and constant monitoring process. Solely,
participation in the European decision-making process and a
certain prestige of being an EU member state is not
included.
All in all, Russia has a negative impact on
EU democracy promotion through conditionality. Integration
into the EU is costly for Ukraine – both social and material
costs are higher that they were for the Central and Eastern
European accession countries. This has to be taken into
consideration when demanding EU membership for a certain
post-communist country in order to support the
democratisation process. Conditionality and the prospect of
membership are not panacea, but have to be applied carefully
to be credible. Under the conditions identified,
alternative, rather indirect mechanisms of democracy
promotion by the EU like technical assistance or support and
training at the society-/NGO-level might be more effective
than the simple granting of the prospect of EU membership.
Indeed, granting the membership prospect
randomly to several countries will lead to disappointment
and decreasing credibility of the EU and, flowingly, the
prospect of membership might lose its attraction and
credibility in general.
Alternative areas of cooperation might be attractive
incentives, have lower adoption costs for Ukraine and
increase the credibility of the EU. Depending on the scope
and design of these cooperation areas, these incentives can
be named and designed as elements of flexible integration.
A Concept of Flexible
Integration with the EU for Neighbouring Countries
In principle, the concept of flexible
integration is designed to enable member states to establish
alternative modes of integration and cooperation within and
without the European treaties. Based on this assumption,
concepts of flexible integration might be used to handle
certain modes of cooperation with non-Member States, going
deeper than bilateral cooperation, but concomitantly not
resulting in membership of the European Union. These aspects
might be incorporated into the design of the “Eastern
Partnership”, the current policy towards the EU’s eastern
neighbours.
The concept and terminology of flexible
integration or differentiated integration means
basically the general mode of integration strategies which
try to reconcile heterogeneity within the European
Union.
The concept includes models of differentiated integration
among member states according to the main models like
multi-speed, variable geometry and a so called á la carte
–integration: multi-speed relates, for example, to
the European Monetary Union or accession agreements with new
member states including temporary transitional periods for
certain policy areas. Member States decide to pursue the
same policies and actions, but at different times.
Variable geometry can be defined as a mode of
flexible integration “which admits to irreconcilable
differences within the main integrative structure by
allowing permanent separation between a core of countries”.
Third, a mode of flexible integration is á la carte,
whereby respective member states are able to pick and
choose, as from a menu, in which policy areas they would
like to participate, while at the same time holding only to
a minimum number of common objectives. For example, the
United Kingdom and Ireland do not participate in the Social
Chapter or the Schengen Agreement, whereas Norway and
Iceland do fully participate, albeit being non-EU Member
States.
Based on these already existing various
models of integration, the EU should establish modes of
cooperation with neighbouring countries which differ from
the current existing models. In this context a more
differentiated graduation of possible integration levels
should be pursued. Between the extreme points of a loose
partnership and full integration one can identify
graduations which can be differentiated in cooperation and
integration without membership. Cooperation is about going
deeper than a partnership while not reaching the level of
integration without membership.
Norway and Switzerland provide some forms of
cooperation and elements of “integration without membership”
with the EU, albeit being non-Member States. Admittedly,
flexible integration with post-communist neighbouring
countries differs from flexible integration with Norway and
Switzerland regarding the economic capacity of the country,
state power and asymmetry in negotiations between the EU and
the target country. And democracy promotion, which is the
focus of this paper, is redundant in these cases.
Nevertheless, derived incentives such as association
agreements, a free trade area or a visa-free regime show
possible areas of intensive cooperation, possibly even
“integration without membership”.
Within the use of conditionality, concepts of
flexible integration might be a possibility to face future
challenges of the European Union in its cooperation with
neighbouring countries and offer attractive modes of
cooperation and integration for both sides. One might argue
that “flexible integration” is simply a term, which sounds
better than “non-membership” but, in fact, does not provide
anything more than non-membership and an empty promise. As
shown above in the cost-benefit analysis, elements of
flexible integration, namely a free trade area or a
visa-free regime, can bring advantages for both the EU and
the neighbouring country. Both sides gain benefits from each
other but at the same time they do not have to carry the
costs of rule adoption (target country) or full integration
(EU). How to achieve such an absolute-gain distribution for
both parties depends highly on the conditions in the
neighbouring country and on the design of the flexible
integration scheme.
Research on Europeanization can provide
information about possible interplays between the EU and
member countries. The analytical concept of Europeanization
research can be used to analyse interplays between the EU
and non-member countries based on modes of flexible
integration. Concepts of a “Europeanization beyond Europe”
or EU democracy promotion via “sector-specific co-operation”
might serve in this context as a theoretical grounding for
practical implications on how these modes of flexible
integration can be designed. Two aspects are central for the
establishment of an appropriate policy:
-
Differentiation of policy-areas.
In the context of Ukraine, the incentives like a Free
Trade Agreement or a New Enhanced Agreement expand the
scope of cooperation or even integration in many policy
areas, such as consumer protection policy, environmental
policy, migration policy or nuclear policy, to name only
a few. Each of them can be designed differently
according to the specific difficulties, incentives and
costs for both the EU and Ukraine.
-
Credible promises. A
differentiation into specific policy areas would allow
the EU to establish credible promises and at the same
time credible conditions. The EU has to be willing to
offer something and concomitantly to invest resources to
control and follow up the progress made in the
fulfilment of the conditions. This approach takes the
mechanism of conditionality seriously but demands from
the EU willingness to realize the promises and at the
same time withhold them if conditions are not met.
Conclusion
This article discussed whether conditionality
is a promising strategy for the EU to promote democracy in
post-communist neighbouring countries without promising
membership. Two lines of argumentation were employed to
answer this question. First, the promise of conditionality
depends on the stage of the democratisation process and on
the democratic deficit at which the EU wants to aim. This
allows a generation of prepositions about possible influence
of an external democratisation strategy. First, the stages
of democratisation in a target country and democratic
deficits have to be identified. These deficits can be
subordinated due to the criteria developed in transformation
theory. Following this, the second step allows to determine
which strategy of democracy promotion might be suitable.
Regarding conditionality one has to ask if the stated
deficit can be reached by conditionality. Second, other
variables in addition to the attractiveness of the
incentives have to be in place for a successful use of
conditionality. As this study demonstrated with the case of
Ukraine, alternative incentives are attractive and at the
same time less costly than membership. Within the usage of
conditionality, concepts of flexible integration might help
create attractive incentives and, thus, ameliorate future
challenges of the European Union in its cooperation with
neighbouring countries.
Additionally, the applied set of conditions might be used to
analyse the promise of democracy promotion through
conditionality without membership perspective for other
countries.
(pp. 196-213)