EXTENDING GOVERNANCE: THE EU’S ENLARGEMENT AND NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICIES

1. EXTENDING GOVERNANCE:THE EU’S ENLARGEMENT AND NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICIES Dimitar Bechev St Antony’s College, Oxford Visiting Associate Professor, Hitotsubashi University REGULATION CROSSING BORDERS31 March 2010

2. QUESTIONS • How does the EU extend rules, institutions and policies towards ‘third countries’? • What are the political dynamics and limits of the Union’s ‘transformative power’?

3. NORMATIVE POWER Ian Manners (2002): “the ability to define what passes for ‘normal’ in a globalized world”. Norms vary: political (e.g. democratic governance, cooperation), economic (western European welfare state?), functional/regulatory (the Single Market, the acquis as a whole).

4. EASTERN ENLARGEMENT • Google “enlargement” “most successful” “EU”: 2,150,000 results; • Western Balkans – Croatia negotiating accession since 2005; the rest – antechamber; • Turkey – negotiating accession. • Regulatory convergence (the third Copenhagen Criterion 1993) – is key, though much attention is paid on political conditionality.

5. ACQUIS COMMUNAUTAIRE Added to that – political chapters, e.g. Judicial reform; Foreign, security and defence policy.

6. EUROPEAN NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICY • ENP seeks to reproduce enlargement – similar goals, similar instruments (see handout); • EU policies are generic – because of institutional inertia and hub-and-spoke structure of relations with peripheral countries and regions. • Differentiation: Eastern dimension (Eastern Partnership) vs. Southern Dimension (Union for the Mediterranean); political incentives • Economic incentives: “Deep free trade” and “stake in the Single Market” vs. membership vs. trade liberalization; • Institutional incentives: participation in EU bodies – e.g. in executive agencies – for frontrunner countries: Ukraine, Moldova, Israel, Morocco;

7. ACCESS VS. CONVERGENCE Bechev and Nicolaidis, Journal of Common Market Studies, 2010.

8. MODES OF GOVERNANCE • Conflict management: ESDP missions in Western Balkans, ENP area; • Gatekeeping: access/convergence, esp. regarding the Single Market; • Policy networks: external governance stricto sensu (cf. Lavenex), especially in areas where acquis is weak.

9. CAVEATS AND CONSTRAINTS • How consistent and coherent are the EU demands to proximate countries? • How significant is the reward relative to the costs? • Sequencing: which parts of the acquis when? • Is there sufficient institutional capacity to take onboard EU regulatory frameworks? • Does the EU have the capabilities to monitor compliance and enforce rules?

10. WIDER EUROPE: A SNAPSHOP

11. SECTORAL CASE STUDIES Energy Community - Set up by EU and Western Balkans in Oct 2005. Liberalization of energy sector based on EU directives adopted in 1996/2003/2009 – unbundling, third-party access; Electricity and gas. Policy dialogue on oil, social issues; - Reproduces EU institutions on a subregional level; • Depends on reform progress across policy areas, physical infrastructure, coherence of EU framework; • Implementation problems – e.g. in Macedonia; • Enlargement: Moldova (March 2010), potentially Ukraine.

12. SECTORAL CASE STUDIES Transport Community • Launched by the Slovene Presidency of the Council (2008); • Future treaty - harmonization with the acquis reciprocal access to transport services market; • acquis is particularly extensive: market access and social, technical, fiscal, safety and environmental requirements; • Political vs. economic logic.

13. CONCLUDING REMARKS • Multilateral arrangements – early adoption of the acquis in core areas expected to yield economic and political benefits; • Functional bridge between the Western Balkans (enlargement) and the western CIS (ENP/EaP) area; • As enlargement is slowing down after Croatia and Iceland (2012?), regional cooperation might become more prominent instrument for regulatory convergence.