L'élargissement de l'Union européenne à huit États d'Europe centrale ainsi qu'à deux îles méditerranéennes est inéluctablement un événement politique majeur. Afin de soutenir ces États à opérer une mutation politique, administrative et économique, les instances communautaires ont érigé une stratégie spécifique de pré-adhésion. L'adaptation institutionnelle préalable a été réalisée par le traité de Nice. L'entrée de dix nouveaux pays aura inéluctablement des répercussions sur deux politiques de l'Union : la cohésion économique et sociale ainsi que l'agriculture et le développement rural.
L'Union européenne pose plusieurs critères politiques d'adhésion dont le respect conditionne l'entrée au sein de l'organisation communautaire. C'est la conditionnalité politique dont l'auteur définit les critères constitutifs, expose la mise en oeuvre et étudie la réalité de l'impact.
Among the criteria for accession to the European Union are democracy and the Rule of Law. In the insightful analysis offered by the author of this book, these concepts - while admirable and even necessary criteria in principle - are almost impossible to measure, and any judgement grounded in them will always be difficult to justify. In his words, 'by including analysis of democracy and the Rule of Law within the field of the EU enlargement law, the Union entered an unstable terrain of vague causal connections and blurred definitions.' Dr Kochenov addresses this problem by proceeding as follows: 1. Outlining EU enlargement law in general, including the principle of conditionality and the role played by the analysis of democracy and the Rule of Law in enlargement preparation; 2. Focusing on the role actually played by the monitoring of democracy and the Rule of Law in ten candidate countries, scrutinizing the way the EU used the legal tools and competences outlined in its enlargement law. The book adopts the EU's own understanding of democracy and the Rule of Law, as derived directly from the substance of the numerous legal and political instruments issued by the Community Institutions and especially the Commission in the course of the pre-accession process. In this way it demonstrates the actual - as opposed to the officially announced - role played by the assessment of democracy and the Rule of Law in the candidate countries in the regulation of enlargement. Many formidable inconsistencies in the application of the conditionality principle are thus laid bare. This leads the author to a series of recommendations on policy and procedure that he demonstrates could be profitably applied to the regulation of current and future accessions, using the Commission's own structure of monitoring pre-accession reforms in the three areas of the legislature, executive, and judiciary in candidate countries. The probity and soundness of these recommendations, firmly grounded as they are in the actual pre-accession monitoring and its consequences for the pre-accession progress of ten Eastern European countries admitted to the EU in 2004 and 2007, will greatly interest policymakers and scholars concerned with the future of European integration.
This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the legal and political challenges surrounding the EU accession of the Baltic States. It examines the impact of EU enlargement on relations with Russia and on the constitutional development of the countries concerned.
The book investigates the substance of the European Union's (EU) democracy promotion policy. It focuses on elections, civil and political rights, horizontal accountability, effective power to govern, stateness, state administrative capacity, civil society, and socio-economic context as components of embedded liberal democracy.
Good Neighbourliness in the European Legal Context provides the first detailed assessment of the essence and application of the principle of good neighbourly relations in the European legal context, illustrating its findings by a multi-faceted array of studies dedicated to the functioning of good neighbourly relations in a number of key fields of EU law. The main claim put forward in this book is that the principle of good neighbourly relations came to occupy a vital place in the Europan legal context, underpinning the very essence of the integration exercise.
En Europe, l'année 2004 est placée sous le signe de l'élargissement, la Roumanie et la Bulgarie sont programmées pour 2007 et la Turquie s'impatiente. L'agrandissement de l'Union européenne est devenu un processus continu. Le présent ouvrage fait une analyse d'ensemble du mouvement en cours : les motivations des nouveaux membres, les réactions des anciens, la méthode de gestion des adhésions. Il fait ensuite le point de la file d'attente qui s'allonge à nouveau : d'autres candidats qui attendent une occasion favorable pour faire leur demande ; et analyse les conditions de fonctionnement d'une Union élargie.
L'élargissement de l'Union Européenne concerne principalement des Etats en pleine reconstruction démographique après l'extinction des systèmes socialistes. L'ouvrage questionne les réformes territoriales entamées dans les années 1990. Ces réformes sont à la charnière entre les exigences internes d'une refonte politique et institutionnelle et le contexte externe de l'intégration européenne. L'ouvrage souligne le poids des héritages socialistes et le rôle ambigu du contexte d'intégration européenne.
