Between 1989 and 2004, the EU's conditionality for membership transformed Central and East Europe. This book demonstrates how that transformation worked in practice. The EU was able to use its massive bargaining power coercively at certain key points in the membership preparations. However, its primary method was soft power, through 'Europeanizing' the candidates into its norms and methods. This book explores in detail how the EU used its influence to control the movement of people, through both conditionality and Europeanization.

Autorentext

Heather Grabbe is Director of the Open Society European Policy Institute, Brussels, Belgium. From 2004 to 2009 she was senior advisor to then European Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn, responsible in his cabinet for the Balkans and Turkey. Before joining the commission, she was deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, the London-based think tank, where she published widely on EU enlargement and other European issues. Previous research posts include Chatham House, the European University Institute and Wolfson College, Oxford University.

Klappentext

Between 1989 and 2004, the EU's conditionality for membership transformed Central and East Europe. The EU had enormous potential power over the whole range of domestic politics in the candidate countries. However, the EU was able to use that power at a few key points in the process leading to their accession. The EU's long-term influence worked primarily through soft power and through voluntary rather than coercive means. During the membership preparations, the EU built many different routes of influence into the candidate countries' domestic policy-making through 'Europeanization'. The Central and East Europeans voluntarily took on the Union's norms and methods, guided by the European Commission, in a massive transfer of policies and institutions. However, the EU missed important opportunities to effect change as well. The EU's Transformative Power explores in detail how the EU used its influence to control the movement of people across Europe, through both coercive use of conditionality and voluntary methods of Europeanization.

Zusammenfassung
"The EU's big bang enlargement in 2004 was a major milestone in the history of European integration. Thanks to the carrots and sticks of conditionality the EU had enormous potential influence. In her detailed, meticulous and landmark study, focusing in particular on the single market and Schengen, Heather Grabbe demonstrates how and why the EU's 'transformative power' varied across the region, over time and from policy area to policy area." - Dr. Tim Haughton, University of Birmingham, UK

"The EU's Transformative Power is an important book. It lends relevant insider insights into the process of enlargement and it is an obligatory guide for anyone interested in the present and the future of European enlargement." - Transitions Online

"The EU's Transformative Power is in a position to offer a major reference point in the Europeanization discourse. Grabbe's book does indeed stand up to such promise and provides an authoritative resource on the effects of EU influence in CEE." - Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding

Inhalt

Abstract About the Author List of Tables Abbreviations Acknowldgements Introduction Accession Conditionality and its Implications Europeanization, Negotiations and Influence Routes of Europeanization and Constraints on EU Influence The Receiving End: Politics in the Candidate Countries Free Movement of Persons in the Single Market Movement of Persons under Schengen Explaining How EU Influence Worked Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index