European Union

A European political force opposed to the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and to further EU integration will emerge today (12 November) after a visit to Ireland by eurosceptic Czech President Václav Klaus.

Klaus's controversial visit to Dublin is expected to culminate later today with a gathering of prominent eurosceptics, the Irish press reported.  Among them are Philippe de Villiers, the leader of French sovereign party Mouvement pour la France, Anthony Coughlan, an Irish 'No' campaigner, English-born columnist Bruce Arnold and several MEPs.  In total, 80 people were invited to a dinner today in Dublin, closed to the media. Both Ganley and Klaus are expected to deliver speeches. 

he European Commission is working on an 'Eastern Partnership' with Ukraine, Georgia and other countries lying on its eastern borders, diplomats and EU officials have announced.

Ukraine wants an 'Eastern European Partnership', modelled on the defunct Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, as a precursor to future EU membership, the country's ambassador in Brussels told journalists yesterday (6 November)

According to Veselovski, the partnership's added value compared to the EU's current neighbourhood policy would reside in a joint effort to change perceptions about the region, which he said is too often portrayed as a conflict-ridden area unfit for EU integration. 

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn made clear yesterday (5 November) that Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Kosovo, are still a long way away from getting clear persprectives of EU accession.

In spite of the EU executive's insistence that its assessments are based on objective criteria, the countries in the region are increasingly aware that enlargement is no longer fashionable in the EU, especially in the context of the current financial crisis and uncertainty following the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty by Ireland.  European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering said on Tuesday that "perhaps with the exception of Croatia," no enlargement was possible without the Lisbon Treaty. This statement contradicts strong views, expressed repeatedly by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, that no enlargement whatsoever was possible before the Lisbon Treaty comes into force (EurActiv 20/06/08). In fact, the Nice Treaty provides institutional arrangements for only 27 member states, but some countries believe that it may be possible to find a compromise to accommodate Croatia. 

Links European Union European Commission: Enlargement strategy and main challenges 2008-2009 European Commission: Key findings of the progress reports on the candidate countries: Croatia, Turkey and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: European Commission: Key findings of the progress reports on Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Kosovo European Commission: 2009 the year of the Western Balkans European Commission: Croatia 2008 Progress report European Commission: The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia 2008 Progress report European Commission: Albania 2008 Progress report European Commission: Bosnia and Herzegovina 2008 Progress report European Commission: Montenegro 2008 Progress report European Commission: Serbia 2008 Progress report European Commission: Kosovo (under UNSR 1244/99) 2008 Progress report

ISSN: 1466-4429 (electronic) 1350-1763 (paper) Publication Frequency: 8 issues per year Subjects: European Studies; Public Policy; Publisher: Routledge

In a report on the western Balkan countries' progress towards the EU that the European Commission will present next week, Brussels will reiterate a warning it expressed earlier about Bosnia and Herzegovina's political instability and the lack of reform in the country. "Constitutional elements established by the Dayton/Paris peace agreement [which ended the 1992 – 1995 war in Bosnia] have been challenged by key political leaders in both entities" of Bosnia – the Serb-populated Republika Srpska and the federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"The lack of consensus on the main features of state building… and [the] inflammatory rhetoric have adversely affected the functioning of institutions and have slowed down reform" in the country, reads the draft of the document seen by the EUobserver.

Macedonia – still no date for opening EU talks For its part, EU candidate Macedonia is to be disappointed yet another time, as it will again not be offered a date to open membership talks with the bloc. "The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has made some progress in the course of the last year but does not yet meet the political criteria," according to the commission. "The parliamentary elections of 2008 did not meet key international standards and the recommendations of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights remain to be addressed. The lack of constructive political dialogue between major political parties and actors adversely affected the functioning of the political institutions," it goes on.

Croatia could conclude accession negotiations with the EU by the end of next year, if it fulfills the remaining conditions, while Serbia could become an official EU candidate, according to a draft report on the western Balkan countries' progress towards the EU that the European Commission will present next week.

Last week top level European politicians have awaken to reality concerning the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina, namely that this artificial creature made by Dayton agreement is starting to collapse. This in spite of hundreds of millions of euros which e.g. EU has thrown away to build some kind of multi-ethnical ideal. (Summary of Dayton Agreement here)

On 22nd Oct. 2008 the former United States diplomat Richard Holbrooke and former High Representative in Bosnia Paddy Ashdown published an article urging European Union and US leaders to reinforce their engagement in Bosnia and halt a new crisis which threatens to bring the country to collapse.

Bis 2012 wolle sein Land die Kriterien für die Aufnahme in die EU erfüllen, so der montenegrinische Premierminister Milo Djukanovic am Montag gegenüber den Mitgliedern des Außenausschusses im Europaparlament. Nach der Aussprache mit den Abgeordneten befragten wir ihn zur Beitrittsperspektive seines Landes, den Beziehungen mit Serbien und dem Kosovo sowie dem Umstand, dass man in Montenegro in Euro bezahlt.

The International Herald Tribune concludes its piece by warning that the failure of Romania and – especially – Bulgaria to honour its pre-accession promises mean that further EU enlargement is unlikely. "What has happened in Romania and Bulgaria has changed the rules of the game," the paper quotes Mladenov as saying.

Welcome to Arirusila´s BalkanBlog - a personal perspective on events in western Balkans. Topics of interest: Serbia, Kosovo province, EU enlargement, UN peacekeeping operations, crisis management. Other interests - middle East and Caucasus.

The freshly appointed UK defence secretary has publicly supported the idea of a European army, a key ambition of the French EU presidency.

In 2007, during French Bastille Day celebrations in which troops from every EU member state marched down the Champs-Elysees, Mr Sarkozy said the EU should construct a unified military. The Bastille comments followed similar remarks from German Chancellor Angela Merkel in March of the same year on the occasion of the EU's 50th birthday. At the time, she said in an interview that she supported the idea of a unified EU army. However, the UK, the largest of the EU's big-three military spenders ahead of France and Germany, has until now opposed the idea of a common EU force, arguing that it would unnecessarily duplicate tasks performed by NATO. According to the Lisbon Treaty, rejected in June by the Irish in a referendum, the North Atlantic alliance "remains the foundation of the collective defence of [EU] members," with NATO always headed by a US general, however.

This essay takes stock of the literature on how European Union policies are being put into practice by the member states. It first provides an overview of the historical evolution of the field. After a relatively late start in the mid 1980s, the field has meanwhile developed into one of the growth industries within EU research. The paper identifies three different waves of EU implementation scholarship. The first wave considered implementation primarily a problem of institutional efficiency. In the second wave, the degree of compatibility between European demands and domestic policy legacies took centre stage. However, many second-wave scholars complemented the basic “misfit” argument with a set of additional explanatory factors to account for deviant cases. In the third wave, some researchers began to stress the role of domestic politics, while others re-discovered the importance of administrative capabilities. As an attempt to synthesise some of the partial explanations presented by earlier research, one group of scholars pointed to the existence of culturally-shaped country clusters, each with its own typical style of complying with EU legislation.

After this historical overview, the paper summarises the most important theoretical, empirical and methodological lessons to be drawn from existing studies, and it discusses promising avenues for future research. First, most scholars seem to agree on the basic set of factors that may have an impact on transposition processes. The main task to be accomplished by future research is to establish under which conditions which configurations of factors prevail. While we already know that there are country-specific patterns, the importance of sector-specific patterns will need to be explored further. Second, greater research efforts will have to be devoted to the neglected area of enforcement and application. In theoretical terms, going back to the insights of traditional domestic implementation research seems to be most promising for this type of studies. Third, the paper cautions against the poor quality of the data employed by the growing number of quantitative compliance studies. Unless the problems with the data can be solved, scholars are well advised to rely on comparative case studies, at least in addition to statistical analyses. To increase the number of cases to be covered by qualitative research, the paper makes the case for crafting collaborative qualitative research projects as a viable alternative to quantitative research.

rish centre-right MEP Colm Burke (EPP) recently became the first Irish politician to propose a specific 'roadmap' for holding a second Lisbon referendum in Ireland. Discussing this plan and other issues in an interview with EurActiv, Burke called for a multi-question referendum to be held in October 2009, allowing Irish citizens to vote on possible opt-outs from the Lisbon Treaty while also constituting a second ballot on the text itself.

Reeling from a huge political blow in last weekend's regional elections, Czech centre-right Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek has said that his country - set to chair the EU as of January - will push forward the ratification of the bloc's new Lisbon treaty. "It would be very complicated to talk with the Irish about their ratification process and conditions of the process if we ourselves did not ratify the Lisbon treaty," Mr Topolanek said during a visit by German leader Angela Merkel to Prgaue on Monday (20 October), suggesting he would try his best to deal with the document at national level "by the end of this year," CTK agency reported

Macedonia does not seem ready at this stage to open accession talks with the EU before the end of the year, as initially hoped, EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn has said.

The European Commission will on 5 November publish its annual reports on progress accomplished by EU hopefuls from the Western Balkans and Turkey. Skopje has been told to fulfil eight political criteria - or benchmarks - before it is allowed to start EU membership negotiations. These include better "dialogue between political parties, implementation of the law on police and anti-corruption legislation, reform of the judiciary and public administration, as well as measures in employment policy and for enhancing the business environment."

Mr Rehn had also said in March he hoped to be able to recommend the opening of talks in November. But on Monday, he told AFP: "For the moment, it seems to me that these eight benchmarks have not been fulfilled." The country "has still to improve its judicial and administrative reforms, and also to prove that the next elections will be conducted according to all international and European norms," he added.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and French President Nicolas Sarkozy - currently chairing the EU - have urged the need for a permanent EU presidency to replace the rotating system. "We need a president of the Council [the institution representing EU member states] that does not change every six months," Mr Barroso told journalists at the end of an EU leaders' meeting in Brussels on Thursday (16 October). "To lead [EU] member states, we need a very strong presidency."

Local elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina yesterday (5 October) confirmed deep ethnic divisions within the Balkan country, which is seen as a natural candidate for EU accession.

Serb, Muslim and Croat nationalists obtained high scores in the race for mayorships in the country's 149 municipalities following a campaign marked by nationalist rhetoric and lack of interest in the real problems faced by citizens. 

Links European Union European Commission: Bosnia and Herzegovina – Relations with the EU AFP: Nationalists lead in Bosnia’s local elections Reuters: Bosnians vote along ethnic lines in local polls Reuters: City voters boycott Bosnia’s local polls Huriyet, Turkey: Bosnians vote expected to seal hardliners Balkanisnsight, Serbia: Polls close in Bosnia’s local elections Voice of America: EU defence ministers agree to phase out peacekeeping mission in Bosnia Le Monde Diplomatique: Analysis: The black hole of Bosnia

Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski and Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn today (2 October) signalled that the 17-year-old 'name dispute' between Skopje and Athens over the name 'Macedonia' may be nearing a solution

"Ambassador Niemetz has requested next Tuesday to meet the negotiators from both countries, Ambassador [Admantios] Vassilakis of Greece and Ambassador [Nikola] Dimitrov and Martin Protoger [chief of staff to Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski]. The aim of the meeting is for both countries to make their remarks or request amendments following mediator Niemetz's last proposal. On this basis, I expect that Ambassador Niemetz will be able […] to table a final version," Crvenkovski said.