Polish Political Science Review vol. 1/2013

Polish Political Science Review. Polski Przegląd Politologiczny

Vol. 1, No. 1, 2013

EditorRobert Wiszniowski (University of Wrocław)

Vice-editorPiotr Sula (University of Wrocław)

SecretaryAgnieszka Szumigalska (University of Wrocław)

Language editorJonathan Owen

Cover designMałgorzata Wiszniowska

Editorial Board:David Dyker (Emeritus, University of Sussex), Jan Zielonka (University ofOxford), Siegmar Schmidt (University of Koblenz-Landau), Gabor Toka(Central European University), Georgi Karasimeonov (Sofia University),

Ladislav Cabada (Metropolitan University Prague, University Branch Pilsen),Lubomir Kopecek (Masaryk University), Ramona Coman (Universite libre deBruxelles), Dejan Jović (University of Zagreb), Alenka Krasovec (University ofLjubljana), Adriano Giovannelli (Universita degli Studi di Genova), LucianoSegreto (University of Florence), Algis Krupavicius (Kaunas University of

Technology), Rein Taagepera (University of Tartu), Jacek Sroka (University ofWroclaw), Robert Wiszniowski (University of Wroclaw), Marek Rybar

(Comenius University in Bratislava), Artak Ayunts (Yerevan State University),Javier Lorenzo Rodrıguez (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid), Alexandra

Ionascu (University of Bucharest), Piotr Sula (University of Wroclaw), HaykakArshamyan (Yerevan Press Club), Bakur Kvashilava (Georgian Institute of

Public Affairs)

Contact:“Polish Political Science Review. Polski Przegląd Politologiczny”

Instytut Politologii Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiegoul. Koszarowa 3

51-149 Wrocław, Polandpoliticalreviewuni.wroc.pl

Website http://politologia.uni.wroc.pl/politicalreview/

Polish Political Science Review. Polski Przegląd Politologiczny 1(1)/2013

Table of Contents

Foreword p. 3

Roman HajekThe Changing Landscape of Local Information Space in the Czech Republic:Consequences for Local Political Communication p.5

Inta Brikse, Ieva BeitikaHow do Members of the Parliament View Public Value and Public Broadcasting?The Case of Latvia p. 20

Matus MisıkEastern Partnership and Preferences of the New Member States of the EU p.33

Renata Kunert-MilcarzEU Initiatives for Democratisation in the Eastern Europe p.49

Ramona ComanThe Policy Role of the EU in Judicial Politics and the Limitations ofConditionality: the Case of Hungary p.65

Karolina Borońska-HryniewieckaLegitimacy through Subsidiarity? p.84

Karolina KichewkoEuropean Social Pacts Policy p.100

Iwona ReichardtBook review: Radical Approaches to Political Science. Roads less traveledby Rainer Eisfield p.117

Notes on Authors p.121

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Foreword

We are pleased to present the first, inaugural volume of the new scholarly journalPolish Political Science Review. Polski Przegląd Politologiczny (PPSR). The mainidea and aim of this new journal is to provide broad access to high qualitypeer-reviewed research and theoretical papers. This aim is also a big challengeconsidering the presence and strong position of already existing political sciencejournals worldwide. We do however, hope that the PPSR will find its place amongother journals in this field, and the articles published in the PPSR will contributeto the development of knowledge and the state of art in particular areas of politicalscience.

The articles in the first volume cover a variety of topics from political com-munication to economic policy and European studies, where both comparativeand case studies have been included. The contributors are young researchers andestablished academics from varied European academic institutions.

The first volume includes seven manuscripts and one book review. The firsttwo articles, i.e. The Changing Landscape of Local Information Space in theCzech Republic: Consequences for Local Political Communication (R. Hajek) andHow do Members of the Parliament View Public Value and Public Broadcasting?The Case of Latvia (I. Brikse, I. Beitika) are devoted to the political commu-nication issues and present two case studies. The articles Eastern Partnershipand Preferences of the New Member States of the EU (M. Misik) and EU Ini-tiatives for Democratisation in the Eastern Europe (R. Kunert-Milcarz), ThePolicy Role of the EU in Judicial Politics and the Limitations of Conditionality:the Case of Hungary (R. Coman) and Legitimacy through Subsidiarity? (K.Borońska-Hryniewiecka) may be placed in a broadly defined field of Europeanstudies. The presented papers embrace varied aspects of this field of research,which approach both national and transnational perspectives. The seventh article,European Social Pacts Policy (K. Kichewko), gives an insight into the shape ofsocial dialogue in the Netherlands, Ireland and Italy and may be placed in thefield of social and economic policy. The volume’s last contribution is the bookreview by I. Reichardt, in which she presents the book Radical Approaches toPolitical Science. Roads less traveled by Rainer Eisfeld. Thereby, the author fillsthe need to include a theoretical approach which, we hope, will encourage theauthors to submit the papers in the field of political theory.

We would like to thank the authors for their interest and contribution tothis very first issue. This first volume would simply not have been releasedwithout the referees, who not only entrusted the new journal, but also evaluatedand safeguarded the quality of the submitted manuscripts by providing theirconstructive and often critical views and suggestions. It is our hope that this

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volume will be met with interest and attention, and we invite all interestedauthors to submit their manuscripts for our next volume.

Editorial team

Polish Political Science Review. Polski Przegląd Politologiczny

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Roman Hajek

The Changing Landscape of Local Information Space in theCzech Republic: Consequences for Local Political Commu-nication

Abstract

Due to the emergence of Internet-based media channels the character oflocal information spaces in the Czech Republic has undergone a remarkablechange. Traditionally, dominant information sources: daily newspapers andmunicipally-owned media have become challenged by a variety of onlinesources run by groups of active citizens. Based on a systemic analysis of thelocal media sector and interviews conducted with representatives of localactivist groups this paper discusses the consequences of these processesfor local political communication. From the activists’ perspective, the newcommunication environment has significantly influenced the character ofthe mutual relationship between different participants in local politicalcommunication. Trust between journalists and activists: the basis for theircooperative relationship, faces decline, whereas the self-confidence of ac-tivists in negotiations with politicians has increased. Online media alsoallow the activists to break the existing information monopoly and engagecitizens in public affairs. These changes have resulted in the profession-alisation of communication skills for the activists, who are thus able tobecome more important participants in political communication.Keywords: political communication, local journalism, activist media, CzechRepublic

Introduction

In the mid-2000s, after the fall of the communist regime and after rapid changesof political as well as media structures in the Czech Republic had taken place, therelationships between local journalists, citizens and politicians which combine toconstitute the system of local political communication1(Lilleker 2006, pp. 5–10)became relatively stabilised. During that time, the dominant independent sourceof local political information was the local daily press, specifically the newspaperDenık which was (and still is) published in almost all Czech districts2. In thisregard, local journalists were therefore the key gatekeepers who could highlight1This paper is focused on the change of information ecology from the perspective of

activists in large Czech cities (45–75 thousand inhabitants). Therefore the term “local politicalcommunication” refers to the system of relations on that level. The character of local politicalcommunication, in a small village in a rural area, for instance, might be significantly different.2 Local media are often understood as a kind of media for which the content and (very often

also) availability is limited to a geographically small area (Franklin 2006). Clearly this is quitea vague definition because this area may vary from cities to rural regions; the understanding

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certain local topics, inform audiences about current affairs and influence the localpublic agenda. Besides such independent newspapers, many of the larger citiesestablished their own, official communication channels, usually in the form ofprinted monthlies designed to provide a public service by publishing importantinformation about the work of the municipal authority. However, despite suchconsiderations for the public interest, the output of these media outlets largelyadopted the logics of political PR (Ozivenı 2010, p. 14).

In this system of local political communication, journalists and politiciansalike were the main holders of media power which allowed them to produceand reproduce elite discourses (Habermas 2006). This power, enhanced by thepossibilities of technological change, was exercised through the selection of topicsfor discussions (information choices), the style and formatting of media outputor in the shaping of distribution channels and manifest in various media effectslike agenda setting, framing or priming (Habermas 2006, p. 419). On the con-trary, Habermas describes communication power as one of the most importantattributes of the public sphere, which arises from interpersonal relations andcreates the basis of civil society (see Friedland et al. 2006, p. 11).

Since the digital media have multiplied the ways people are able to gaininformation, this situation of political communication has changed significantly.A new communication environment has formed in which media content can bedisseminated quickly through society without the need for the established massmedia (Jenkins et. al. 2013, p. 3). Understandings of the production of journalismnow contend with the numerous ways through which people are able to engagewith various types of information flow, such as personal blogs, different kindsof citizen journalism projects, Facebook initiatives or other genres of digitalalternative and activist media (Lievrouw 2011, p.19). Although the presence ofactivist media voices is not solely related to digital media (c.f. Downing 1984),the speed and vibrancy of digital information spread are new qualities of publiccommunication which cause its transformation at both national and local levels.Epitomised by Friedland et al. (2006, p. 19), it is perhaps the first time inhistory that “the informal public sphere has a medium that in principle allowsfor large-scale expression of mass opinion in forms that systematically affect theinstitutional media system” (emphasis original).

As Andrew Chadwick notes, all these changes result in the hybridisation ofexisting power balances between agents of political communication (Chadwick2013). Firstly, there is evidence of a transformation in the role of journalists,accompanied by doubts about the future of the profession itself and its role

of local media thus depends on the country, especially on the size of its municipalities and itspopulation density. In the case of the Czech Republic, the system of geographic division ofadministrative bodies allows us to define the local media as those institutions which operatewithin the borders of districts (Waschkova Cısarova 2007). Based on the historic developmentof the civil service, the Czech Republic is divided into 76 such administrative districts (whichas of 2008 have belonged to EU system LAU 1).

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in democratic society (Witschge and Nygren 2009, p.56; Weaver 2009; see alsoLee-Wright et al. 2012). The expansion of various non-professional media chal-lenges the status of journalists who are slowly losing their position as the mainsource of information and compete variously with bloggers, citizen journalistsand other information sources for audience attention, but also for the dominantinterpretation of public affairs (Lowrey 2006, Robinson 2009). On the otherhand, both professional journalists and non-professional/semi-professional newsproviders often incorporate some of the norms and standards from each other andthus the border between these groups is disappearing (Chadwick 2013, p. 185).Secondly, developments in the field of the media have important consequencesfor the political sphere. In previous decades, concurrently with the increasingimportance of mass media as the mediators of political information, politicshas become more professionalised; politicians have learned how to communicateeffectively with the media and both individual and collective political agentsoften use externally hired media professionals to improve their public image,especially during election campaigns (Negrine 2008, Negrine et al. 2007). At thelocal level, the establishment of press departments and the use of press secretariesare the most obvious manifestations of professionalisation (Larsson 2002). In thissense, professionalisation refers to the relationship between media and politicsand it assumes the interaction of politics with certain media logics. Nonetheless,contemporary political communication is characterized by a blending of “older”and the “newer” media logics in a hybrid media system. More non-elite actors arenow involved in the dissemination of information about politics (Chadwick 2013,p. 86) and politicians adapt slowly to this new environment. Thus the concept ofprofessionalisation is contested, as discussed in the last part of this paper.

The main aim of this article is to analyse how changes in political communi-cation may influence the relationships of participants in local political communi-cation. It presents the perspective of activists, to whom the new environment hasbrought important tools for spreading political information. The second researchquestion is: How do new communication possibilities influence the daily work ofactivists and the ways they try to achieve their goals?

The level of local political communication is therefore, a good case for anal-ysis, especially in the Czech Republic where the evolution of the media systemhas significantly influenced the distribution of media power. Firstly, based ona systemic analysis, I describe the current state of Czech local media to showthe general framework within which changes in participants’ relationships occur.This is a starting point for the analysis of in-depth interviews conducted withrepresentatives of various activist groups.

Methodology

In order to obtain a general overview of the circumstances of Czech local media asystemic analysis has been employed. It combines data from the official documents

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of The Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting, The Czech PublishersAssociation, annual reports of the publishers of the local press, the analysis ofmunicipally-owned press (Ozivenı 2010) and the official websites of some localmedia. Developing the work of Waschkova Cısarova (2007), who paid attentionto the structural transformation of the Czech local daily press and describedthe network-based structure of Czech local media through the example of theDenık newspaper, it is argued that the majority of the “old” media channels areorganised in organisational or at least advertising networks.

The main part of this article builds on in-depth interviews conducted withpublishers of the community-based local press and representatives of local groupsof activists. There is no simple definition of who can be regarded as an activist;nonetheless, in this case it is understood as any citizen who actively pursues aninfluence on political decision making. These are people who are often membersof civic organisations and who, since the goals of many activists are no longerrevolutionary but rather episodic, rapid-response movements of resistance usemedia as a tactical tool for achieving particularised goals (Garcia & Lovink 1997).Drawing on Atton (2001, p. 25), activist media can consequently be definedas those that employ or modify communication artefacts, practices and socialarrangements of communication technologies to challenge or alter dominant,expected, or accepted ways of performing society, culture, and politics (see alsoLievrouw 2011, p. 19).

The sample was compiled in a way to reflect the variety of communicationstrategies that are used by local activists to engage with citizens within theirlocalities from one perspective and to affect political representatives from another.Both printed and online media were included. In particular, the interviews wereconducted with five editors of the community-based local press and six localactivists who, in their public activities, communicate through different onlinechannels. Since the communication environment as well as the relationships be-tween participants in political communication may vary significantly dependenton the size of a municipality, the respondents and the media were chosen fromlarge Czech cities of a similar size (between 45 and 75 thousand inhabitants) inCentral and Northern Bohemia, to compare similar experiences in this sense.

Selection of the respondents was based on the requirement of “appropriateexperience”, meaning that respondents would have a particular level of experiencewithin the environment, hence give relevant answers (Lindlof & Taylor 2002,p. 179). The respondents were sampled by snowball sampling until the criteriaof sample saturation were fulfilled (regarded as repetition in responses to thequestions of the study). The interviews, conducted between November 2012 andJanuary 2013, consisted of a set of open-ended questions with only a generalpre-prepared outline. This enabled the collation of detailed answers related toparticular topics, situations or to the respondents’ perception of certain socialphenomena (Lindlof & Taylor, p. 178).

The analysis of the interviews draws on the methodology of grounded theory

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(Strauss & Corbin 2008). The combination of open and axial coding was used toprovide an outline of what the respondents perceive to be the most importantchange.

Local media in the Czech Republic

Small municipalities and the network structure of Czech local media

One frequently criticised aspect of the Czech local media environment is in itslack of both ideological diversity and diversity of topics (Waschkova Cısarova2009). This is strongly related to a reliance on advertising revenue which is a keyfactor in the continued existence of commercial local media (Franklin 2006, p. 7).Local media can potentially interest advertisers who usually do not advertise innational media as to do so might prove to be ineffective and expensive for them.However, due to the settlement network of the Czech Republic 3 the potentialreach of advertising in local media is quite small, resulting in the prices for localadvertising being low and in some localities there is little chance of establishingand running independent local media platforms.

The structure of the advertising market therefore, compels local media toconnect into larger groups which share advertising space and content. This isevident mainly in the case of local newspapers: the most influential local titleswould be better described as national media institutions with local editionsrather than purely local media institutions. Waschkova Cısarova (2009) describesthis phenomenon in detail in the example of the local daily newspaper Denık,published by Verlagsgruppe Passau GmbH (VGP). This title holds a major sharein all Czech regions of the local daily press sector and has often, therefore,been labelled a monopoly (Smıd 2007). The structure of this network was builtsystematically from the 1990s up to 2006. Step by step, VGP bought localnewspapers (mostly weeklies) and incorporated them into the network so thatalmost all Czech administrative districts now had their own daily title. Ultimately,all titles were consolidated under one roof with centralised management as wellas a common layout in all local publications (Waschkova Cısarova 2009, p. 164).Currently, Denık is registered as a national daily paper with 71 local editions. 4

3 The settlement network of the Czech Republic is characterised by a large number of smallmunicipalities. Except for the capital city of Prague there are only five other cities with morethan one hundred thousand inhabitants; 90 per cent of Czech municipalities have up to 2,000inhabitants and only 2.1 per cent have more than 10,000 inhabitants. (Data from the 2011official census. Available at ¡http://vdb.czso.cz/sldbvo¿.)4 Although the network of VGP’s title Denık has no competitors in the daily newspaper

market, two networks of weekly titles have recently emerged based on a very similar principleof common management and shared content and advertising space. The network of weekliesentitled Mlada fronta Sedmicka was established in April 2009, but after an initially fruitfulexpansion (in 2010 it had 29 printed editions supplemented by a web service) it declined andin 2012 the title was sold off to a new publisher and transformed into a gossip magazine.

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The media power of municipal governments

One considerable curiosity of Czech local political communication is in the pow-erful role played by the municipally-owned media. These publicly-funded insti-tutions, established by local authorities in order to provide a “public service”for citizens, usually include printed bi-weekly or monthly newspapers. There arevarious models for the functioning of these media: some of them are prepared byexternal professional agencies, some of them are run by the press departments,while others are still a mixture of these models. Additionally, the level of polit-ical parallelism (Hallin & Mancini 2004) of these titles varies depending on thelocality. Nonetheless, their power arises from their availability to the population:they are usually distributed for free to every household in the locality.

These media have faced sustained allegations of bias and for serving the inter-ests of the ruling authority. The results of the analysis of a hundred municipally-owned newspapers conducted in 2006 confirm this opinion, stating that themunicipal media provide limited opportunities for public discussion and the pre-sentation of diverse opinions. Rather, they are misused by local governmentsto promote their successes and visions; although they present some useful in-formation, they do not provide space for public debate and serve as a PR toolof ruling authorities (Ozivenı 2010, pp. 14–16). This is enormously importantwhen we consider the power of these media and their ability to influence people’sopinions and behaviour. Regrettably, we lack studies which deal with the effectsof municipally-owned media, but it seems, at least, that their ability to set thelocal public agenda plays a significant role, especially in areas which do not haveother relevant information channels (Jirku 2011, p. 64). Despite this criticism, themunicipally-owned media are currently not regulated. A new law was proposedin 2012 which is intended to allow the political opposition to publish its opinionsand thus to increase the internal plurality of the municipal media (PSP 2012).However, the proposal is still (October 2013) being processed in Parliament andits future is uncertain. The criticisms therefore remain and, as the new mediaenvironment made the spread of information easier, representatives from differentcommunities who wish to place issues on the public agenda have established theirown channels and therefore, bypassed the “old structures” of local newspapersand municipally-owned media that they were dissatisfied with (see Carpentieret al. 2003). The rest of this article will focus on how this change is perceivedby local activists and how it may, in their opinion, change Czech local politicalcommunication.

Following in the footsteps of this project a new network of weeklies entitled 5+2 dny wasestablished by the well-known Czech businessman Andrej Babis; after the first year of existencethe title expanded to 77 local editions. The situation of broadcasting is a little different. Thereare almost no local television stations and the output of local radio stations is mostly music.I do not pay much attention to broadcasting media since they provide only limited space fornewscasting. With regards to local media, print newspaper titles have maintained their statusas the most important information source about current affairs.

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Relationships in flux

This section will focus on changes in the mutual relationships between the threemost important participants in local political communication: the journalists, thepoliticians and the citizens. Representatives of activist groups seemingly regardthese as the main changes:

• a decline in partnership between local journalists and activists;

• emerging possibilities to bypass journalists as well as municipally-ownedmedia when activists wish to disseminate information;

• an increase in the confidence of local activists to pursue their interests.

Journalists and activists: the decline of a partnership

The relationship between local journalists and representatives of groups of activecitizens was never quite perfect. The reason for this partially arose from theirsubstantially different positions in the system of local political communication.Whereas activists are usually focused on particular problems or topics whichinfluence life in the locality and have access to highly detailed, in-depth informa-tion about them, journalists: especially local journalists, have to cover a varietyof topics and as such are not experts in any focused areas. Nevertheless, despitesome misunderstandings and even disagreements in the normal functioning oftheir mutual relationships, until recently the activists perceived journalists aspeople with similar concerns as them and who “were sort of respected partnersbecause they were on the same side of the barricade” (Respondent 1).

There is a consensus among the activists that this relationship has changed,starting five or six years ago, and that certain shifts in the field of media may bethe decisive influence. Although they regard the quality of journalistic work tobe in decline, they try to understand the pressures journalists have to face. Bothchanges in the organisation of newsrooms and shifts in media technology and themedia landscape are perceived as being the inevitable consequences of externalfactors which influence the daily routines of journalists. Nonetheless, the activistsheavily criticise normative journalistic values: “[A]s I see it, we always held thesame values and tried to operate as a watchdog of the government. Recently,though, it seems like journalists have given up their old values. They write aboutevery rock concert and newborn child but they are not interested in real affairslike the municipal budget. I’m wondering why this happened. Maybe they thinkthat everyone can find this information somewhere on the Internet. But thatdoesn’t mean there is no space for the work of journalists, does it?” (Respondent7)

From another perspective this change is perceived the a result of a declinein dialogue between local journalists and activists. The dual character of the

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relationship in the past is addressed here. Furthermore, the nature of the rela-tionship is described as more informal, with a greater proportion of face-to-facecommunication than today. Some activists claim that, before they had establishedtheir own communication channels, they were often asked by journalists to providedetailed information about certain issues. They were, in a way, accepted asspokespersons of local citizens as well as advisers to journalists, especially inexpert areas. Although the activists often opposed the actions of the municipalauthority, “journalists sometimes get on the phone to verify something with us,approaching us as an independent, expert source and a contact with whom theyare familiar, just because they were careful about information the governors gavethem” (Respondent 1). Such claims suggest that the relationship was based ontwo basic principles: a common cynicism towards politicians and a degree ofmutual trust.

According to the activists, the first principle was broken by journalists afterthe onset of the influence made by organised political PR techniques on Czechlocal political communication. Since then, journalists need not actively seek infor-mation about political representatives and the current work of local governments:“They [journalists] can just wait to get information and then publish it, oftenwith no editing. This means that they write about issues the government wouldlike to be written about. If you consider the topics mentioned in the so-calledindependent media and in the municipally-owned ones, they’re almost the same.”(Respondent 5)

This subordination to political PR has led to suspicion on the part of theactivists as to whom local journalists actually serve. They therefore cite this asthe main cause of the decline in mutual trust, though not exclusively. They alsoadmit that their public criticism of journalists may disrupt the relationship fromthe opposite side, since new communication tools allow them to publicly correctjournalists’ mistakes. As one activist claims, “understandably, we are now a sort-of enemy because nobody wants to be criticized. But for me it’s still important toact in the public interest,” (Respondent 9) suggesting that journalists no longerseek a watchdog role. In the current communication environment, however, theactivist can to some extent hold this role themselves.

A break in the information monopoly

As outlined above, the information space of most Czech localities was, untilrecently, controlled by the daily newspaper Denık and the municipally-ownedmedia. The expansion of blogging tools, user-friendly website design softwareand Facebook has allowed the activists to establish their own media channelsto spread what they think are the really important issues in their localities. Atriumph, as the activists had always tried to establish direct channels to informcitizens about certain issues, previously these mostly consisted of leaflets, postersand other ad hoc media focused only on some, particular issues, since maintaining

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periodical publications was beyond the funding abilities of the activists, in thepast: “We can [now] disseminate information about a wider range of issues andestablish a continuing information stream, which means that we can use medianot only for attracting people [. . . ] but also [to] keep them informed about thecontinuing development of an issue. Moreover, we can also provide informationabout other public affairs and keep people informed.” (Respondent 2) In thissense, local activists recognise their increasing responsibility. It may appear thatin some respects they are able to substitute the role of journalists and they suggestthat on certain occasions they do, even if it is not their primary motive. Theyclaim to feel the “power of the public” (Respondent 7) in response to articles orFacebook entries that they publish, so they try to be precise and formulate honeststatements in order to build and maintain their status as a source of trustworthyinformation. 5

The ability to create their own communication channels has consequences forthe efforts made by the activists to communicate with journalists. Journalistsare no longer the primary targets for activists’ communication activities, whichare now focused instead more directly on citizens themselves. The frequency ofmutual contacts between journalists and activists has decreased, but this does notmean journalists are no longer needed for activists’ promotions. Activists are wellaware of the limitations of their online media channels; in recent years they haveinvented sophisticated communication strategies which combine their own mediawith activities related to local journalists. To put it another way: they engage indirect communication with only a minor part of the potential audience of politicalcommunication and are in indirect communication with a more general audience.Specifically, this strategy indicates that, where the activists wish to advance theirarguments, they usually first contact audiences connected to their communicationchannels. However, if the information is of sufficient importance that they wishto disseminate it beyond such audience, they will attempt to contact professionaljournalists and place the issue on the news agenda that way. This allows them tostrengthen the relationship with their supporters and followers as well as informother people about issues they consider to be important. Interestingly, preparingthe content for their own media before journalists are contacted is consideredvery useful. It points to a significant change in the position of activists in thecommunicative process: “[Publishing our own media content], something neverdone before, helps us in many ways. First, we organize our own thoughts andfacts in a meaningful form of output. So when contacting journalists we know

5 On the other hand, they do not regard themselves as journalists and therefore do notobserve the traditional rules of the journalistic profession, claiming that this is not part oftheir role. The public function of traditional forms of journalism, as well as the importance ofjournalism for local political communication, are both considered irreplaceable in their variety.As respondent 11 aptly puts it: “We are here to try to change things, not to write about them.And if we write something, it’s still written, from our perspective, to support our efforts tochange things. We don’t consider journalistic values, or journalistic interests.”

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what we want to tell them. And second, if something is already published, it’sa good source for the journalists to find some background information or easilycheck facts.” (Respondent 3)

Related to this spring in new communication possibilities for activists arequestions which concern what their media should do and what they shouldwrite about. Besides using the pro-active potential of online channels to setthe public agenda without any attempts to contact journalists, the activistsalso emphasise situations whereby online media are used as a re-active tool. Inthis sense, activists use their channels for responding to the content of localnewspapers or municipally-owned media. The new communication environmentallows them to control and correct the accuracy of information about publicaffairs. Moreover, besides factual correctness, attention is also paid to the waythat topics are framed and which perspective(s) they contain. Activist media canoffer different frames and perspectives. From the perspective of the activists, themain consequence of these new possibilities is that correcting and disrupting theprivileges of thus-far unchallenged media “may force both the journalists and thepoliticians to do a better job” (Respondent 1).

New self-confidence: Getting out of a ghetto

So far I have discussed the influence of online media on the character of the rela-tionship between journalists and activists and on the amount of information anddiversity of perspectives presented in media content. This section will focus moredirectly on the psychological dimension, exploring how the new communicationenvironment has affected the self-confidence of the activists.

Criticising local governments and trying to change the way they govern hasalways been quite a solitary battle. Activist groups had their circles of supporters,these were usually their friends or relatives and very often active people sharingsimilar opinions. In such circumstances, activists had to struggle with limitedfeedback on their activities. They doubted if their work and their requests wereactually meaningful, sometimes feeling as though they were a “forlorn soldieron the field” (Respondent 6). This impression, of separation from the majorityof citizens, was elsewhere described as a “feeling of living in a kind of ghetto”(Respondent 4), and this would on occasion influence their position during nego-tiations with local authorities.

The difficulties associated with getting their attitudes onto the mainstreampublic agenda were cited by the activists as a reason why they were quite of-ten pushed into a subordinate position of “troublemakers with whom they [thepoliticians] had to deal with instead of someone who is worth listening to”(Respondent 2). In relation to the quality of political culture, the prior positiontaken by the activists was characterised as weak, with their ability to get proposalsthrough local governments described as minimal, unless the issue was taken andprocessed through local or even better, national media. From this perspective, it

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was primarily not the inhabitants of the locality themselves but the media whowere able to influence which issues inherited the status of high importance. If thetopic was not interesting for the media, it was usually not discussed at all sincethere was no public demand to do so. The testimony of an experienced activistepitomises this: “In situations where we didn’t have a petition with hundredsof signatures, the politicians just asked whose opinion we represented. We didn’thave visible supporters; there were no Facebook groups, no supporting web pages.That meant no threat for the politicians if they refused all our suggestions.”(Respondent 2)

Even though the intentions of politicians have not changed over time, thecurrent situation is perceived as different. Besides an increasing general knowledgeof civic rights and better developed civic identity (which may be caused by atemporal distance from the communist era), online media is often mentioned bythe activists as an important accelerator of this change. For the first time, the me-dia environment has enabled the creation of a platform for direct communicationbetween (the) activists and the general population. Activists can therefore engagemore easily with people outside their usual circles of friends and supporters andquickly receive feedback on their activities and thus improve them. Facebookgroups and Facebook pages, especially, are important contributions to the moredialogical character of this relationship. Facebook seems to represent a fairlyuseful tool for the activists since it can fulfil the function of information sourceas well as discussion forum.

This change, however, did not only influence the possibility to find followersand supporters and to disseminate their messages to a greater number of people:meaning, generally, getting out of the former ghetto, but it also has importantconsequences for the self-confidence of the activists and their enthusiasm tocontinue in their work, even if they are aware that only a minority of peoplebecome actively engaged: “Knowing that it [our work] resonates in people’s mindsis an absolutely basic thing if you don’t want to become mad. And we don’t needthem reacting on every triviality we publish. But if our Facebook page has athousand ‘likes’, it’s great because we know they are with us, at least in theiropinions. [. . . ] It makes us stronger. I mean, not only is our voice stronger butalso viscerally we feel stronger. I think we now have more energy, more courageand more desire to do our work.” (Respondent 6)

This important shift in mentality naturally influences the approach of activiststo politicians and vice versa. Increased self-confidence facilitates the activists inbecoming more emphatic in their dealings with politicians, helping them realisewhat may have seemed obvious but was not explicit: that they “represent theinterests of particular groups of people just as the politicians do” (Respondent3). However, the activists perceive a shift in the attitude of politicians towardsthem which is currently characterised by a greater respect than ever. Althoughthe relationship is still far from ideal, from the activists’ perspective the newcommunication environment forces the representatives of local government to

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be more transparent and more open to dialogue with citizens. The activistsare therefore “slowly leaving the position of mere »complainers« and [they are],instead, becoming respected players in the field, because they are no longer seen assolitary agents but as people who can significantly influence citizens, i.e. potentialvoters, to see things from the perspective of politicians” (Respondent 6).

Conclusions

This analysis of activists’ perception of the process has shown how the systemof political communication has dealt with certain changes in the communicationenvironment. These changes have been accompanied by the transformation ofcommunication patterns as well as by the position and mutuality of the relation-ships between participants in political communication. Online media platformshave allowed the activists to disseminate, more easily than previously, informationwhich they regard to be important for their locality and their interpretations ofpublic affairs which may differ from those found in mainstream communicativeareas. What the activists perceive as the general change in the character of Czechlocal political communication can, to employ the terminology of post-Marxistdiscourse theory (Laclau & Mouffe 2001), be described as the strengthening ofvarious “counter-discourses”. Online media can play an important role in thisprocess, as the thus-far dominant position of the local press and municipally-owned media can be disrupted by a multitude of online channels run by theactivists. Consequently, due to this variety of media channels which inter-connectdifferent groups of people, the local public sphere is thus able to become a spacefor discursive contestation (Dahlberg 2007, p. 837), which is seen as a newlyemergent quality of Czech local democracy. As the analysis shows, there are twomajor aspects to this shift.

The first aspect is an important change in the distribution of media poweramong the main participants in local political communication. In the case ofCzech localities, the activists often describe the media as one of the most im-portant tools to sustain and exercise power. Until recently, information wasavailable to citizens according to that which was produced by journalists, whoare subordinate to many pressures and whose main role is not necessarily to servethe interests of local citizens, and by the political use of PR techniques whichrepresent the will of politicians. However, with the heralding of activists utilisingtheir own media platforms, through which it is possible to address large groups ofcitizens, they gain new power at the expense of journalists and politicians. Trustin journalists has declined and, moreover, the activists indicate that their mediato some extent assumes and provides a replacement for journalists’ traditionalwatchdog role. In relation to politicians, increased self-confidence is consideredto be an important accompanying consequence of media change. The resultssuggest, therefore, that online media has an important role to play in increasingthe influence of activists in the system of local political communication.

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The second aspect is closely related to the concept of professionalisation inpolitical communication. Usually, the term is used in relation to the communi-cation competencies of politicians or the communication strategies of politicalparties. However, the present analysis points to another possible dimension ofthe term: the professionalisation of activists in the way they use media. Prior tothe emergence of current changes in the communication environment, activistsusually created ad hoc campaigns with little to no long-term communicationstrategy. Now that they have access to their own media, they can not onlydifferentiate their communication channels more effectively, according to theirdifferent purposes, but are also able to maintain direct contact with citizens.

Acknowledgements

This paper was prepared as part of Specificky vyzkum IKSZ UK FSV 267 503,the research was supported by Internı grant IKSZ FSV UK.

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Inta Brikse, Ieva Beitika

How do Members of Parliament View the Public Value ofPublic Service Media? The Case of Latvia

Abstract

The Development of public media in Latvia as a post-communist coun-try has essentially been influenced by politicians. The political communityhas had consensus that certain reforms are necessary to ensure the devel-opment of public media given the changes in the communication space andits role in the facilitation of the strengthening of democracy, yet duringthe last fifteen years the political elite has not been able to come to acommon agreement and to make decisions on systemic reforming and thedevelopment of public media. Since the communication environment haschanged post digitalisation of television, the question about public mediadevelopment and legitimisation has become increasingly topical. The aimof the study is to explore how the members of the parliament of Latvia(Saeima) position public service media (PSM) in Latvia and assess thepublic value of PSM. The theoretical framework for the research is basedon the concept of public value „strategic triangle” (Benington & Moore2011), which consists of three main elements: public value outcomes, theauthorising environment and operational capacity. The study is basedon qualitative research methods including 18 semi-structured interviewsconducted with members of the Saeima in 2012 and 2013. The acquireddata has been analysed by the principles of thematic analysis (Attride-Stirling 2001). Analysis of the interviews show that members of the Saeimarecognise the need for public media to be independent whilst at the sametime supporting a model in which public media is not supposed to haveindependent funding and they will continue competing with commercialmedia in the advertising market. High competition and resentment arecharacteristic features of the political elite in Latvia that apparently wouldalso in future hamper the making of such decisions about public media thatwill facilitate their high-quality. Results of the research show the tendencyfor members of parliament to lack the necessary knowledge to formulatetheir opinion and to modulate relations of public media with society andtheir place in the overall media system in Latvia.Keywords: public media, media policy, public value, parliament, Latvia

Introduction

Creation of public value has been developed as one of the theoretical approachesof how to analyse the activities of public media, its significance and positioning inthe new communication environment (Moore 1995; Collins 2007), as public media

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must be capable of increasing and more specifically motivating the legitimacy oftheir activities, whilst at the same time competing for audiences in the digitalcommunication environment. Latvia has a small population (approximately 2million, of which 40 percent are not Latvians and the majority of them communi-cate in Russian in their everyday life and use Russian media), a small advertisingmarket (in 2012 the advertisement market in Latvia was below 71 million EUR)and remaining weak public media traditions. Public media in Latvia is financedfrom the state budget but at the same time they also operate in the advertisementmarket. This increases tension and criticism from society inasmuch as publicmedia, in particular television, gets commercialised, it also causes objections fromthe side of commercial media that the market is being distorted.

Although certain consensus exists amongst the stakeholders in Latvia aboutmaking the decision that fundamental reforms in public media are required,the approaches for their implementation are diverse. The Saeima (parliament)in Latvia is the fundamental institution that makes decisions about the trendsof development in public media. Therefore, the decision makers’ understandingof the role of public media in democratic Latvia is important, as well as theirpolitical will to facilitate the adoption of such legislation that would ensure thegenuine independence of public media and their capacity to be significant andinfluential actors in the public sphere. Peter Dahlgren singles out two approachesto legitimisation of public media policy: (1) the market demands legitimisation,where public interests are characterised by the contents in which society is in-terested and (2) social demand legitimisation, which is characterised by mediaculture context. It includes society’s interests that in a broader sense are basedon the implementation of civic participation (Raboy, Proulx & Dahlgren 2003).Developing a new Electronic media law to transpose in the national legislationprovisions of the Audiovisual media services directive, due to the pressure fromsociety and experts, the National Radio and Television Council (from February2012 “National Electronic Mass Media Council”, henceforth: Council) and thecommittee of the Saeima were forced to examine in more depth the issues for thefuture development of public media.

In 2011, a new concept of public media development was elaborated andit received considerable criticism. The basis of the approach for establishing anew medium was the concept of public value. The concept of public servicemedia (merging Latvian Radio and Latvian Television and developing a newinternet platform) was approved by the Council in January 2013. The draft wasdiscussed by the government three times and it was supported by the governingcoalition parties, but in June the government turned down the concept of PSMand proposed to have further discussions of the draft in the sub-committee of theSaeima.

The goal of the paper is to explore and analyse how members of the parliamentof Latvia position and interpret the role and meaning of PSM in the digital age.The study includes two main research questions:

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RQ1: how are the functions and characteristic features of public media un-derstood and interpreted in the political environment of Latvia?

RQ2: what are systemic and structural preconditions of Latvian PSM in creat-ing public value? The theoretical concept of public value provides an opportunityto analyse PSM in three basic dimensions:

1. theoretical understanding of public media,

2. development of the principles of the reforms of public broadcasting and

3. these issues have been topical in Latvia since 2009 when:

• under the impact of the economic crisis funding allocated from the statebudget for PSB decreased;

• overall competition in the electronic media market increased;

• discussions about the influence of political forces upon public media arebecoming more topical;

• due to the wide offer of programmes by cable and satellite television theaudience became more fragmented and public TV lost its leader’s positions;

• as a result of the fast and fairly expensive implementation of digital tele-vision, time share of cross-border TV channels increased, in particular ofRussian TV channels.

Theoretical background

In general terms, Mark Moore characterises public value as “what the publicvalues” (Moore 1995), where inhabitants are seen as citizens and not consumersor customers. But in practice the concept of public value is to be rather definedas a process which is determined by the mutual interaction of the basic elementsof public value. M.Moore and John Benington put forward three concepts andcalled them ”a strategic triangle” (Benington & Moore 2011, pp. 5–6):

1. public value outcomes: visions, missions, the defining of specific strategicgoals and results, understanding them not only in the narrower sense ofachievable outputs– for example, specific programmes, but also in a widersense as outcomes or social outcomes ;

2. the authorising environment: creating support and trust between all theparties involved in decision making and supporting the parties involvedlegitimises the creation of defined public value, as well as its re-defining toadapt to the changes in environment (Moore 1995, pp. 70-71; Benington &Moore 2011, p. 5);

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3. operational capacity: such a use, mobilisation, the increasing and develop-ment of internal and external operational resources of an organisation thatare necessary in achieving certain results and outcomes of public value.Operational capacity is a dimension by which it must be demonstratedthat developed public value is also practically achievable.

This is a framework of initial criteria and has been developed and improvedby looking for approaches in ways to adapt it and evaluate it in different sectors,different countries, political and media systems and cultures.

J.Benington also interprets public value as an instrument for the consolidationof society, a provider of maintenance and enrichment of the public sphere whenpublic sector organisations create and provide “what the public values”. Theconcept of public value does not mean identical or unified insights for the wholeof society but rather competition between identities and differences in a dialogueunderstanding what it means to be part of a wider public sphere in time andspace (Benington & Moore 2011, p. 49). Thus he re-formulates public value aspart of a deliberation process that is rooted in the democratic public sphere inwhich it is possible to debate and develop negotiations about competing interestsand values, which also depends on the publics’ awareness of the significance ofdialogue and the capacity for society to get involved in this dialogue (Benington2009).

Developing the conceptual framework, Moore has not only been focusing onempirical or normative approaches, hence the public value concept can be usedin public media studies both as an empirical (interpretation of data obtainedduring the research), as well as normative framework (study and analysis ofsystematic reforms of the public broadcasting system and media assessing theiractivities before the introduction of public value management approaches andlater implementation of reforms) (Moore 1995; Kelly, Mulgan & Muers 2002;Alford & O’Flynn 2009; Coyle & Woolard 2010).

All in all there exists a certain mutually necessary interaction between publicmedia and the political system because public media functions in a politicalsystem in which political intervention and control, given certain conditions, isunavoidable in ensuring and monitoring the fundamental values of democracy andpublic service in the interests of society. On the one hand, this interaction shouldbe restricted in order to guarantee the independence of public broadcasting andthe articulation of public interests according to democracy, but on the other hand,the political system defines the advantages of public broadcasting that providethe opportunity to achieve the defined duties that are necessary for society as abody (Jakubowicz & Sukosd 2008; Aalberg, Aelst & Curran 2010).

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Methodology

The study is based on qualitative research methods including 18 semi-structuredinterviews conducted (2012–2013) with the members of the Saeima (number ofmembers:100). The selection includes all members of the Human Rights and Pub-lic Affairs Committee (its competences are media issues) and it has proportionalrepresentation of members of the Saeima of all the parliamentary groups andunaffiliated members of parliament.

Figure 1. Representation of parties and deputies in the Saeima (sampling andcoding)

Committee/parliamentary group

Number ofmembers inSaeima

Numberof respon-dents

Codes of respondents

Human Rightsand Public AffairsCommittee

9 9 MS2, MS5, MS7, MS8,MS11, MS12, MS13,MS14, MS16

Concord Centre parlia-mentary group (oppo-sition)

31 5 MS8, MS9, MS14,MS15, MS16

Unity parliamentarygroup

20 4 MS1, MS2, MS3, MS8

National Allianceof All for Latvia!and For Fatherlandand Freedom/LNNKparliamentary group

13 3 MS6, MS7, MS12

Reform Party parlia-mentary group

16 3 MS5, MS17, MS18

Union of Greens andFarmers parliamentarygroup (opposition)

13 2 MS10, MS11

Unaffiliated membersof parliament

7 1 MS4

The acquired data has been analysed in accordance with the principles ofthematic network analysis (Attride-Stirling 2001): systematizing the extractions(1) on the level of basic themes, (2) organising themes and (3) general (con-ceptual) themes. Basic themes: characteristics of PSM in Latvia; conception forreformation of PSM; factors influencing the content of PSM; role of politicians inelectronic media development; quality of journalism and media in Latvia and ex-pectations of public needs in media. Organising themes: functions of PSM, content

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of PSM and characteristics of PSM qualities. General (conceptual) themes: PSMrelations with the public; role of PSM in sustainable development of the mediaenvironment and the public value of public media in Latvia. Coding, categorising,grouping by theme and analysis of the data were done by using qualitative dataanalysis and research software: Atlas.ti 7.1.6.

Findings

The analysis of the collected data in the present article will be focused upon 5aspects: (1) PSM functions and content (organising themes) and (2) public mediarelations with public general (conceptual) theme, to show politicians’ awarenessand expectations of public media; (3) public remit and funding, that define thenature of public media and also the practical possibilities of implementing theirtasks; (4) reformation of public broadcasting (basic theme) to demonstrate thereadiness of politicians to make specific decisions and (5) public value understand-ing which shows insights into the achievable goals and tasks during the processof public media transformation.

Functions and content

Members of parliament know the functions of the media and use them whencharacterising public media, however, the emphasis they put on different functionsis varied. The informative function by respondents is linked with a necessity tocreate an information space that provides access to information. All the respon-dents indicate that public media’s mission is to ensure independent informationthat is neutral and as objective as possible, as well as promoting a balance inthe information space. Respondents also see a close link with the informativefunction and the place of public media in the overall information space: “It isreally important for media to be public – not by their name but by providingneutral and unbiased information” (MS1); “National or public medium must bethe one to be able to provide neutral analysis of public processes” (MS10).

Formation of cultural space and its maintenance as function is mentionedby all the respondents and it is understood as the mediation of cultural con-tents and processes in a public medium. The educating function is describedby respondents less than the informative function, but they recognise it as thebasic function of public media. Comparatively weaker is the orientation towardsforms of cooperation and the involvement of society and creating a dialogue andcommon understanding about the world we live in.

The entertainment function is mentioned by respondents not as the funda-mental function but as a function that is manifested through a certain contentsor format that is necessary and can be combined with informative and educatingfunctions.

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Among functions it is also possible to include the construction of nationalidentity and the facilitation of the sense of national belonging, which is linkedwith language and culture. This function is intermingled with a similar one: thesociety integration function, which the majority of the members of the Saeimarelate to the function of national identity construction for the Latvian audiences,but the integration function: to the Russian and other minorities’ audiences: “Thequestion is if we should spend more time of the public media for strengtheningidentity or for integration” (MS10); “With one fishing programme where Latviansspeak Russian we do not integrate anything [...] It is a strategy. It is politics. Itcannot be only one programme” (MS7). Respondents, emphasise that the publicmedium should also focus on the part of the people who have gone into economicmigration, thus the national information environment should be viewed as widerthan the borders of the state.

Assessing the role of public media in performing society’s integration function,the issue of more extensive broadcasting in Russian is mentioned in order tocreate a sense of belonging to Latvia, a common national information spaceand consolidation of society. Representatives of all the political parties indicatethat the actual situation in Latvia should be taken into consideration, where aninhabitant who speaks no Latvian when quality national information contents arenot offered, lives in a different information environment and becomes potentiallyestranged with no sense of belonging to the state: “If we are thinking aboutintegration of Russian speakers there must be at least news programmes inRussian” (MS10); “It is the question if at all or to what extent the public mediashould be in a foreign language. My private opinion is yes, to a certain extent,yes, but under the condition that it must be clearly seen that the resourcesinvested into it facilitate society integration, facilitate greater understanding bythose inhabitants whose native language is Russian, that it promotes a biggerunderstanding and sense of belonging to the state of Latvia” (MS6). In separatejudgements of the members of the Saeima one can also find indications of themobilising function, indicating that media must facilitate the strengthening ofself-esteem and the capacity to act (MS4).

As for the identification of public media functions, the position of all themembers of the Saeima can be characterised as inclusive, certain functions arenot denied as unfit for public media but are analysed and critically assessed. Thefunctions are also compared with commercial media.

The understanding of media content is linked with several aspects: theme,genre, format and so on, diversity and professionalism of journalism, emphasisingobjectivity of information and analytical character and so on. Quantitative andqualitative characteristics of the respondents are analysed and explained in rela-tion to public remit and funding. Participation of public media in the creationof a high quality and analytical information environment has been assessed as“weak”, “weakened”, “of bad quality”, “unprofessional”, and the respondentsexplicitly separate the performance of Latvian Radio and Latvian TV admitting

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that LR performance is of higher quality.Analysing particular content which is important for public media, one of the

issues mentioned by the majority of respondents is the lack of analytical andinvestigative journalism which includes not only news and analytical programmesbut the contents of public media at large, associating this mainly with television.

Respondents see the thematic choices of public media linked to the interests ofthe people: one should be thinking about public media in the same way as about ajoint stock company, “where each inhabitant has one share” (MS17) and whose in-terests must be represented by the public medium, it should be a perceived mirror“for everyone to see their reflection in it” (MS17). Several respondents emphasisethat content quality is also linked with diversity, mentioning as examples publicmedia programmes and journalists (MS6), the necessity of providing differentview-points, for example, in news programmes and various contexts (MS7).

Public media and the public

Members of the Saeima, as the answers demonstrate, have no problems in dis-tinctly identifying the essence of public media, and it certainly creates difficultiesfor analysing and assessing their relations with the public. Respondents try tohide the issues that are not clear to them by referring to the public: “There is notalways clarity in society what public medium is. It is more like a certain habit wehave got used to it that it is representation of the state. The state as if speaks tous via this medium. This is like something, forgive me, from the soviet times butto a certain extent I think that there are no problems in legislation. There is aformulation. Another question is if it is done the same way as it has been writtendown [in the law]” (MS2).

Members of the Saeima describe relations with the public from two aspects.Firstly, public broadcasting must be accessible to the population (MS1), besides:to “as large segment of society as possible” (MS4), which has to do with regionalaccessibility (MS7). Secondly, information must be available. Yet in both cases theunderstanding of the process is still characterised by a common linear approachthat is more focused on broadcasting issues; and the users are allocated rather apassive and not an active role: the media must be “accessible”, it has to embraceas big an audience as possible and to “reach out” to every single inhabitant. Inview of the fact that over the past few years the audience of Latvian Televisionhas considerably decreased, one can conclude that politicians are not evaluatingthe specific conditions in Latvia but in an abstract way rely on the fact that thepopulation must use public media because of its importance in facilitating theability to make judgements about issues of significance for society.

Opinions about public media relations for society are very diverse and dis-persed and they can be systematised as: proprietor: company relations: “[...] un-like the commercial media, public media are those that belong to society”(MS8);educator: the one to be educated relations: “[...] It must be so that society

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receives what it wants but there is also the position that we educate societyin certain directions, which are still in the interest of the state: it can be achievedthrough good journalism. But you must be master in that” (MS5); provider:consumer relations: “It is important that people would receive in an accessible waythe information they need” (MS1); responsible communicators relations: “Everyperson deserves high-quality information space and I assume that this is the wayit can be defined that those are public media that provide me with analytical,high-quality information space” (MS7). Respondents admit that public mediahas a certain identity yet weak, but it could be one of the instruments in formingan understanding of what the public medium is, both in society as well as in themedium itself. Stronger identity would provide an opportunity to create morefocused relations with society (MS5).

Public remit and funding

Characterising public remit respondents explicitly refers to the law (public remithas been stipulated in Electronic media law (2010) in 25 articles).

A typical evasiveness when expressing an opinion or comment about the issuesof public remit and their execution is that “politicians could be involved here leastof all” (MS7). And several of them also identify the problem as: there is no clarityin what public remit is but they do not relate this lack of knowledge to the Saeimaor politicians in general: “Everyone says we need public remit but perhaps theydo not entirely understand what it means” (MS4).

A member of parliament working at the Saeima confesses for the first time: “Ihave never analyzed that concept at all. I cannot assess something that existedpreviously but as for the public remit, it should have a clear task – what we wantwith this public remit” (MS5).

Opposition members of parliament also explain public remit in the contextof political competition criticising the governing party coalitions: “There is nopublic remit any more. There is one party remit. Remit of one ideology [. . . ] Andthen these media that are not public media any more will just croak” (MS14).

The funding available for public media (as in general all the members orparliament admitted) is insufficient. The responses showed the explicit opinionthat the scope of funding must be linked with the achievable results and withtransparency: providing accounts on its expenditure (MS4, MS6, MS17). Butrespondents opinions are divided concerning the funding model for public media:“some kind of separate tax or payment must be introduced or additional payfor electricity” (MS4); “funding from the budget as the basis plus also I thinkthat the public medium should leave the market” (MS8). MPs of the Saeima alsosupport the idea that public media must remain in the advertisement marketbecause they see in it “one good indicative measure – the public medium showswhat the quality of its work is” (MS4).

In addition, the members of the Saeima who support subscription fees or

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a media tax admit that they cannot be introduced in the present situation,mentioning three reasons: the low rate of the welfare of the population, lackof understanding amongst the population about public medium and the lowratings of Latvian Television. It is characteristic that the members of the Saeimastressed that they expressed their own and not the party’s or parliamentarygroup’s opinion. As for the question about advertising in the public medium, themembers of the present Saeima in general represent the same views expressedin the previous two decades when this question was discussed: the risk that asubscription fee or some form of co-payment might be negatively perceived insociety.

Reformation of public broadcasting

The majority of the interviewed respondents were of the consideration that mediapolicy has not been purposefully implemented in Latvia since the renewal of itsindependence.

The conception of the public medium of Latvia that envisages merging LatvianRadio and Latvian Television, additionally creating a powerful portal, archivesand so on as a result of its implementation of the media environment in Latvia,particularly that of the electronic media, will cardinally change. A new publicmedium concept has been evaluated and responses can be grouped as supportive,evasive and denying. Members of the Saeima supporting establishment of onesingle public medium see in it as a more efficient use of resources, a possibilityof strengthening the status of the public medium etc. Respondents explain theirevasive views by the fact that they are not specialists in the media area that theyhave not studied the concept sufficiently carefully or they have doubts about thedraft: “Apparently a year ago I would have a strict opinion that yes, we need onesingle public medium, but the more I go into it, the more I see drawbacks and I donot see all those many positive things” (MS7); “I see risks in it at the same timeadmitting that theoretically such a construct would be correct. But given thefact how things are often done at our stage of maturity of democracy I am reallyconcerned that it can harm editorial freedom, and the information space canget more concentrated and it has bigger risks to get under influence of politics”(MS6). Representatives of the negative opinions (MS5) have doubts about theusefulness of the great investments; risks are also possible in how electors willevaluate support for such great investments. One of the members of the Saeimawith more than ten years of experience in parliamentary work explains it bythe fact that public media has never had strong lobby in the Saeima (MS8).Therefore, it can be assumed that the political elite has not been interested insolving problematic issues and by the facilitation of public media development inpromoting the development of information space in Latvia in general.

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Public value

Members of the Saeima mention creation of public value as one of the basicconditions for activities of public media. Hence, it may be concluded that therespective approach or its elements can be used both as a practical instrument inorder to plan, reform and manage the public media system, as well as a discoursethat allows an explanation to society about the activities of public media.

Likewise it has been indicated that it is an approach that must be understoodto implement in practice. It is also one of the questions that is theoreticallyemphasised by the public value creation approach, namely, that internal andexternal communication of an organisation and the culture of the organisationitself are important: “It is something that is missing – to formulate very preciselywhat the goals are and to be able in any situation to measure to what extent thesegoals have been achieved. It all has to be done in the most open way” (MS6).

Precise understanding of strategic positions and goals among the involvedparties is possibly one of the issues that hampers the adaptation of public tele-vision to new, unexpected circumstances or other changes. In the context of thecreation of public value competences in management and decision makers areessentially significant so that they would be able to undertake commitments andalso take risks when experimenting in compliance with the developed public valuestrategy. The involved parties indicate that at present it is one of the problematicissues: the inability to change rapidly or adapt once such a need appears (MS1).Respondents express concerns that the planning of practical operational strategyand public remit of the public media are not done in compliance with publicinterests, needs and the defined goals in general but depends on the existinghuman resources (MS3, MS10).

Analysing the risks in creating public value in Latvia, the necessity is stressedto firstly reform the public broadcasting system in general and in particular, thesupervision and management model (MS3) that also corresponds with Moore’sapproach.

Conclusions

On the one hand part of the members of the Saeima consider the public valuecreation approach as essentially necessary, but on the other hand: in the presentsituation they support a model in which public media is not planned to receiveindependent funding.

While planning the activities of public media in accordance with the so-called“market failure” comprises a contradiction in the context of public value theory. Inits initial understanding the public value concept stipulates that the organisationmust plan the anticipated public value that it will create serving the specificpublic that lives in a specific political, economic, social, cultural and historicalsituation. And it does not have to plan its operations proceeding from market

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conditions because there is a risk that market offers are not sustainable and donot embrace the whole of society. Likewise the market offer quality may notcorrespond to public value. If the performance of the market is still taken intoaccount then it should not be a priority motivation of a certain activity (Moore1995; Benington & Moore 2011).

All-in-all the political elite in Latvia is not ready to introduce such a system ofpublic broadcasting that would eliminate risks of political and economic influenceon the public media and that would facilitate the development of high-qualitypublic medium in Latvia that would be able to provide public value, althoughrepresentatives of political parties represented in the Saeima at a certain levelsupport the need for strengthening the independence and quality of public mediaand the necessity for a certain reform.

Yet knowing comparatively well the problems of the development of publicmedia, the majority of political forces are not ready to facilitate solutions to theseproblems, which can be explained by political interests, lack of responsibilityand/or expertise.

References

• Aalberg, Toril, van Aelst, Peter, Curran, James. ‘Media Systems andthe Political Information Environment: A Cross–National Comparison‘.TheInternational Journal of Press/Politics, 15(3)/2010, pp. 255–271.

• Alford John, O’Flynn Janine. ‘Making Sense of Public Value: Concepts,Critiques and Emergent Meanings‘. International Journal of Public Admin-istration, 32(3-4)/2009, pp. 171–191.

• Attride-Stirling Jennifer. ‘Thematic Networks: An Analytic Tool for Quali-tative Research‘.Qualitative Research, 3(1)/2001, pp. 385–405.

• BBC. Building Public Value. Renewing the BBC for Digital World [on-line]. London: BBC, 2004. [Accessed on 5 May 2013]. Available online:http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/info/policies/pdf/bpv.pdf.

• Benington John. ‘Creating the Public in Order to Create Public Value¿.International Journal of Public Administration, 32(3-4)/2009, pp. 232–249.

• Benington John, Moore Mark. Public Value: Theory and Practice. 1stEdition. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Public Value in Complexand Changing Times, pp. 1–25.

• Collins Richard. ‘The BBC and “Public Value” ‘. Medien und Kommunika-tionswissenschaft, 65(2)/2007, pp. 164–184.

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• Coyle Diane, Woolard Christopher. Public Value in Prac-tice Restoring the Ethos of Public Service. London: BBCTrust, 2010. [Accessed on 5 May 2013]. Available online:http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/regulatory framework/pvt/public value practice.pdf.

• Jakubowicz Karol, Sukosd M. Miklós (eds). Finding the Right Place on theMap. Central and Eastern European Media Change in a Global Perspective.Bristol, Chicago: Intellect Books, 2008.

• Kelly Gavin, Mulgan Geoff, Muers Stephen. Creating Public Value. AnAnalytical Framework for Public Service Reform [online]. London: Minister’sStrategy Unit, Cabinet Office, 2002.[Accessed on 5 May 2013]. Availableonline: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100416132449/http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/cabinetoffice/strategy/assets/publicvalue2.pdf

• Moore Mark. Creating Public Value – Strategic Management in Government.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.

• Moore Mark. ‘Managing for Value: Organizational Strategy in For-profit,Nonprofit, and Governmental Organization‘.Non-profit and Voluntary SectorQuarterly, 29(1)/2000, pp. 183–204.

• Raboy Marc, Proulx Serge, Dahlgren Peter. ‘The Dilemma of Social Demand.Shaping Media Policy in New Civic Contexts‘.The International Journal forCommunication Studies, 65(4-5)/2003, pp. 323–329.

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Matus Misık

Eastern Partnership and the Preferences of New EU Mem-ber States

Abstract

This paper tries to shed some light on factors influencing the posi-tions of the new member states of the EU on Eastern Partnership in itsinitial phase. It utilises an analytical approach developed by Copsey andHaughton (2009) and argues that the two most important factors affectingpositioning of newcomers towards the initiative are: perceived size andgeography. While the new members were especially keen to support theirimmediate neighbours, they were using a common policy towards thesecountries to increase their presence and influence in the region since theinitiative helped them to deal with neighbourhood issues they were notable to solve on their own. The paper suggests an amendment to the theo-retical approach and proposes an assumption explaining positioning of themember states towards the third countries that better reflect the empiricalevidence than the original framework. Moreover, the research showed thatPoland differed from the rest of the new EU countries, was much moreactive and influential and rather resembled the old members. However,due to its not very positive image (caused by its assertive approach andstrong effort to play a prominent role within the EU) its influence withinthe EU was limited and, therefore it proposed the Eastern Partnershiptogether with Sweden that held a much better image.Keywords: new member states of the EU, Eastern Partnership, prefer-ences

Introduction

The 2008 Polish-Swedish proposal marked the birth of Eastern Partnership (EaP),the EU policy towards 6 East European and South Caucasian countries: Ukraine,Belorussia, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The policy was officiallylaunched during the Czech presidency of the EU Council in the first half of2009 (Kral et al. 2009). It was the very first EU-wide initiative by the so-callednew member states of the EU (NMS) that entered the Union during the easternenlargement of the EU in 2004 and 2007 (this paper examines 10 post-communistnewcomers, Cyprus and Malta are excluded from the analysis due to their differ-ent historical trajectory). The only other similarly important initiative of NMSat EU level concerned security of energy supplies, however, this did not have theform of a concrete proposal and was of a more general nature (Misık forthcoming).On the one hand, the policy itself is quite well documented (Christou 2010;Iangbein & Borzel 2013; Kostanyan & Orbie 2012; Korosteleva 2011; Kratochvıl

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& Tulmets 2010; Petrova 2012; Turkina & Postnikov 2012), on the other hand,the preferences of the newcomers who are the principal supporters of EasternPartnership and their expectations towards this policy have not been a subjectof extensive analysis, yet. The main objective of this paper is to examine theseissues and explore the preferences that the new members pursued towards EasternPartnership during the commencement of the project. The research question askswhich factors influenced the support of EaP by new member states. In order toshed some light on this question, the paper employs an analytical frameworkdeveloped by Copsey and Haughton (2009). Authors propose specific sets offactors for explaining the stance of EU member states towards integration indifferent policy areas. This paper focuses on two of them, Foreign Policy andWider Europe and also tests the proposed assumptions. The paper has two mainaims. The first, is an empirical aim to identify the preferences of the new EUmembers towards EaP during the initial phase of the policy with a special focus onthree of them (Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland) that are the most activein this area. The second, a theoretical aim is to analyse the explanatory valueof framework introduced by Copsey and Haughton (2009) and further developthe approach on the basis of empirical evidence. This paper reacts on call fromthe above mentioned article to examine its proposals and study the applicabilityof the assumptions developed on the basis of analysis of older member states bynew ones.

The first part of the paper introduces a theoretical framework and researchdesign. It presents details of the approach developed by Copsey and Haughton(2009), explains the selection of the analysed policy and countries and also looksat data used that is based on 47 semi-structured interviews with respondents fromNMS, European institutions and think-tanks. The second section analyses thepreferences of new members in connection with EaP in the period between 2008and 2010 when the research was conducted. The third part discusses the resultsof the analysis from both empirical and theoretical perspectives. It proposesamendments to the analytical framework that would enable it to shed light notonly on preferences concerning Eastern Partnership, but also other relations withthe third countries. It also claims that Poland differs significantly from the othernew member states whilst not fitting perfectly among the old ones. The conclusionsummarises the main findings of the paper.

Theoretical Underpinnings and Research Design

Examining existing scholarship on preference formation of EU member states,Copsey and Haughton (2009) argue that there is ”no silver bullet which providesthe explanation both for all countries and all policy areas” (Copsey & Haughton2009, p. 269). Moreover, due to the flexibility of some factors which explain choicesfor Europe we have to bear in mind the’temporal dimension’ of preference forma-tion. However, authors claim that there is a way of gaining a complex perspective

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on this issue. A combination of existing explanations and factors can providea synthetic framework that is able to deal with these challenges and enablesus to study preference formation in intricate detail. They identified five broadareas of policy within the EU: ‘More Europe’/Deeper Integration, Liberalisation,Distributive Politics, Foreign Policy and ’Wider Europe’: and presented a setof factors that are supposed to explain the integration choices in these areas.Authors claim that the framework should be able to sufficiently explain nationalpreferences of EU member states since it distinguishes between individual policyareas that require different factors for explaining integration strategies. Moreover,the identified areas of policy should cover all fields of European integration. Theframework should be thus able to shed at least some light on preference formationin all policy areas.

Table 1. Chosen policy areas and factors with explanatory powerPolicy area Factors explaining the policyForeign Policy Sense of self-importance or ”histori-

cal destiny”Perceived size

’Wider Europe’ GeographyAttitudes towards deeper integrationAttitudes to immigration

Source: Copsey and Haughton (2009)

This paper deals more closely with two of these areas of policy, which are suitablefor answering our research question concerning the preferences of NMS towardsEaP. These are Foreign Policy and Wider Europe. Within the first policy areastates with a perception of their ”greatness” and feeling of ”historical destiny”tend to have stronger opinions on foreign policy issues, while those that do nothave such ”self-importance appear to have much weaker preferences” (Copsey &Haughton 2009, p. 271). The two factors that are decisive in this policy area arethus A) sense of self-importance or ”historical destiny” and B) perceived size.Copsey and Haughton assume that states, which believe that their duty is toinfluence the international environment have a tendancy to do this much morethan states that do not have such a perception in the global arena. Concerningthe second factor, perceived size, authors claim that countries ”which conceive ofthemselves as big beasts act accordingly in foreign policy” (Copsey & Haughton2009). The second policy area, ’Wider Europe’, refers to ”attitudes to enlarge-ment” (Copsey & Haughton 2009), it means it explains support or opposition forfurther widening of the EU and accepting candidates as future members. This isinfluenced by three factors: a) Geography b) Attitudes towards deeper integrationc) Attitudes to immigration. Authors assume that member states are especiallykeen to support the enlargement of the EU in its geographical proximity, however,

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the promotion of further enlargement can be negatively influenced by concernsfor migration flows and complications of the further deepening of the EU: inother words, its absorption capacity. This paper analyses support of NMS forEastern Partnership from the perspective of these two policy areas (Foreign Policyand ’Wider Europe’) and will examine all five proposed factors (Historical des-tiny/Sense of self-importance, Perceived, Geography, Attitudes towards furtherintegration and Attitudes towards immigration).

It is not clear which of these two policy areas is more suitable for our analysisof Eastern Partnership and therefore, we are employing both. Eastern Partnershipis not an enlargement policy per se since enlargement of the EU is not itsprimary goal. However, there are many similarities with this policy, for examplean effort to harmonise several sectoral policies of partner countries with acquiscommunautaire. Moreover, some of the EaP countries have clear membershipexpectations (for example the Ukraine and Georgia). The Partnership is thusnot strictly foreign policy and due to the special relations of partner countrieswithin the EU it is rather difficult to label them as third countries. From ourperspective, the policy is a borderline case and is therefore, suitable for studyingthe applicability of the proposed theoretical framework. The framework claimsthat it can help us to understand policy choices in all areas of integration and byapplying it to a borderline case we can also examine its applicability on issues thatdo not perfectly fit into its main assumptions. In addition, Copsey and Haughton(2009) admit that there is an overlap between these two policy areas (ForeignPolicy and ’Wider Europe’) and that their framework needs further modificationson the basis of empirical evidence in order to fully capture the nature of preferenceformation. By analysing a borderline case we can find evidence supporting theneed to modify the existing framework.

Eastern Partnership was chosen for this analysis as a result of it being the veryfirst initiative of NMS (Wojna & Gniazdowski 2009). As noted by our respon-dent, the newcomers were ”more oriented toward the east as such” (EXP-08-06).Therefore, the new members had stronger preferences towards this policy than inother areas where they were rather followers fighting with several shortcomings,including an insufficient administrative capacity (Lastic 2010) than forerunnersdetermining activities within the EU (Malova et al. 2010). The paper focuseson all post-communist newcomers, but puts special attention on three of themthat have been the most active in this area. Poland, together with Sweden, isthe founder of the initiative, but also the Czechs claim their part in its creationand not only because they finalised the policy during their presidency of theCouncil. Poland’s focus on Eastern Europe dates back to the pre-accession periodas explained by an expert ”this was one of its own national foreign policy prioritieswhich it was trying to lobby at EU level [even] before its accession” to theEU (EXP-08-06). Slovakia has been interested in Eastern Europe and especiallythe Ukraine for a long time and actually presented a proposal for cooperationwith Eastern Partnership countries within the existing Visegrad group in 2004

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(Marusiak 2010).This article is based on 47 semi-structured face-to-face expert interviews

with representatives of NMS, institutions of the EU and think-tanks (see theAttachment). 34 interviews were conducted with respondents from permanentrepresentations of the new members in Brussels that partly deals with preferencesconcerning EaP (the aim of the research was to identify all preferences of NMS),institutions of the EU and Brussels based think-tanks. Another 13 interviews weredone with representatives of government and experts from Slovakia, the CzechRepublic and Poland that focused exclusively on Eastern Partnership. Interviewswere conducted between June 2008 and June 2010 during the commencementof the initiative and its first phase. Most of the interviews were conducted inEnglish, the interviews in Prague and Bratislava were conducted in the Slovakianlanguage. The research is based on verbatim transcription of these interviews.

Preferences of new EU member states and their explana-tions

The second section explores factors that are, according to a theoretical approachproposed by Copsey and Haughton (2009), able to explain the preferences of NMStowards Eastern Partnership. We are analysing five factors within two areas ofpolicy. These are Historical destiny/Sense of self-importance and Perceived sizeas two factors explaining choices for Europe in areas of Foreign policy. Next, weanalyse Geography, Attitudes towards further integration and Attitudes towardsimmigration that determine ’Wider Europe’ referring to further enlargement ofthe EU.

Historical destiny / Sense of self-importance

Among 10 analysed new member countries, the factor of historical destiny playsthe most significant role in the Polish case, only respondents from two other coun-tries mentioned this issue as a reason for supporting EaP. Interest in the Easternpart of Europe is for Poland not a new agenda and the state was ”always verymuch interested in elevating the countries of our immediate proximity Eastwards”(WAW-10-01). By the beginning of the 20th Century there were ideas aboutcreating a ”belt of independent countries that have good relations with Polandwhich would be a sort of zone between us and Russia” (WAW-10-03). However,as explained by an interviewee, this dimension was not the most important onein connection with the Eastern Partnership project. The initiative is supposed toensure the independence of partner countries, their good relations with Polandas well as their democratisation. The aim of the policy is, according to an expertfrom a Polish think-tank, ”very simple [. . . ] to transform the neighbours to thatextend that they will be similar to us. In the sense of democracy and marketeconomy” (WAW-10-07).

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According to a Polish interviewee, there was a significant part of the intel-lectual circles in Poland that thought that Poland had historic responsibilitytowards the East and Eastern Partnership was a way to fulfil such a duty. Suchideas were based on the past and went several centuries back when there wasa Polish commonwealth including areas of Eastern Europe. Moreover, they hada ’romantic’ point of view that the EU abandoned the countries of the EasternPartnership and the Polish had to bring them back in for ”humanitarian” reasons(WAW-10-05). According to our respondents, there were such idealistic reasonsbehind the support of Eastern countries in the first place, economic issues thatwere also present played only a secondary role. The Polish political leaders werewithin the foreign policy ”always interested in bolstering up all these [modernisa-tion] tendencies and they were targeted at building fully pledged viable statehoodseastwards” (WAW-10-01). With this is in the mind of the Polish politicians whilsttalking about how their expertise is the reason behind their interest in the Eastin general and Eastern Partnership in particular (WAW-10-05). As explained byan expert from a think tank, ”Poland has an ambition to point to its expertise”in Eastern Europe, that it can help the rest of the EU to understand the regionand support the partner countries to come ”closer to the EU” (WAW-10-08).However, expertise was mentioned quite often during our interviews not only byPolish respondents, but also by respondents from other NMS. We will come backto this issue later in the paper when discussing geography as a factor in theexplaination of support for the EU.

In spite of this, the Polish did not believe that they had to do all the ’dirtywork’ and the countries of the Eastern Partnership were only supposed to be netrecipients of all the advantages of the cooperation within the initiative. On thecontrary, Eastern Partnership was only supported to boost and support partnercountries’ efforts to improve their democracy. As explained by a senior officialfrom the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they did not intend to clean up”Oglias stable[s]” of the partner countries. He added that, the EaP was onlysupposed to ”plays auxiliary role, it has only to support” the efforts of thecountries of the Eastern Partnership.

Besides Poland, only two other respondents mentioned arguments pertainingto this factor. A Slovakian interviewee expressed his opinion that ”we feel as a partof community that has good results historically and we want to be able to say in20 or 50 years that we managed to create a space where we feel relatively secure.We cannot claim that at this moment” (BTS-10-01). A Lithuanian intervieweeexplained that their support for the EaP is rooted in their conviction that thisproject will help the partner countries, that they ”are trying to make them bepro- more European, more civilised, more understandable” (NCS-08-28).

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Perceived Size

Perceived size is, together with geography, the most prominent factor within ouranalysis. It has very often been used as an argument in explaining support of East-ern Partnership. Countries whose representatives perceive them as small see EaPframework as a way in which they can positively influence their neighbourhood.They would not be able to do this outside of the EaP due to their limited ability toaffect the international environment. So for example, a Czech interviewee claimedthat the EU gives them the opportunity ”to express [their] opinion on topics thatwould be able to express anyway, but its voice would be irrelevant” (NCS-10-50).Similarly a Latvian respondent claimed that ”as a small country, we should beinterested in integration in a stronger core, in a stronger EU institution, becausethese can help us solve problems that we can’t solve ourselves” (NCS-09-41). Inthis way, difficult issues like relations with Russia and other Latvian neighboursto the east that are also challenging for other Baltic states, could be solved.

Commenting on EU membership, a Romanian respondent claimed that ”tobe part of this club, group of member state is of huge benefit. I mean we arewith the big voice, we are not alone strategically speaking” (NCS-09-33). In thisregard Romania differs from Poland in that it sees itself as a big EU memberstate. As explained by an official at the European Commission, Poland is ”acase by its own, because it is bigger [and has] more clear regional interests”(EUIN-08-09). As explained by a Latvian respondent, this is the main differencebetween Poland that ”can bring something” and other new member states of theEU that ”cannot by themselves put an initiative” (NCS-09-27). Due to its sizeit ”wants to be the centre of gravity in the region” (NCS-08-18). As a result ofthis tendency, ”Polish leaders stress[ed] national dimension of the initiative” whatmade ”central European communication a little bit more difficult” (WAW-10-08).The Polish considered themselves to be part of a Franco-German-Polish axis andthis position limited the ability of Visegrad Four in assuming a common positionon Eastern Partnership. Moreover for Poland, Eastern Partnership is also about”building their position inside the EU and to have influence on EU agenda of theEU foreign policy” (WAW-10-03). The Polish wanted to ’privatise’ the projectand presented it as their own, in spite of long cooperation with other countriesof the region on this issue.

However, the perceived size of Poland was not enough to push the initiativepassed the EU. As explained by our interviewee, Poland does not have a posi-tive perception within the EU thus it had to be improved by cooperation withother member states. Collaboration with V4 countries was very limited for theabove mentioned reasons and Poland looked for another, stronger, partner for theproject. EaP was proposed together with Sweden (and backed up by Germany)that was ”a proof of ability and of feasibility of the project” (WAW-10-05).Sweden is, contrary to Poland, considered neutral and technically oriented, itis ”respectable and not constrained by particular interests” (WAW-10-08), it is

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a country ”with a big prestige in the EU” (WAW-10-07). Therefore to team upwith Sweden had a crucial impact on the project. Moreover, Germany also hadan important position in the launching of EaP. As explained by a Slovak official,if Germany ”support[s] these processes, it means that the whole EU support[s]them”. Without Germany, ”we can have many projects [. . . ] but they will not besuccessful” (BTS-10-01). In general, other smaller NMS prefer cooperation withmember countries of similar sizes, since these countries are far more similar tothem and therefore, cooperation can be more fruitful and mutually beneficial.For example, as explained by a Czech respondent, they like cooperation withmember states, that are ”of similar size” and they ”do not focus [their] attentionon countries like France or Britain, simply because they have different weight,different capacity, agenda, ability [. . . ] and different interests” (NCS-10-50). AnEstonian representative claimed that they ”cannot compete with the big ones,even if we say something first” because ”the big beast would take over”. How-ever, ”they do not take it too emotionally” (NCS-08-25). Similarly, a Lithuanianrespondent explained that sometimes there is ”London and Berlin to decide forus” which does not bring about the desired outcomes (NCS-08-18). The solutionto this problem is cooperation with other smaller member states and therefore,they prefer such members for intra EU collaboration and coalition building.

Geography

One of the main arguments used by our respondents in explaining support for thenew member states of the Eastern Partnership was geography in general and closegeographical proximity to partner countries in particular. As a Polish intervieweeclaimed, ”obviously the geographical proximity is crucial” in connection with theproject (WAW-10-07). The focus of the newcomers on the EaP was a ”result ofproximity of East” (EXP-08-02). From a Slovakian point of view, ”it is absolutelogical interest of countries neighbouring with Ukraine and Belarus to stabilisethis area” (BTS-10-01). However, most newcomers prefer the counties that arenearest to them, meaning that they are far more supportive of the Ukraine,Belarus and Moldova, ”the really neighbouring countries” (WAW-10-07). As ex-plained by a Slovakian interviewee ”it would be very difficult to operate in Georgiaor Armenia, we do not have the capacity, we do not have even embassy there.Therefore we focus on countries that are closer to us” (BTS-10-01). Accordingly,they wanted Belorussia to be part of the initiative. There were some traditionaltrade relations with Southern Caucasus countries and some political sympathy,however, ”the relationship was not that strong” (EXP-08-06).

For the very same reason to, Slovenia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania theEastern Partnership is not the most important foreign policy priority and theyconcentrate more on the Western Balkans which are much closer to them. How-ever, they use very similar arguments claiming that they share common borderswith Balkan countries, understand the area and have long-term contact with

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them. As explained by a Hungarian official at their permanent representation,”because of our geographical location [. . . ] Western Balkan is a priority” (NCS-09-32). Another respondent claimed that ”Bulgarian interests are very muchinfluenced by the fact that we are the external border of the EU vis-a-vis thesecountries” (NCS-09-34).

The other new members, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, the Baltic States andPoland support Eastern Partnership because they believe that they have thecapacity to deal with the region and understand its peculiarities much better then”western” members of the EU. As explained by a Czech interviewee, ”the East ismuch closer to us. We have better knowledge, better possibilities” (PRG-10-02).Czechs engaged in the eastern dimension of the European Neighbourhood Policyfollowing their entrance into the EU in order to fill the foreign policy ’vacuum’created after 2004. The launch of EaP was set to be during the Czech presidencyof the Council as the Czechs wanted to present themselves in ”an area in which thepresiding country excels at” (PRG-10-01). A Latvian official also added that ”wehave more emotional relation with these countries than other European countries”(NCS-09-41). Slovak interviewee claimed that ”we know the area, we know theirmentality, we know what they went thought, what does it mean” (BTS-10-01).

Very often, the expertise of NMS in the southern and post-colonial worldwas compared with the ”eastern” competence of the newcomers. According toa Polish respondent, since Poland ”is located eastward [. . . ] we do not come toSpaniards to teach them a lesson how to deal with Morocco or Algeria. They knowmuch better” (WAW-10-01). On the other hand, ”Ukraine or Belarus have theirspecial mentality, but we definitely understand them better that the Netherlandsor Portugal” (BTS-10-01). So while the old EU ”was much more oriented inforeign policy area on the post-colonial world, which they know much better[. . . ] we know much better East [. . . ] [it] is much closer to us, we have betterknowledge” (NCS-10-50). Therefore, old members ”secured their southern partof the Neighbourhood Policy” and the new members did the same with the east(NCS-09-37).

The aim of the EaP should be, according to NMS, to bring partner countriescloser to the EU, ”to have an open space and friendly guys close to your home”(NCS-09-37). New members ”support everything that would bring [eastern part-ners] closer to the EU” (NCS-08-13). The area between eastern member states ofthe EU and Russia is not stable and EaP countries are in a volatile situation, thereis often statehood at stake. The aim of the project is to secure their independence.In order to do this, it is, according to our interviewees, important to tie them tointernational organisation. They promote ”bigger EU engagement in the easternneighbourhood” (NCS-08-24), because ”not only EU has to be safe, but also itsneighbours should be” (NCS-08-23).

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Attitudes towards further integration

New member states were in general very supportive of further enlargement ofthe EU to the East and did not perceive possible future enlargement as a threatto their current status and their benefits from membership. In other words, theabsorbent capacity was not an issue for the newcomers during the period beforeand shortly after the launch of the Eastern Partnership. We have found supportfor this claim in answers from respondents from many new members, in spite ofthe fact that these issues were not mentioned very often during the interviews.

A Bulgarian representative claimed that existing European NeighbourhoodPolicy framework was not enough and that they supported ”more intensive di-alogue with Moldova, Georgia and other Black Sea countries” (NCS-08-05). AHungarian representative explained that the two most important issues in con-nection with EaP were visa facilitation and free trade agreements. The samepriorities were also the most important for Lithuania. Among the partner coun-tries, Hungarians were especially in favour of membership for those countries,which ”are neighbours or [. . . ] are pro-enlargement” (NCS-08-10). A Romanianrespondent even supported his argument for the deepening of the EU by pointingto the development in Eastern Europe. He claimed that ”because of our recenthistory and geopolitical situation, we are strong advocates for the deepening ofthe EU. Being close to eastern countries, the Black Sea etc, we can see whatinstability can mean” (NCS-09-33).

In spite of this generally supportive opinion, there were also negative positions.Czech respondents commented on their dilemma claiming, that ”on the one hand,there is this clear Czech proclamation saying that we support Ukrainian or evenTurkish membership in the EU, but on the other hand, there is this pragmatic,a bit xenophobic public discourse that shows fear towards the East and perceiveit as a source of criminality, jeopardy, instability and terrorism” (PRG-10-01). Asimilar opinion was also expressed by an official from the European Commission.He claimed that NMS were very enthusiastic about future enlargement shortlyafter their entry, however, this was later ”replaced by more cautious statements”(EUIN-08-08).

Attitudes towards immigration

Only very limited evidence from our interviews supports immigration as a factorexplaining the stance towards Eastern Partnership. One the one hand, accordingto an official from the Commission, new members were quite interested in issuesrelated to migration, management of external borders and asylum procedures.However, in connection with Eastern Partnership this issue did not belong amongthe prominent ones and only very few of our interviewees discussed this subject.For example, for Poland the EaP also posed the question of their minority inBelarus where there is about 400 thousand Polish people. Therefore, the initiative

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was supposed to, in addition to other issues, improve the lives of the minority.This issue concerned predominantly Belarus, it is not that prominent in the caseof the Ukraine where there is only a small Polish minority.

For Slovakia and the Czech Republic, this issue was more important, althoughit was not as prominent as other aspects of Eastern Partnership. Accordingto a Slovakian respondent, the Partnership should help avoid the ”situationfrom August 2008 [and] to prevent huge migration flows, to solve step-by-stepfrozen conflicts in these countries” (BTS-10-02). There are possible migrationflows from Eastern countries to the Union since the demography in Europehas negative development and there ”is this tendency [of the inhabitants ofthe third countries] to come closer to prosperous European area” (BTS-10-01).However, this is not only the case with Eastern countries, the issue concerns ”alldirections, definitely including south”. The situation ”force you to find solutionsand take actions that stabilize your area” (BTS-10-01). Such claims supportthe argument that migration is a factor influencing the stance taken regardingEastern Partnership. However, this was not the general position and was onlyexpressed by one Slovakian respondent. Migration was not explicitly included inEuropean Partnership which was criticized by a Czech interviewee. He claimedthat migration ”should be the key topic” because there are many thousands ofUkrainians in the Czech Republic and this issue needs more attention at EU level(PRG-10-01). However, he admitted that the issue was not discussed at Czechnational level.

Discussion and Conclusions

Our analysis has brought several insights into the nature of support for EasternPartnership by NMS as well as into the explanatory value of the analyticalframework proposed by Copsey and Haughton (2009). This section is going todiscuss these issues and explore which factors were able to explain support for EUnewcomers towards Eastern Partnership. Historical destiny, as a factor explainingthe stance towards EaP was present predominantly in the Polish case. Represen-tatives of other member states did not stress this issue very often. Poles claimedthat it was their duty to help countries in the east because of historical ties withthese states. Eastern Partnership could represent such help since it could supportthe partner countries and their democracy whilst bringing them closer to theEU. A far more important factor seems to be perceived size which was the mostcommonly mentioned reason alongside geography. Contrary to the assumptionpresented by Copsey and Haughton (2009), small EU member states withouta perception of their ’greatness’ were firm supporters of EaP. These countriesutilised the policy for improving relations with the states involved in the EaPand Russia or increasing their influence within the Union. Only Poland has theability to individually shape EU policies and initiatives, other new members haveto cooperate in order to have some impact on the EU. Additionally, the smaller

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newcomers prefer cooperation with states of similar size, as the big countries thatbehave like ’big beasts’ are difficult to cooperate with as they are trying to dictatethe conditions of collaboration.

Contrary to all other NMS, Polish representatives perceived their state as abig one and Poland acted accordingly. This made cooperation much more difficulteven with its closest neighbours within the Visegrad four (Poland, the CzechRepublic, Slovakia, and Hungary). Romania, another larger new member did nothave such a self-perception and was much more inclined to prefer cooperationwith other small member states. However, Poland was not able to push throughEastern Partnership on its own. Although it was very influential within theCentral European region, its reputation at EU level was poor at that time andPoland struggled with a bad image in Brussels (Copsey & Pomorska 2010). As aresult, it needed a partner within the EU in order to push the Eastern Partnershipproposal through . To do this, Poland collaborated on the proposal with Swedenwhich had a much better image resulting in a greater chance of success in thismatter. Sweden was a guarantee of quality.

In line with the theoretical assumptions regarding the enlargement of theEU, new members especially supported countries with the nearest proximity(geographical factor) and this is also the reason behind the promotion of EasternPartnership. This was also true within the initiative itself: Belarus, the Ukraineand Moldova were much better supported than the Southern Caucasus states.However, due to the very same reason, some of the newcomers (Hungary, Slovenia,Romania and Bulgaria) preferred cooperation with their immediate neighbours:Western Balkan or Black Sea countries. Proximity means that they have closerelations with their neighbourhood and they understand the challenges of thesecountries. It is very similar to the situation of the old members who know theirneighbours to the south very well . The new members were rather supportive whenit came to further enlargement to the east and claimed that it would not restrictthe ability of the EU to integrate deeper. However, there was not much evidencefor this factor found in the interviews. A limited number of statements were alsofound in relation to the last examined factor: attitudes towards immigration. ForSlovakia and the Czech Republic Eastern Partnership was a way to stabilise theirneighbourhood and thus prevent undesired immigration. For Poland it was alsoa question of their minority in Belarus.

To sum up, the two most important factors explaining the position of NMStowards Eastern Partnership were perceived size and geography, in the Polishcase, historical destiny/sense of self-importance was also significant. We can drawtwo main conclusions from this. The first one concerns the explanatory value ofthe utilised analytical framework. There is a big overlap between the two areas ofpolicy: Foreign policy and Wider Europe, presented by Copsey and Haughton(2009). Therefore, this article proposes to merge these policy areas into onebroader area of policy called External relations, with just two factors: perceivedsize and geography. We assume that member countries support institutionalised

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cooperation with the countries within close proximity. The large EU memberstates try to shape external relations according to their preferences, while thesmall ones prefer coalition-building and utilise this cooperation for increasingtheir influence on third countries.

The second finding concerning Poland is that of an exemption among newmembers. It differs in many aspects from other newcomers and also from Romaniawhich belongs amongst bigger EU member states, but does not have such a self-perception. Poland wants to resemble older member states and the assumptionsdeveloped by old members and by Copsey and Haughton (2009) fit Poland muchbetter than other NMS. From this point of view, we can thus include Polandamong the old and big members. The only challenge Poland has to face in this areais its perception by other member states that ascribe to its rather negative image.This was also the reason why Poland proposed Eastern Partnership together withSweden which has the opposite, very positive, image within the EU.

Acknowledgement

The work on this article was supported by the Slovak Research and DevelopmentAgency grant no. APVV-0484-10. I would like to thank all the interviewees fortheir willingness to take part in the research and for sharing their knowledge withme.

Attachment: List of interviewees

EUIN-08-08, senior official, European Neighbourhood Policy, European Commis-sion, Brussels, 7.10.2008EUIN-08-09, member of the Cabinet of DG Regio, European Commission, Brus-sels, 4.12.2008EUIN-09-11, member of cabinet DG Education, European Commission, Brussels,3.10. 2009EUIN-09-12, Deputy Head, Relations with Member States and EEA States, DGDevelopment, European Commission, Brussels, 3.10.2009EUIN-09-13, senior official, DG Justice, Freedom and Security, European Com-mission, Brussels, 3.10.2009EXP-08-02, research fellow, Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, 6.12.2008EXP-08-05, research fellow, European Policy Centre, Brussels, 9.10.2008EXP-08-06, research fellow, Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, 9.10.2008NCS-08-03, ambassador, Permanent representation of Slovenia to the EU, Brus-sels, 30.9.2008NCS-08-05:8, senior officials, Permanent representation of Bulgaria to the EU,Brussels, 1.10.2008NCS-08-09, ambassador, Permanent representation of Estonia to the EU, Brus-sels, 7.10.2008

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NCS-08-10, senior official, Permanent representation of Hungary to the EU, Brus-sels, 7.10.2008NCS-08-13, ambassador, Permanent representation of Latvia to the EU, Brussels,8.10.2008NCS-08-18, senior official, Permanent representation of Lithuania to the EU,Brussels, 15.10.2008NCS-08-22, senior official, Permanent representation of Estonia to the EU, Brus-sels, 1.12.2008NCS-08-23, member of the European Parliament, Brussels, 2.12.2008NCS-08-24, first secretary, Permanent representation of Romania to the EU,Brussels, 3.12.2008NCS-08-25, ambassador, Permanent representation of Estonia to the EU, Brus-sels, 3.12.2008NCS-08-27, counsellor, Permanent representation of Latvia to the EU, Brussels,2.12.2008NCS-08-28, third secretary, Permanent representation of Lithuania to the EU,Brussels, 3.12.2008NCS-08-29, PSC ambassador, Permanent representation of Lithuania to the EU,Brussels, 4.12.2008NCS-09-30, first secretary, Permanent representation of Romania to the EU,Brussels, 9.3.2009NCS-09-31, ambassador, Permanent representation of Poland to the EU, Brussels,9.3.2009NCS-09-32, 2nd secretary, Special Advisor to the Permanent Representative,Permanent representation of Hungary to the EU, Brussels, 9.3.2009NCS-09-33, deputy permanent representative, Permanent representation of Ro-mania to the EU, Brussels, 10.3.2009NCS-09-34, counsellor, Permanent representation of Bulgaria to the EU, Brussels,10.3.2009NCS-09-35, minister plenipotentiary, Permanent representation of Slovenia to theEU, Brussels, 10. 3. 2009NCS-09-37, head of Financial Affairs, Permanent representation of the CzechRepublic to the EU, Brussels, 11.3.2009NCS-09-39, ambassador, Permanent representation of the Czech Republic to theEU, Brussels, 11.3. 2009NCS-09-40, attache for Monetary and Banking Affairs, Permanent representationof Lithuania to the EU, Brussels, 11.3.2009NCS-09-41, counsellor, Permanent representation of Latvia to the EU, Brussels,11.3.2009NCS-09-42, first secretary, Permanent representation of the Czech Republic tothe EU, Brussels, 12.3. 2009NCS-09-48, member of Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats, mem-ber of managing board of Young Conservative League, Vilnius, 20.3.2009

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NCS-10-50, senior official, Permanent representation of the Czech Republic tothe EU, Brussels, 10.5.2010PRG-10-01, researcher, Institute of international Relations, Prague, 6.10.2010PRG-10-02, researcher, Association for International Relations, Prague, 13.10.2010PRG-10-03, senior official, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the CR, Prague, 25.10.2010BTS-10-01, director of department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the SR, Bratislava,26.1.2010BTS-10-02, director of department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the SR, Bratislava,26.1.2010BTS-10-03, director of department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the SR, Bratislava,28.1.2010BTS-10-04, researcher, Slovak Foreign Policy Association, Bratislava, 12.2.2010BTS-10-06, senior official, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the SR, Bratislava,12.2.2010WAW-10-01, director of department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, War-saw, 24.5.2010WAW-10-03, researcher, Centre for Eastern Studies, Warsaw, 25.5.2010WAW-10-05, senior official, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, Warsaw, 26.5.2010WAW-10-07, researcher, The Polish Institute of International Affairs, Warsaw,27.5.2010WAW-10-08, researcher, Centre for Eastern Studies, Warsaw, 27.5.2010

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Renata Kunert-Milcarz

EU Initiatives for Democratisation in Eastern Europe

Abstract

Support for democratisation and democracy has become one of theleading topics in a wide-ranging debate over the state of democracy in thecontemporary world. The European Union became an important player inglobal politics, one with an ambitious programme for the spreading andsupporting of democracy and the process of democratisation in EasternEurope. Hence the author’s attempt at addressing the following question:what actions and strategies have and are being undertaken by the EU to fa-cilitate the above-mentioned processes? The aim of the paper is to describeand assess the strategies and actions of the European Union in the fieldof supporting democratisation and democracy in selected countries of theformer USSR (e.g. Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine), additionallywell-fitting to the concept of Eastern Partnership, in the last decade ofXX and the first decade of XXI Century. The paper also aims to presentwhich procedures and standards (that are supposed to guarantee theirusefulness and effectiveness) are being used by the EU. The emphasis hasbeen placed primarily on the processes of democratisation, their mileage,specificity and possible strategies for supporting democratic development,as well as its potential for consolidation, in the countries of the formerSoviet Union. In order to conduct the research it is necessary to assess thepolitical, social and economic conditions in the researched countries. It isto be stressed that one should be aware of the complexity and dynamics ofthe described processes whilst evaluating the EU’s initiatives. The paperstopic was chosen due to the importance and currentness of the researchedEU actions and their results.Keywords: EU initiatives, support for democratisation, Eastern Europe

Introduction

Numerous international actors (such as countries, organisations and various non-governmental organisations) these days, are keen on supporting actions thatproliferate democracy, rule of law and human rights on a global scale. EasternEurope is one of the regions that lies within their scope. Economic aids forthe creation of new institutions, as well as trade agreements offered by variousactors, are oriented towards promoting the political liberalisation and facilitationof democratic consolidation. The changes in Central and Eastern Europe thatstarted in 1989 concluded in the creation of a new international environmentconducive for democratisation. The European Union (EU) is, amongst others,an actor that promotes democracy, rule of law and human rights. One of themain goals pursued by the EU within the scope of Common Foreign and Security

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Policy (CFSP) has been the development and consolidation of democracy andrule of law as well as the protection of human rights, fundamental rights andfreedoms. Giddens (2007, pp. 201-202) states that ’the events of 1989 more orless completely transformed the nature of EU’ and at the present time it ’faces anew world’, i.e. because of the newly created situation which has been linked byorigin to the ’open border to the East’. Such values as democratisation, humanrights, rule of law and pluralism have been included in various documents, e.g.Partnership and Cooperation Agreements (PCA), declarations of the EuropeanCouncil, Maastricht Treaty, Lome Convention, Lisbon Treaty. Additionally, theCopenhagen criteria of 1993 for the present incorporation of democratic valuessuch as conditio sine qua non for obtaining EU membership. Development aidfor post-communist countries has been granted under the condition of warrantingrespect for human rights (Kubicek 2003, 1). Broader provisions on democracy andhuman rights have been included in the Declaration of Human Rights of 28/29June, 1991 and in the Declaration of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of 12April, 1989. Both documents are formally non-binding, however, in a documentfrom 1989, called Declaration of the European Union on the occasion of the 50thanniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the EU refers to theanniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, stress-ing that the EU ’pledges its continuing support for the further promotion andprotection of human rights, in fulfilment of the Treaty on the European Union,the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and FundamentalFreedoms and the Declarations of the European Council of Luxembourg 1991and 1997, and adopts the following Declaration’. The EU has added that it,itself ‘is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rightsand fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, share the values in which theDeclaration is rooted’.

Chosen initiatives of the European Union

The paper attempts to address the following question: what actions and strategieswere and are undertaken by the EU to facilitate the above-mentioned processes?This paper is a continuation of the research started during the author’s PhDstudies. The study demonstrated that there is a broad catalogue of documentsregarding the EU’s relations with the countries of the former Soviet Union in thecontext of democratisation. Within the judicial realm of the European Union,a system for protecting human rights started to develop in the late 1990’s. Itsorigin has been connected with the deepening integration of the Member States,ongoing work on the EU’s Constitution, as well as the Charter of FundamentalRights of the European Union, proclaimed in Nice, 2000. According to the HelsinkiSummit in December 1999, promotion and support for democracy were to becomean integral part of the EU enlargement strategy (Whitehead 2003, p. 416). On thelist, the following should also be included: signed PCA’s, European Neighbourhood

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Policy (ENP), which has been initiated by the European Neighbourhood PolicyStrategy Paper, new cooperation instruments: Action Plans (AP) and EasternPartnership (EaP) program, implemented under the framework of the ENP. Thelast two enlargements in 2004 and 2007 moved the EU border to the East resultingin a new geopolitical situation (see Kapusniak 2009, pp. 58-59). It is imperativethat support for democratisation must not be aimed at imposing one’s ownsolutions or securing particular interests. All undertaken actions should warrantand facilitate the autonomous and active participation of citizens in political life.

PCA’s were the documents introduced to facilitate trade by helping post com-munist countries meet the WTO standards. The agreements defined aims in thefield of consolidation democracy and the development of the economy of Centraland Eastern European countries. The documents included a provision for allowinga free trade area in the future and a number of specific provisions regulating tradeaccording to the program Technical Assistance to CIS (TACIS). TACIS was laterreplaced by the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI),which is a financial instrument that implements the objectives of the ENP. ENPIwas introduced in 2007 on the basis of Regulation No 1638/2006 of the EuropeanParliament and of the Council of 26th October 2006. It was designed to promotecooperation between EU and the countries of the so-called ’Circle of Friends’,which includes Ukraine, Belarus and the Mediterranean countries. The new in-strument is supported by two programs, TAIEX and Sigma, both designed to helpthe countries acquire the skills and experience necessary for the implementationof EU legislation (Pazdniak 2009, p. 23). TAIEX is an instrument managed bythe Directorate-General for Enlargement of the European Commission. Its scopeincludes helping partner countries implement new legislation in line with EUstandards, to strengthen public administration, to adjust the present legislationto EU standards and to support the implementation of ENP. The purpose of theSigma program is to strengthen public administration in countries neighboring theEU in order to bolster economic and political freedoms and to facilitate economicintegration and political cooperation between the EU and its neighbours.

ENP has its roots in the Anglo-Danish project called New Neighbours Ini-tiative of 2002, which was to include Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. ENP wasintroduced in march 2003. It has been perceived as a framework policy for therelations within the entire EU neighbourhood. Through this initiative, the EUwas supposed to play a more active political role aimed mainly at the stabilisationof the enlarged Union (Casier 2007, 73). The countries covered by the ENP wereoriginally divided into two groups: Western Newly Independent States (Ukraine,Moldova and Belarus) and the states of the southern Mediterranean. However,after the peaceful revolution in Georgia in 2003, the European Commission hasadded a third group consisting of the South Caucasian Republics (Nervi 2011, 66).There were Action Plans prepared for every mentioned country. Progress Reportswere also prepared accordingly, reporting on progress in the strengthening ofdemocracy, rule of law and respect for human rights, as they were designed

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to present a review of the practical implementation of the ENP. In spite ofundertaken actions focusing on the adaptation of EU standards, especially in thefield of structural and legislative reforms, the EU stressed the little progress thathas been made. Hence, the next idea was a Polono-Swedish initiative: EasternPartnership, which has been sanctioned by the European Council (19/20 March2009). EaP has been officially inaugurated at the EU’s summit in Prague (7 May2009), by means of the Joint Declaration of the Prague Eastern Partnership Sum-mit. The programme has been oriented towards Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus,Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Despite vivid activity at the beginning, Swedishinvolvement in the program weakened with time (Ivan & Ghinea 2010). Polandhowever, continued to be an active supporter of EaP which has been reflectedin declarations issued during the polish presidency (July–December 2011) thatproposed the intensification of actions in the eastern dimension. The EU as awhole was not that involved as Nicolas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown, Silvio Berlusconiand Jose Luis Zapatero were not present at the Prague Summit (Ivan & Ghinea2010; also see Joint Declaration. . . ). Moreover, the critical economic situation inGreece as well as the political crisis in Libya resulted in the changing of prioritiesin EU foreign policy (Makarychev & Deviatkov 2012).

The partnership aimed at the strengthening of relations between the EU andits eastern neighbours contains several points. One of the vital point was toobserve the obligations of international law as well as fundamental values suchas democracy and rule of law. Joint Declaration concludes that ‘The participantsof the Prague Summit are confident that the results of the Prague Summit andthe establishment of Eastern Partnership will advance the cause of democracy,strengthen stability and prosperity whilst bringing lasting and palpable benefitsfor citizens of all participating states. The participants of the Prague Summitwill work closely to achieve the objectives envisaged by this Joint Declaration”.Bilateral relations between the EU and EaP countries are built upon associationagreements (AAs), Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTA) and visaliberalisation agreements. The multilateral character of the relations encompassesareas related to four thematical platforms: democracy, good governance andstability; economic integration and convergence within EU policy; energy securityand people to people contacts. Additionally, there are several flagship initiativese.g: integrated border management and diversification of energy supply (Ivan &Ghinea 2010).

Based on the EC document Communication from the Commission to the Euro-pean Parliament and the Council from December 2008, the Eastern PartnershipCivil Society Forum (CSF) has been established with the goal of supportingcontacts between civil society organisations that facilitate dialogue with stateauthorities. A parliamentary component of EaP, named Euronest, is an assemblyof sixty MEPs and MP’s of the partnership countries (Ivan and Ghinea), withthe exclusion of Belarus which has been suspended in 2010 because of the flawedpresidential elections.

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Post-communist countries as objects of EU initiatives

How particular post-communist countries such as Belarus, Georgia, Moldova andUkraine have favoured as a result of EU initiatives? Gorbachev’s glasnost’ policyhad a powerful impact on the soon to be independent soviet states. Decompo-sition of the USSR has been received with mixed feelings across the West. Thepost-soviet countries were commonly believed to be temporary creations. Thisnew geopolitical layout actually forced the EU to try to adjust to the changedenvironment.

The geopolitical location of Georgia, placed between Armenia, oil-rich Azer-baijan, the Black Sea, Turkey and Russia, as well as its controversial relations withRF, have resulted in Georgia’s importance for western politics. A peaceful roserevolution could be considered the first change within the former Soviet Union(apart from the Baltic states), that has been perceived as an significant steptowards democracy in the area (Mitchel 2006). The foundation of the relations be-tween the EU and Georgia is PCA, which was signed in 1996 and came into forceon 1st July, 1999. The Individual Action Plan signed in November, 2006 as partof the ENP, was aimed at deepening political and economic cooperation. Ongoingchanges were unfortunately hampered by the Russo-Georgian war of 2008, whichresulted in difficulties for EU actions within the region. Diplomatic efforts wereundertaken and led to a preliminary agreement between conflicting sides. Notwithout significance are Georgia’s internal problems. In November 2007, protestsbroke out in Tbilisi. M. Saakashvili’s response was the introduction of martial law.These events were met with disapproval from the West. The EU unanimouslycriticised the actions of the president. A major consequence of the Novemberissues was the early presidential election of January 5th, 2008, won once againby M. Saakashvili. Then the introduced EaP, the next step in Brussels-Tbilisirelations was generally well received by Georgian authorities; relief aid providedfor the country only strengthened this perception. However, the overall relationsbetween the two actors is not regular and focuses mainly on energy issues whilstefforts to support domestic reforms have not had any significant effect. Rightafter the rose revolution, it seemed that Georgia was ready for the consolidationof democratic achievements. But the problems with territorial integrity, conflictwith Russia and the lack of strong democratic neighbours have resulted in adifficult environment for the consolidation of the system and the actions of theEU (see Mitchel 2006). The authoritarian traits of the latest president of Georgia,perceived at first as a liberal and pro-western politician have only added to theproblems. Once again, the tension in the country increased in May 2011. InTbilisi, there were anti-government demonstrations that ended in clashes withthe police, which was a subject of international condemnation. Bidzina Ivanishvilibecame the prime minister of Georgia in October 2012, after his Georgian Dreamcoalition won the election. As for the recent presidential election, the CentralElection Commission of Georgia (CEC of Georgia) announced the preliminary

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results of the October 27th Presidential Elections of Georgia. The preliminaryresults indicated that Georgi Margvelashvili, the candidate from Prime MinisterB. Ivanishvili’s party, received about 62.11 per cent of the vote (CEC of Georgia,2013). Georgia’s last elections ended Mikheil Saakashvili’s decade-long rule. HelenKhoshtaria, known as an independent political analyst, commented: “This isnot only a presidential election, but it’s also a major change in the politicalsystem in Georgia”. So then, where is Georgia going after that? The pictureis that the Georgian Dream has taken a similar path, but sought better tieswith Russia (Antidze & Heritage 2013). However, on 17 November, after theinauguration of the new president, changes in the constitution will come intoforce: the presidential system, created by Saakashvili, will be superseded by acabinet-parliamentary one. As a result of the changes, the present governmentwill be replaced by a new one, most probably headed by Irakli Garibashvili (CivilGeorgia 2013).

In Georgia, there are constant efforts being undertaken to restore South Os-setia and Abkhazia to the borders of the state. The absence of strong democraticneighbours and endless conflicts with Russia have created a complicated contextfor the consolidation of democracy. Supporting democracy should focus on localparticipation and the practices of a ‘bottom-up‘ approach to complement thetraditional ‘top-down’ procedures. Georgia’s experience illustrates how difficultand complex a task it can be building a sustainable democracy, despite adequatefunding and commitment from both the side of the U.S.A. and of Europe (Pan2009). Relations between the EU and Moldova have developed slowly. PCA withMoldova was signed on 28 November 1994 and came into force on 1 July 1998. Itturned out however, to be an insufficient platform for cooperation between Brus-sels and Chisinau. Popescu (2009) believes that ‘because the Voronin governmentswere not interested in democratization, Moldova ended-up in quasi-isolation withonly a handful of foreign dignitaries ever visiting the country and EU onlyreluctantly cooperating with Moldova’. An invitation to join the ENP issuedin 2004 to Moldova, has been received with a good dose of content. The Act ofAP between the EU and the Republic of Moldova, formed as a part of ENP,was supposed to reflect, at least partially, the stances of both sides. The maingoal became support for political, economic and institutional reforms. Amongstthe priorities were listed: designing a solution for the Transnistria question,support for institutions warranting democracy and rule of law, strengtheningindependence of the media, support for administration and juridical system,introducing actions aimed at reducing poverty and the facilitation of stableeconomic growth.

The results of the progress report in Moldova were much argued about. Thegovernment was claiming successes, yet NGOs were presenting mostly criticalapproaches to the driven reforms. Furthermore, EU institutions were expressingtheir concern as well. The chief culprits were the incompetency and ineptitude ofthe policy makers. In the document Planul De Actiuni Ue-Rm: restante Sau ESeC

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Total? Mızarari (2008) is listed a catalog of obstacles hindering the implemen-tation of the Action Plan and a set of possible solutions to amend the situationwithout the promotion of any party interests. The author pointed out i.a. the lackof political will to implement the reforms planned in the AP and the influence ofthe imperialist RF. From the standpoint of Moldovans, especially after the lastEU enlargement, visa policy is one of the most sensitive areas (Ghinea & Chirila2010).

The crisis within the European Union (the failure of the adoption of theConstitutional Treaty) and the disappointment in Chisinau’s slow progression inimplementing reforms caused a deterioration of the already poor relations betweenBrussels and Chisinau. However, in connection with the accession of Romania tothe EU, Brussels found itself under pressure to solve the problem of Moldova’sexpectations in relation to integration into the EU and additionally the role ofEU policy in Moldova has increased significantly.

ENP was aiming at reforming the electoral law, juridical system, fightingcorruption and developing a solution for the conflict in Transnistria. For Moldova,EaP meant progress in relations with the EU, however the lack of prospect ofmembership was received with disappointment. Among the factors hinderingdemocratic changes could be listed governments formed by communists (2001-2009), double-track policy led by V. Voronin, political crisis within the pro-integration faction, a disastrous economic situation, strong polarisation betweenpro-European and pro-Russian orientations and the frozen conflict in Transnis-tria. In May 2011, Moldovan authorities issued a document in the form of anon-paper addressed to the European Union: Proposals of the Republic of Moldovaon the future development of the Eastern Partnership. This act expressed theposition of Chisinau on the Eastern Partnership as a political instrument, which inMoldova’s opinion should include a clear statement of the prospect of membershipfor those countries that would be able to comply with the Union, calling for aredefinition of the priorities of the EaP. The authorities stressed, that in thelong run EaP will become more important for the RM, as long as it is closer toachieving the goal of integration into EU structures.

Relations between Brussels and Chisinau are deepening at a fairly slow pace.This is caused by the Transnistrian conflict, internal problems and the presence ofRussian troops on the territory of RM. What is more, in the view of researchers,EU elites continue to perceive Moldova through the prism of the Soviet republicsbelonging to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), not as part ofEurope. An important factor here is the indecision to take action to confrontRussia and its influences.

Of the countries participating in EaP, Moldova is at present the only onewhere the majority of the population supports the idea of the integration andwhich keeps on a strong pro-European course. In Chisinau, there is a strongdetermination to join EU structures. This, however, is not reflected in the EU’spolitical elites’ perception for further enlargement. To recapitulate the above-

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mentioned, it could be concluded that the actions of the EU towards Moldovaare not the result of a coordinated and deliberate political strategy. While they areimplemented, it is mainly under the pressure from new members seeking to boosttheir influence on shaping EU policy in the East. The association agreement andDCFTA will initialise at the Vilnius Eastern Partnership Summit in November2013.

Summarising the above issues, it can be concluded that the EU’s policytowards Moldova is not a result of a coordinated and deliberate political strategy.Most of the actions are undertaken under the pressure from new members seekingto extend their influence on the formation of EU policy in the Eastern dimension.

Relations between Ukraine and the European Union from the mid-1990s weremainly being developed within the second and third pillar, and in particular atthe level of CFSP common strategies (which ceased to be binding in December2004).

The first step in the strengthening of relations was the signing of the PCAin June 1994 which came into force on 1 March 1998 in order to provide acomprehensive and broad framework for cooperation between both actors. TheEuropean Union’s approach has not changed significantly post the orange revolu-tion. The authorities in Kiev have accepted the European Neighbourhood Policybeing dismayed and simultaneously being placed in the same category as thecountries of North Africa and the Middle East (Gromadzki & Suszko 2005, p.4). It has also been stressed by Kubicek (2007, p. 1), who argued that the term‘neighborhood’ was unfortunate in the eyes of Ukrainians, possibly indicatingthat Ukraine lies outside of Europe. It is worth noting that a positive opinion onthe implementation of the Action Plan, prepared by the European Commission inlate 2006, primed economic growth and opened the prospect of further funding.However, the political crisis within the pro-integration faction and the slowingdown of internal reforms were the limiting factors affecting the development ofrelations with the EU. It could be argued that the EU does not have an overallstrategy regarding Ukraine. It has been suggested that Ukraine is seen primarilyas a part of relations with Russia.

The philosophy of ENP has turned out to be unfavorable. The EU placedhigh demands, offering no prospect of membership in return and treating Ukrainethrough the prism of ”neighbour” of Europe. The ambiguous attitude of Ukraineshould also be noted, particulary its slow progress towards democracy since theend of the peaceful revolution. A new proposal for cooperation is EaP, whichaims at integration with EU policies and the common market. It could be anencouragement to the continuation of the internal reforms. Lack of recognition ofthe principles of democracy, rule of law, free market and their actual applicationin public life as well as the attitude of the citizens towards the EU is inhibitingthe EU in promoting democracy. Potocki (2001, pp. 222-223) concludes that “thedesire to unite with Europe is for the average citizen of Ukraine comparableto the desire of the peasant’s son to marry a nobleman’s daughter it is both

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comfortable and ennobling, but on the other hand, weird”. This comparisonmay be considered rather offensive for the inhabitants of the western part ofUkraine, however. On the other hand, Nowak mentions a role, which Ukraineplays in the international environment, paying attention to the region and itsspecial relationship with RM and Belarus. He stresses that Ukraine has becomean important entity in the European security system, e.g. a guardian hamperingillegal cross-border movement, trafficking, drugs and arms smuggling, plus asignificant actor in UE foreign policy (Nowak 2008, pp. 57-58). The Head ofthe European Union Delegation to Ukraine, Ambassador Jan Tombiński, whileinaugurating the European Cultural Week in Kiev on 14 May 2013, said that“Ukraine is (...) a part of Europe’s cultural space and we hope it will come closerto the EU this year” (Euukrainecoop 2013).

Ukrainian authorities’ skepticism of the EaP is a result of the fact that thepriorities of the two parties do not seem to be compatible. One of the main tasksof EaP would be to strengthen their contact, but in return for this, Ukraine wouldstill be expecting a real possibility of membership into EU structures. As it mayseem, there is hope for stronger cooperation between those two entities. Wrobeladds that, the program should have begun with improving mutual ties at the lowerlevel: citizens instead of politicians, in accordance with the principle of small steps(Wrobel 2010, p. 61). Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s former trade minister, whileat a discussion forum in the Black Sea resort of Yalta in September 2013 saidthat “For the first time in our history more than 50 per cent of people supportEuropean integration, and less than 30 per cent of the people support closerties with Russia” (Walker 2013). It is expected that the Association Agreement(which was launched in March 2007) between Ukraine and the European Unionwill be signed at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius in November 2013(according to EC, IP/13/436). This document is a base for deepening politicaland economic relations between Ukraine and Europe. It may provide Ukrainewith better conditions for economic cooperation and better access to the EUInternal Market (Soldak 2013).

The paper also focused on the regime of Alexander Lukashenka. Bilateralrelations were based on the adoption of a PCA negotiated in 1995 and a temporarytrade agreement. There is no Action Plan encompassing Belarus since it is notparty to the ENP. Until 1994, relations between the EU and Belarus could beconsidered to be correct. Later the EU started to apply various forms of pressureon the regime in order to force it to begin democratisation on all levels. At first,the EU mostly ignored violations of human rights, then, roughly since 2003, it hasintroduced a strategy of ‘carrots and sticks’, which is a strategy of small steps.This was an ad hoc response to the violation of the standards of democracy,mainly in form of the introduction of visa policy restrictions, the freezing ofaccounts of regime members, whilst increasing financial aid and preparing theplan of democratisation of Belarus.

For the first time in Belarusian history such a basic element of democracy as

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the separation of institutional powers (the trias politica) was included in the draftversion of the constitution, which was approved in 1991 and finally adopted in1994. During this period, most of the articles changed their original meaning.Right after Lukashenka became the legitimate president, winning the secondround of elections on the 10th of July, 1994 he ordered a row of referendumswhich equipped him with strong presidential prerogatives (Lukashuk 2001, p. 298and 308). Formally, the political system was based on the Constitution, whichhad been amended on the initiative of Lukashenka. The amendments shifted thebalance of power towards the president at the expense of the competence of otherauthorities.

In Eastern Europe, there are plenty of significant factors such as lack ofinstitutional reforms, corruption, economic difficulties, lack of civil society, thelegacy of communism etc. Using democratic rhetoric and facade elections, ‘civilsociety’ controlled by the state is being used to hinder or even stop the pressure forchanges and has created the illusion of democracy. The EU’s balancing betweenthe policy of denial at one end and the easing up of sanctions on the other, as wellas avoiding an open debate have not brought visible results. Brussels influenceon the process of democratisation is rather limited which is mainly caused by thelack of democratic traditions in the region. Besides, it ought to be stressed thatperiods of Belarusian nationalism have not been long-lived: they were rather weakand lacked widespread support (see Dryzek & Holmes 2002, p. 79). The EU hasimposed sanctions and has appealed for respect for human rights and reiterateddemands for the release of political prisoners (e.g. the case of A. Kazulin), hasmonitored the elections and cooperated with the opposition, has taken measuresto support independent media and has granted scholarships to students expelledfrom universities. Belarus has also been included, albeit conditionally in EaP. Onthe other hand, the Belarusian population is largely not interested in change,except for the group surrounding the opposition. What is more, the building ofa civil society on the basis of a population saturated with axioms of Lukashenkais extremely difficult. TACIS has been proven ineffective as well after the EUstopped it in response to the taxation imposed by the Lukashenka’s regime(Marcus 1998, p. 154).

At the present it is not possible to predict whether EaP will work in favour ofdemocratic changes in Belarus or strengthen the authoritarian regime. However,it cannot be dismissed that the success of supporting democratisation depends onthe strengthening of the democratic opposition and independent media in Belarus,providing aid to the oppressed and a change of visa policy for Belarusians.Unfortunately, Lukashenka’s artificial society, subordinate to the interests of thestate, makes support for the democratic changes very difficult (Cavusau 2009,pp. 99-100).

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Conclusions

Regarding the creation and implementation of the eastern dimension, the EU hasproven rather reluctant. The ENP has been assessed as an agency which does notallow for membership. The progress reported in various neighbouring countriesturned out to be much slower than expected. Neighbouring countries have also notperformed the broader domestic reforms necessary for the process of adaptationto EU requirements. EaP on the other hand, has proven to be a more structuredmechanism and as a result is more attractive. Yet, the programme has often beenaccused of lacking established action instruments and the dearth of perspectivefor accession has been discouraging for Eastern European countries. With theimplementation of ENP, the former European Commission President RomanoProdi characterised the relationship as ‘everything but institutions’. Tugui (2011)notes that the current rule ‘more for more’ seems to be a more flexible concept,even if not as entirely precise. For most of the countries enrolled in EaP (exceptfor Belarus), this program is treated as a temporary stage. For the EU it is aplatform for their own institutional policies (Makarychev & Deviatkov 2012).

The European Union has not fully developed the mechanisms related to theenlargment of the states in Eastern Europe. The EU is not ready for deepeningits relations with partnership countries. In the study of the Slovakian ForeignPolicy Association, cited by Makarychev and Deviatkov (2012), EaP has beencriticised for ‘unclear political leadership’ and ‘missing political guidelines’. ThePolish Strategic Yearbook (2010, p. 151) states that future enlargements involvingcountries from Eastern Europe are not yet being discussed within the EU. Forthe EU, Russia is more important than democratisation in Eastern Europe, inaccordance with the slogan ’Russia first’ (Lynch 2003, pp. 36-37). What is more,Russia treats the whole of Eastern Europe as its exclusive sphere of influence.E.g. as rightly observed by Popescu (2006), ‘the local ‘security’ institutions inAbkhazia, South Ossetia and Transniestria are often headed by Russians or offi-cials who are de facto delegated by state institutions of the Russian Federation’.It should be expressed that the EU is not ready to accept the challenge fromRussia and its influence. RF refuses to take part in ENP and, seemingly notconcerned by EaP, is developing its own integration projects under the names ofThe Eurasian Economic Community and The Eurasian Union (see Makarychev& Deviatkov 2012).

The activities of Chisinau and Tbilisi are focused on European integration andthe associated challenges. The functioning of a stable and consolidated systemin both countries in the future is in some respects as uncertain as the future ofrelations between these actors and the EU. Especially for Moldova, the visionof a ‘return to Europe’ is an incentive for the hard work which is unavoidablein order to fulfill EU requirements. Moldova is considered a ’flagship project’of EaP. Among the countries participating in EaP, Moldova is the only countrywhere the majority of the public supports the idea of integration. Additionally,

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authorities are heavily involved in the negotiations with the EU. This statementdoes not reflect the perception of further enlargement of the Union by the politicalelites of the EU Member States and societies, in particular the old EU countriesthat are skeptical about such prospects. There is no indication that Ukraineand Georgia will enhance the present relations with the EU. It is still not clearwhether these countries’ capabilities to pursue political, social and economicreforms as well as the abilities of the EU itself will lead to the enlargementof the EU. For Belarus, however, this possibility has been ruled out: the stateis often described as the ‘last authoritarian regime’ in Eastern Europe. Priorto the conclusion of the Association Agreement, Ukraine should modernise thestate and carry out the necessary reforms. Eastern Partnership countries withunresolved issues of territorial integrity, internal instability and weakness of theimplemented economic reforms may adversely affect the national security of EUmember states. Furthermore, the EU is not institutionally prepared to deepenrelations with partner countries. In addition, the current program, which fits intothe dimension of EU policy in Eastern Europe, which is Eastern Partnership,suffers from a lack of clear prospects and successes. However, it is important toremember that EaP is not driven exclusively by economic or security benefits (orissues about inclusion in EU structures), but is was founded to strengthen andsupport democracy in the region and European principles and norms to the East(see Klatt 2012, pp. 115-116).

The most recent snapshot of the situation follows: Belarus is de facto strandedoutside of EaP, Moldova is faced with an internal crisis, caused i.a. by the inabilityto elect the president for three years in a row, which caused a political stalemate.Ukraine has been criticised for the prosecution of Julia Timoshenko and recentparliamentary elections, Georgia and Armenia will be undergoing further tests ofdemocracy (Georgia in implementing reforms in good governance, and Armenia inthe upcoming presidential elections in 2013). Azerbaijan has been trying to createthe image of the most reliable partner in the field of energy (see Makarychev& Deviatkov 2012). Worth noting are asymmetrical relations between Brusselsand Minsk and Baku. In the first instance, the EU frequently tried to coerceLukashenka’s regime, while the Azerbaijani authorities were treated with moreforgiveness (Ivan & Ghinea 2010). The Freedom House (FH) Nations in Transit2011 annual report classified Belarus and Azerbaijan as consolidated authoritar-ian regimes. Ukraine and Georgia, described as transitional governments or hybridregimes, were recently joined by Moldova, that advanced in the FH’s scheme fromthe group of semi-consolidated authoritarian regimes which includes Armenia.

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Ramona Coman

Mechanisms of Europeanisation and Compliance in Judi-cial Politics: Understanding the Past and Anticipating theFuture

Abstract

Recent developments in Hungarian constitutional and judicial politicshave given impetus to question not only the outcomes of democratisationand Europeanisation, but also the efficacy of the European Union’s com-pliance mechanisms. In 2010, Hungary, one of the forerunners in buildingdemocracy made the headlines with Fidesz’s attempts at adopting a newConstitution and implementing cardinal laws along with controversial insti-tutional, cultural, religious, moral and socio-economic policies. This articleattempts to depict the transformative power of the European Union withina sensitive policy area which touches upon States’ pouvoris regaliens: theindependence of the judiciary.Keywords: Hungary, judicial reform, judicial politics, Europeanisation,conditionality, independence of the judiciary

Introduction

Recent developments in Hungarian constitutional and judicial politics provide acase to question the outcomes of democratisation and Europeanisation in Centraland Eastern Europe through the stability of the democratic framework in itsconstitutional, behavioural and attitudinal dimensions (Spinner 2005, p. 444).Starting in 2010, Hungary, one of the forerunners in building democracy andinstalling a market economy before its accession to the European Union (EU)made the headlines with Fidesz’s attempts at adopting a new constitution and im-plementing cardinal laws along with controversial institutional, cultural, religious,moral and socio-economic policies. The inclusion of vague and general provisionsin the constitution gave rise to a significant degree of uncertainty and the plannedreforms risked reviving the “ghosts” from the beginning of the transition processsuch as past greatness, homophobia, and nationalism. Critics saw the measurespromoted by Fidesz as dangerous deviations from democratic norms and EUtreaties. In fact, at European level, several MEPs and officials argued that “noaccession country would be allowed to join the EU if the situation was similar tothe one in Hungary” (Renate Weber, parliamentary debates, January 2012). Theattempts at imposing governmental control over institutions whose independenceis protected by EU treaties and the empowerment of political institutions at theexpense of the judiciary have been considered by many as threats to democracyand to EU democratic values.

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In 1993, the Copenhagen criteria was set up in order to avoid instability,authoritarianism or economic collapse within the Union and, to reassure the oldMember States that the new ones will not be politically unstable and economicallyburdensome to the Union (Grabbe 2002, p. 249). The EU accession opened awindow of opportunity for undertaking democratic reforms and to consolidatethe administrative and judicial capacity of the new Member States. However,recent debates at EU level have brought two related questions to the surface: Towhat extent has the EU been decisive in reshaping judicial institutions in theformer communist States prior to accession? Is the power of the EU great enoughto ensure the respect of democratic principles under the authority of the article7(3) in the Treaty of the EU, which allows it to act preventively if there is aclear threat of a breach of the common values? When does the EU affect thetransformation of domestic institutions in the former communist countries?

By taking the example of the independence of the judiciary, this article willshow that the mechanisms of Europeanisation, such as conditionality, explainthe timing of reforms, yet have little explanatory power when it comes to un-derstanding the institutional models of judicial governance established in thenew Member States of the EU and, the degree of independence granted to thejudicial councils. The European Union has been successful as a leader in openingup a critical juncture for democratic reforms (O’Dwyer 2006, p. 222) and inmaintaining the principle of the independence of the judiciary on the politicalagenda (Coman 2009). However, the Copenhagen criteria and the Commission’sprogress reports had very mixed results (Priban 2010, p. 16). By exploring theinteractions between domestic and European actors, scholars of judicial reformshave tried to capture the ability of the Union to reshape politics, policies andpolities in the region. Europeanisation studies have demonstrated how greatly theeffects of this process can differ across policy sectors as well as across countries.It appears that the mechanisms of Europeanisation did not bring major alter-ations to the existing institutional frameworks in Poland, the Czech Republicand Hungary (Uitz 2010, p. 47; see also Seiber-Fohr 2011). Although the EUoffered an “important legitimising force for ‘selling’ these reforms to the CEECs’electorate” (Papadimitriou & Phinemore 2004, p. 622), the choice of tools andinstitutional models through which the broad Copenhagen criteria were to beachieved remained essentially in the hands of domestic political elites. Thus, theeffect of the conditionality appeared to be entirely dependent on national factors.

By addressing these questions, the article is an attempt to better understandthe transformative power of the EU in judicial politics. It argues that the EU’smechanisms of Europeanisation concerning judicial reforms: such as condition-ality, monitoring, benchmarking, advice and twinning share two characteristics:diversity and contestability.

This article is organised as follows: Firstly, it exposes the aims and the out-comes of judicial reforms in Central and Eastern Europe by looking at Romanian,Bulgarian, Polish, Hungarian and Czech challenges and experiences. Focused on

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the establishment and the reform of judicial councils in the region, it illustratesvariation in terms of institutional models. Secondly, the article explains thisvariation by looking at the transformative power of the EU.

Judicial reforms in Central and Eastern Europe

Since the collapse of communism, judicial institutions in Central and EasternEurope have witnessed an increasing number of reforms (Coman & De Waele2007; Coman 2009; Dallara 2007; Dallara 2008; Piana 2010, Seiber-Fohr 2011;Hammerslev 2011). At the beginning of the 1990s, constitutional revisions led to asanctioning of the separation of power. Later, in the accession context, judicial re-forms became the sine qua non condition of accession (Coman 2009; Piana 2010),as essential ingredients not only for the functioning of the internal market butalso for the establishment of a European space of freedom and security. Becauseof the subordination of the judiciary to the communist parties prior to 1989, theenlargement policy developed by the European Commission devoted particularattention to the improvement of the judicial and administrative capacity of thenew Member States. The independence of the judiciary (Larkins 1996): which isan international norm received ample attention within the community of rule oflaw promoters. Through its Regular Reports, the European Commission identifieda number of dysfunctions and a series of goals to be reached. The aim was tocurb instances of politicisation and the practices inherited from the communistregimes. This was done by reducing the institutional prerogatives of the executiveover the judiciary (Magalhaes 1999; Fleck 2011, p. 795). Fundamentally, the Eu-ropean Commission recommended that the independence of the judiciary shouldbe real, and free of inference from other branches of power. The Commissionstressed this through the efficient training and appointment of judges, work ofself-governing bodies and the overall work of the courts (Kochenov 2004, p. 21).Indirectly, the European Commission recommended the establishment of judicialcouncils, institutions designed in several Western democracies after the SecondWorld War “to maintain an appropriate balance between judicial independenceand accountability” (Ginsburg & Garupa 2009, p. 201).

At the beginning of the 1990s, one priority common amongst all of the newgovernments established in Central and Eastern Europe was to adopt new lawson judicial organisation aimed at consolidating the independence of the judiciary.Concretely, the mechanisms by which independence is achieved are above all in-stitutional (Domingo 1999, p. 154). However, the implementation of this principlegenerally poses a variety of dilemmas to policy makers, both at domestic and atinternational level. The creation of judicial councils challenges domestic structuresof power. It implies a transfer of power from the national ministries of justice tojudicial councils. How much independence should judicial councils be afforded?This issue gave rise to vivid debates not only in the former communist countriesbut also at international level.

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After the collapse of communism, by creating judicial councils, most of thenew Member States of the EU turned towards a model of self-administration ofthe judiciary. Each country followed a different path to reform with a differentinstitutional outcome. The first judicial councils were created in Romania (in1909) and Bulgaria (in 1910) at the beginning of the 20th century (Melone 1996,p. 234) in order to act as consultative bodies to the Ministries of Justice onpersonnel policy (Melone 1996, p. 234). They re-emerged in the context of thetransition to democracy.

In the post-communist context, the power of the Bulgarian Supreme JudicialCouncil had been significantly extended. The Bulgarian constitution, adoptedin 1991, established a “powerful Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) in charge ofpromoting, assigning and dismissing magistrates” (Magalhaes 1999, p. 50). TheCouncil determines the number of judges and prosecutors, organises and conductsthe competitions for the positions of judge and prosecutor, appoints, promotes,transfers and discharges judges. According to Schonfelder, “anyone who reads thesections of the Bulgarian constitution with regards to the judiciary as well as thejudiciary act of 1994 is bound to be impressed by the accumulation of institutionalsafeguards protecting the judicial system” (2005, p. 62). Accordingly, the role ofthe Ministry of Justice has been formally reduced in judicial governance. TheMinister of Justice has the right to serve as the chair of the meetings of the SJC,but without voting privileges (Melone 1996, p. 234).

By contrast, in Romania after the collapse of communism the establishmentof the Superior Council of Magistracy was delayed for several years (interview,judge CSM, Bucharest, April 2005). From the beginning of the 1990s until 2003the institution was nothing more than an empty structure, without any powerand visibility in the administration of the judiciary. The Constitution providedlegal grounds for the empowerment of the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM).However, the legislation passed in 1992 contained many ambiguities regarding thecompetences of the Ministry of Justice and of the CSM. The establishment of theCouncil was delayed for several years and its members met only twice a yearin the buildings of the Ministry of Justice (interview, judge CSM, Bucharest,April 2005). The prerogatives of the institution were clarified in 2004, whenthe independence of the judiciary represented one of the most salient topics indomestic political debates (Coman 2009).

In Poland, the National Council of the Judiciary was established in the contextof the round-table negotiations. The competences of the council were extended in1997, 2001 and 2003, but without reducing the roles of the Ministry of Justice injudicial politics. In 2011, a new regulation specified the scope and the activitiesof this institution. The Czech Republic remained the “black sheep” (Bobek 2007)because of its resistance to create this type of institution. Although the EuropeanCommission encouraged its creation, this option did not find any overwhelmingsupport at domestic level. Here, the traditional model of state administration ofthe judiciary and the role of the Ministry of justice has been maintained over

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time because “politicians did not consent to the transfer of such broad powers tothe judiciary” (Kosar 2010, p. 17).

In 1997, through the empowerment of the National Judicial Council, Hun-gary witnessed the most radical change in judicial independence (Bobek 2007;Fleck 2011). Pedro Magalhaes examined the outcomes of judicial reforms from1989 to 1997 and showed that at the beginning of the transition process, theamended Hungarian constitution “remained salient about the supervision of ju-dicial personnel” (1999, p. 53). The former communist powers of the executiveover the judiciary “were fundamentally untouched by the transition” (Magalhes1999, p. 55) allowing the Ministry of justice to retain its relatively unfetteredadministrative and disciplinary powers” (1999, p. 53). Starting in 1997, theHungarian Minister of Justice, Pal Vastagh, a founding member of the HungarianSocialist Party, presented judicial independence as a government priority. Byadvocating the creation of the National Judicial Council, Vastagh’s aim was toreduce the powers of the executive over the judiciary and to consolidate theguarantees of independence of judicial institutions. A comprehensive reform ofthe judiciary took place with the passing of the Act on the Organisation andAdministration of Courts and the Act on the Legal Status and Remunerationof Judges (OSI 2001, p. 195). On this basis, the National Council of Justice wasestablished with the aim of proposing legislation and giving advice on laws relatedto the judiciary. Composed by a majority of judges1, this new institution wasdesigned to oversee the promotion, appointment and evaluation of judges. TheEuropean Commission appreciated the Hungarian “seriousness” in preparationfor membership (European Commission 1999, 58) and the efforts undertaken toaddress the weaknesses of the judiciary (European Commission 1998, p. 8).

In recent years, the independence of the judiciary is subject to new challenges.Domestic actors deplore the increasing dissatisfaction with the functioning ofthe model of self-administration of the judiciary (Schonfelder 2005, p. 61; Fleck2011). The empowerment of the judicial councils gave rise to mitigated results andopinions. Several surveys showed that judges were still perceived as “unreliable,inefficient and corrupt” (Schonfelder 2005, p. 61). Experts argued that the radicalreforms undertaken in Hungary, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria moved power andundue influence from one bureaucratic institution (the Ministry of Justice) toanother (the judicial councils) (Bobek 2007, p. 112; Parau 2011). In Romania, itappears that the Council “no longer perform(ed) its mandate as the representativeof judges but rather as someone who own(ed) the judiciary, made the rules forthe judiciary and ruled the judiciary” (Parau 2011, p. 647). While Romania and

1 It gathered together 15 members, including 4 ex official members (the Minister of Justice,the Prosecutor General, the President of the National Bar Association and the President of theSupreme Court), two members of Parliament and nine judges (elected by delegates chosen byall ordinary courts in the country). The nine elected judges and the President of the Council(who acts also as President of the Supreme Court) constituted a two-third majority in theCouncil (OSI 2001, p. 199).

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Bulgaria continued to follow the benchmarks of the mechanism of cooperationand verification (MCV) of the EU, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republicwitnessed new tensions between judicial and political actors.

In Poland (from 2005 to 2007) and in Hungary (since 2010) political actorshave tried to reduce the powers of the recently empowered judicial councils. 2

Critics saw the measures promoted by Law and Justice in Poland in 2005 andby Fidesz in Hungary as a deviation from democratic norms and EU treaties.In Poland, from 2005 to 2007, the relationship between the executive and thejudiciary was tense. During his term, President Kaczynski never missed a chanceto express his hostility towards judges (Bodnar & Bojarski, p. 729) and startedorganising a coalition to amend the Constitution. According to a series of inter-national associations, the aim of the executive was to empower the Ministry ‘toappoint temporary presidents, to create vacancies and nominate judges for thosevacancies, thereby reducing the role of the NCJ in those appointments and givingthe Minister of Justice greater influence over the composition of the judiciary’(International Bar Association 2007, p. 24). Regardless, the prerogatives of theNCJ remained unchanged.

However, in Hungary, in recent years it has been argued that the 1997 Hun-garian reform: which led to the consolidation of the National Judicial Council“contained several dangers” such as a “lack of efficiency, decline of trust in thejudiciary, corruption and ideological bias” (Fleck 2011, p. 797). In December 2011the Hungarian Parliament passed new laws on the organisation of the courts.The main rationale behind these measures was to reform the National JudicialCouncil. According to a series of representatives of the government led by PrimeMinister Orban, the rationale behind the recent reform lies in the fact that “thedecisions of the NCJ were influenced by particular interests”. Accordingly, in 2011a new institution, the National Judicial Office (OBH), was created in order to fixsome deficiencies in the functioning of the former NCJ and to “restore the faithof Hungarian citizens in the administration of justice” (Hungarian GovernmentJune 2012). This led the Hungarian executive to empower the president of the newNational Judicial Office, who is elected for a nine-year term. As Bankuti, Halmaiand Scheppele recently pointed out, “the ordinary judiciary has lost a great deal ofits independence” (2012, p. 143). According to the European Commission, underthe new institutional framework, “one person alone now makes all importantdecisions on the judiciary, including the appointment of judges”. The presidentof the National Judicial Office also has the power to “reassign specific cases fromthe courts where they are assigned by law to any other court in the country”(Bankuti, Halmai & Scheppele 2012, p. 143). Another area of contention liesin the retirement of 274 judges and the premature termination of the mandateof the former president of the Supreme Court in 2011, who was elected for sixyears in June 2009. According to specialists in constitutional and judicial politics,

2 No concrete policy plans to reform them have materialised in Romania and Bulgaria.

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applying the general retirement age to judges is questionable due to the coreprinciples and rules pertaining to the independence and immovability of judges(Council of Europe, Opinion no. 621/2011, p. 10).

These provisions surfaced debates both at domestic and at EU level. A vari-ety of actors claimed the country was sliding towards authoritarianism throughundemocratic reforms and tried to persuade international actors that the in-dependence of the judiciary had been undermined. The Hungarian governmenttried to constrain the role of the EU in this field. Initially, the Hungarian PrimeMinister, Viktor Orban, strongly rejected any form of external influence arguingthat “no European Prime Minister, no European government is in a position totell Hungarians what kind of constitution they can have and what not” (EuropeanParliament, 5 July 2011). By opposing European and international judgements,he stressed that “calling into question the commitment of the Hungarian peopleand the Hungarian Government to democracy is an insult to the Hungarian peo-ple” (European Parliamentary debates, January 2011). Progressively, Orban andthe members of the Hungarian executive softened the tone of their declarations inorder to persuade the international actors that they would take “fast and effectivemeasures to assuage concerns over domestic policy” (The Budapest Times, 21March 2012).

The Transformative Power of the Union

The enlargement policy did not bring major alterations to the domestic insti-tutional frameworks in Hungary (Uitz 2010, p. 47), the Czech Republic (Sticka2007, p. 199) or Poland (see Seiber-Fohr 2011). Paradoxically, the power of theEU was greater in Romania where the empowerment of the Superior Council ofMagistracy conditioned the outcomes of accession negotiations (Coman 2009).Prior to accession, domestic reformers drew inspiration from the old MemberStates and from a series of international organisations such as the Council ofEurope (Coman 2009; Piana 2010), not from the EU per se. In spite of theactive role played by the European Commission and the regular evaluation of theprogress made by the candidate countries in what concerns the independence ofthe judiciary, the choice of tools and institutional models through which theconditions are to be achieved remained very much in the hands of domesticpolitical elites. It is common to explain the differential impact of the Unionby emphasising the ability of domestic actors to oppose EU conditions, as wellas the lack of commitment of political elites to EU integration. It has beendemonstrated that, by resisting or supporting Europe, social and political actorsdefine and constrain the role of the EU in domestic politics and policies (Radaelli& Exadaktylos 2012; Woll & Jacquot 2004). However, while there are cases thatclearly show that under-compliance is a deliberate choice of domestic actors ordue to structural legacies, this article claims that the power of the EU and morespecifically the effects of Europeanisation mechanisms have been overestimated.

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As demonstrated in the previous section, recent developments in judicialand constitutional politics in Hungary have raised important questions at Eu-ropean level about the instruments and legal grounds on which the Union andthe European Commission base their action. The Hungarian case revealed thatpolicy-makers and high level officials are confronted with major dilemmas suchas: How to find a middle way between effective and legitimate instruments ofcompliance? How to maximise the impact of the EU and minimise inconsistency?How to conciliate diversity and flexibility regarding rule of law promotion?

This article claims that what is to be explained is the transformative power ofthe EU and its mechanisms of Europeanisation and compliance. Accordingly, theoriginality of this article lies in its angle of analysis: instead of explaining changeand inertia at domestic level resulting from the impact of the EU on MemberStates, it examines change and inertia in the realm of the mechanisms of compli-ance and instruments of public policy. This approach has major methodologicalimplications which strengthen the originality of this article. Firstly, the Europeandimension: explored here in terms of Europeanisation, changes its status from anindependent variable (i.e. something which explains) to a dependent variable(i.e. something to be explained). Secondly, taking mechanisms and instrumentsof public policy seriously is not only a methodological question, but also a puzzlefor empirical research.

Each European public policy has its own instruments and mechanisms of com-pliance (IPMC). They include norms, incentives, rhetoric, rules, tools, finances,sanctions and so on (Grabbe 2002; Papadimitriou & Phinnemore 2004; Hill &Knill 2006; Ravinet 2011). Analysing them reveals not only the complexity of theEU’s mission, but also the ambiguities of its roles and the sources of tensionand conflict between States and EU institutions. They can be differentiatedamong many lines (Kotzian, Knodts & Urdze 2011, p. 999): there are “strong”and “weak” instruments, instruments that “respect sovereignty” and “intrusiveinstruments”, as well as binding and non-binding rules (Saurugger 2012, p. 112).IPMC matter: it is a combination of mechanisms, rather than a single policy,that enables the Union to be effective in reshaping domestic public policies andrealities. Today, these IPMC deserve more political and scholarly attention. Theyare indicators of the ability of the EU to promote change, to increase complianceand, to prevent instances of under compliance at domestic level. Below, the articleexamines the origins and evolution of the EU’s mechanisms of Europeanisationand compliance related to judicial reforms in the new Member States of the EU.

Soft mechanisms of Europeanisation

In the mid-1990s, studying the post-communist transformation in terms of Euro-peanisation became not only fashionable but also a pret a porter conceptualisationin comparative politics and EU studies. The concept enjoyed great popularityamong scholars examining policy change in domestic arenas, both in the old

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and new Member States of the EU. In several fields of study and disciplinesthe EU was not only an important variable to consider but also a matter ofnormative (Ladrech 2010) and, more recently, methodological concern (Radaelli &Exadaktylos 2012). The former candidate countries represented a promising em-pirical field to test the hypotheses of Europeanisation for several reasons. Firstly,the adoption of EU rules implied “the most massive international rule transferin recent history” (Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier 2004). Secondly, the externalincentives set by the EU were reinforced by the asymmetry of power between theEU and the CEECs (Juncos 2011, p. 372). Thirdly, applying the Europeanisationconceptual framework to the former communist countries strengthened the as-sumption that “the degree of adaptational pressure generated by Europeanisationdepends on the “fit” and “misfit” between European institutions and domesticstructures” (Risse, Green Cowles & Caporaso 2001). In this respect, Brusis (2005,p. 24) argued that “the lack of consolidated institutions may facilitate the incor-poration of EU rules because the given formal institutional arrangements are notembedded in a social and cultural infrastructure and are therefore more amenableto institutional engineering”. Hence, several authors pointed out that the politiesand policies of the new Member States have been affected by the EU accessionprocess and that “the impact of the EU on domestic politics and institutionsof the post-communist states has been profound” (Ladrech 2010, p. 109). Inorder to demonstrate how the EU changes domestic institutions, conditionality,benchmarking and monitoring, advice, twinning and technical assistance receivedample attention in the literature (Grabbe 2001).

The EU conditionality set in Copenhagen appeared to be the main mechanismexplaining adaptation and compliance (Grabbe 2001; Pridham 2006). Scholarsemphasised that conditionality proved to be effective when the EU coerced thecountries reluctant to comply with the threat of exclusion and postponing ac-cession. Gate-keeping remained the main mechanism through which the EUclearly sanctioned non compliance to its standards and rules. Slovakia underMeciar is the most quoted example in demonstrating the impact of the EU’sconditionality and transformative power (Haughton 2007; Sadurski 2008). Thedecision to postpone the accession date of Bulgaria and Romania or the menaceof cutting financial support is also illustrative of this assumption. The EuropeanCommission sanctioned inertia and rather rewarded any form of absorption andaccommodation of European norms and acquis communautaire. However, recentworks have promoted a more cautious approach with regards to the transforma-tive power of the EU in the former communist countries (Hughes, Sasse & Gordon2004b; Phinnemore & Papadimitriou 2004; Epstein 2005; Haughton 2007; Coman2009).

What follows shows that conditionality explains the timing and the integrationof the European dimension in domestic politics, but has little explanatory powerwhen it comes to understanding the degree of independence and the institutionalmodels of judicial governance.

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There is a shared consensus that the political conditionality to which the newMember States have to converge is vague and does not define what constitutesa stable democracy (Grabbe 2002, p. 253; Pridham 2006). Prior to accession,observers of the enlargement process and political elites from Central and EasternEurope complained about the ambiguity regarding when criteria have been metand what rule of law the Union requires the candidate countries to adhere to(Kochenov 2004, p. 1). Despite the attempts to depoliticise these criteria througha variety of indicators, the process in itself remained a political one. The sepa-ration of powers, judicial review, and check and balances are general guidingprinciples in European political regimes, yet they can take very different forms(Wolczuk 2007, p. 229). There is no a uniform matrix of institutional design inEurope with regards to their implementation. In any field related to politicalcriteria and democratisation, the common feature of the EU’s conditionality isthe lack of models around which to converge. The Copenhagen criteria concerningjudicial reforms define goals but they do not provide guidelines on how to craft theinstitutional framework to reach them. From the analysis of all the regular reportsissued by the European Commission for the ten former candidate countries, itfollows that the judiciary should be independent and well staffed. Judges mustbe well trained, well paid, efficient, respected and accessible to people (Coman2009).

However, despite an almost universal consensus over the importance of judicialindependence to democratic rule and its normative value, it is among “the leastunderstood concepts in the field of political science and law” (Larkins 1996, p.607). Through its regular reports, the European Commission recommended thereduction of the powers of the executives (ministries of justices) over the judiciaryin any field related to appointment, promotion or disciplinary proceedings. How-ever, the European Commission remained vague in its recommendations. In thecontext of enlargement, when the independence of the judiciary became a salientissue in the monitoring of the European Commission, several questions were posedabout how to implement it in institutional terms (Coman 2009, p. 141). How muchindependence should the judiciary be given in establishing judicial policies andthe aspects of a judge’s career? The European Commission was hesitant to answerthe question regarding the degree of independence of the judicial institutions3.Examining the Commission’s approach in evaluating the implementation of thisprinciple, it appeared that judicial reforms were a question of “trust” in the realcommitment of political elites in avoiding inference in judicial affairs (Coman2009) rather than a question of institutional models.

However, to compensate for its inability to explain how the principle of in-dependence should be implemented and why a model is positively evaluated in

3 In contrast, the establishment of a comprehensive set of standards of judicial independencehas been examined in depth by a variety of international actors, among them the most activebeing the Venice Commission for Democracy through Law. The institution extensively focusedon the meaning of this principle and on the institutional forms it could take at domestic level.

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one country and negatively in another, the European Commission designed thetwinning programs as new policy instruments through which civil servants fromthe old Member States will support the administrative and political elites fromthe candidate countries in reforming their judicial and administrative structures.If the political conditionality sets the aims to be reached, the twinning pro-grams will become the main “instruments of policing the EU’s conditionality”(Papadimitriou & Phinemmore 2004, p. 624). A careful examination of a seriesof twinning programs revealed that the application and implementation of theprinciple of independence of the judiciary produced a variety of institutionalmodels. The twinning programs led to competing conceptions and institutionalmodels on which the candidate countries could base their attempts to improve theguarantees of independence of their judiciaries. Accordingly, in several fields, theabsence of an EU model became a reflection of the strength of national traditionsacross the old EU Member States (Papadimitriou & Phinnemore 2004, p. 623;Coman 2009).

In search of new mechanisms of compliance

After the enlargement, Commission officials lamented the difficulty of maintainingpressure on accession states to continue with reforms especially when all thenegotiating chapters had been closed (Haughton 2007, p. 240). With the exceptionto the postponed accessions in Romania and Bulgaria, the 2004 enlargementprocess showed that “there is little the EU can do to strengthen democraticconditionality” because membership is the highest reward the Union is able tooffer (Schimmelfenig, Engert & Knobel 2003, p. 515). Analysing judicial reformsand the rule of law promotion in the new Member States of the EU and theBalkans reveals not only the complexity of the transition to democracy, butalso the complexity of this task for the European Union and the EuropeanCommission.

Given that the European Commission’s responsibility as guardian of theTreaties is to ensure that EU law is upheld, in January 2012 Jose Manuel Barossolaunched legal action against Hungary. Responsible for ensuring that EU law iscorrectly applied, the Commission has powers of its own to try to bring theinfringement to an end. Besides the infringement proceedings, the most serioussanction which the EU can apply to any Member State is the activation ofArticle 7 of TUE. In the event of a clear threat of a serious breach of thefounding principles of the Union “the Council, acting by a qualified majority,may decide to suspend certain of the rights deriving from the application ofthis Treaty to the Member State in question, including the voting rights ofthe representative of the government of that Member State in the Council”.Thus, in the letter of formal notice addressed to Hungary: the first stage inthe EU’s infringement procedure, it was said that the Hungarian legislationconflicts with EU law. Therefore, “changes to the legislation in question, or

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their immediate suspension, will be able to accommodate the Commission’s legalconcerns” (European Commission, press release, January 2012). Jose ManuelBarosso explained the Commission’s approach and role in this regard. Followinga technical and legal analysis, the concerns related to the reforms undertaken inHungary have been addressed to the highest political level. But once initiated,the procedure and the arguments advanced by the institution caused commentsrelated to its legal basis. Even if the European Commission argues that theHungarian democracy is in danger, the infringement procedure does not relateto the separation of power as a fundamental pillar of democracy, but to a breachof the EU legislation on equal treatment and the Hungarian’s decision to lowerthe pension age. Thus, the infringement procedure does not touch on article 2of the Treaty. Additionally, in a series of resolutions adopted by the EuropeanParliament, the MEPs deplored that the Commission “limits its own competenceto scrutinize Hungary’s compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights”(European Parliament resolution of 10 March 2011). It is certainly not the firsttime the MEPs question the ability of the European Commission to play itsrole as a guardian of the treaties. In front of these critics, Jose Manuel Barossoacknowledged that beyond the legal aspects, “some concerns have been expressedregarding the quality of democracy”. According to him, “these are matters werepolitical judgement is more difficult and, sometimes (...) ideologically polarised”(Parliamentary debates, January 2012). The first plenary session of the EuropeanParliament in January 2012, initially expected to focus on the election of thenew president of the institution, focusing on the incompatibility between thelegislation enacted in Hungary and the core principles of the Union. Accordingto Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the ALDE, “the case of Hungary is not just abouttechnical breaches of EU legislation, but a wider concern of gradual but persistenterosion of EU values, as spelled out in Article 2, concerning freedom of expression,of the media and of religion”. More critical voices were heard among Green/EFAgroup, whose leaders called to launch the infringement procedure under article7 of the EU Treaty, a measure adopted by the Hungarian Prime Minister and,considered by Rebecca Harms and Daniel Cohn-Bendit a “persistent breach ofthe basic European values and rights” (Parliamentary debates, January 2012).Similar claims have been expressed by representatives of the Party of EuropeanSocialists, who, as members of the Green/EFA group, called for the suspension ofthe affiliate statute of FIDESz to the European People’s Party until democraticstandards were re-established in the country. MEPs from these two politicalgroups deplored the “silence” of the representatives of the European People’sParty and the absence of reaction vis-a-vis Viktor Orban’s policy agenda.

EU pressure acts jointly with other international actors. Where the EU con-ditionality is weak, the action of the European Commission is supported by theCouncil of Europe and the Venice Commission. While the EU Commission’sapproach in examining the quality of democracy in Hungary is based on a legaland technical analysis, the European Commission for Democracy through detailed

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Law expresses opinions on the new Constitution of Hungary and transmittedremarks to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on July 2011 (Venice Commission,opinion no. 621/2011). Its recommendations went far beyond the EU Commis-sion’s approach used to examine the conformity of the Hungarian rules withthe EU’s acquis communautaire and treaties. For this reason, in the resolutionadopted in February 2012, the EP called on the European Commission to requestthe opinion of the Venice Commission on the cardinal laws and constitutionalprovisions to ensure a fully independent judiciary, the right of the ConstitutionalCourt to review legislation and that the National Judicial Authority is governedfree from any political influence.

Recent debates illustrate three possible solutions: one solution would be toinstitutionalise the role the Council of Europe could play in such cases andconsequently to accept the limits of the Union, in particular the fact that the“Rule of Law matters are closer to the national legal systems than to EU law”(Vivian Reding, Speech 13/348). Another would be to strengthen the politicalUnion. Between these two extremes of the continuum, the European Commission:supported by some of the Member States, has recently acknowledged the need tofind a middle ground between the current “soft power” of the Union in this fieldand the “nuclear option of article 7” (Jose Manuel Barroso, State of the Union2012). While some MEPs expressed their wish to increasingly expand the tasksof the EU in this field and to put in place mechanisms committed to its commonvalues, others argued that some issues, such as those related to the Hungarianreforms, are more appropriately dealt with domestically. In essence, the maindividing line was among those who argued in favour of or against the extensionof the EU’s political powers, putting forward the tension between internal andexternal legitimacy (see also Jan Werner Miller 2013).

Conclusions

This article can be read as an argument to reconsider the outcomes of Euro-peanisation and the limits of the on-going legal and political integration. Recentdevelopments in Hungarian constitutional and judicial politics offer abundantevidence to question the outcomes of Europeanisation and the mechanisms ofcompliance through which the EU put Member States to align their politics withEuropean norms and principles. The decision of the Hungarian government torecast the model of the self-administration of the judiciary has been presented asa radical breakthrough. By contrast, at domestic level, the rationale behind thereform has been linked to past failures and to a broader regional debate aboutthe independence of the judiciary.

This article has proved that Europeanisation through conditionality is notsustainable and stands in need of new and stronger mechanisms of compliance.In the search for new mechanisms, one solution would be to institutionalise therole of the Council of Europe in such cases and consequently to accept the limited

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policy role of the Union. Another solution would be to strengthen the politicalUnion and to make use of the existing legal basis concerning EU norms andvalues. The Hungarian case opened a window of opportunity for redefining theCommission’s legitimacy and approach in dealing with sensitive issues such asthe independence of the judiciary.

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Karolina Borońska-Hryniewiecka

Legitimacy through Subsidiarity? The Parliamentary Con-trol of EU Policy-making

Abstract

This article explains the relationship between subsidiarity and legit-imacy of policies designed at EU level. Through means of theoreticallyinformed analysis this paper claims that if the principle of subsidiarity is re-spected and implemented throughout the policy process, EU policy-makingcan aspire to satisfy the condition of both input and output legitimacy.The empirical part of the paper shows how, through a subsidiarity controlmechanism known as the Early Warning System, national parliaments cancollectively fulfill representative and deliberative functions in EU policy-making. Conclusions about the changing dynamics in parliamentary modusoperandi in the field of EU affairs lead to forming a set of recommendationsfor further research.Keywords: subsidiarity, legitimacy, European Union, policy-making, par-liaments

Introduction

Legitimacy is an important aspect of public policy and governance. Usually, whenwe think about legitimacy, we imply the democratic nature of a political regime(government). Yet, legitimacy also refers to policy content and this aspect has todate received relatively little attention. Each year, an increased number of policiesand regulations implemented at national level originate from the European Union(EU) (compare House of Commons 2010). For this reason, and in the context ofthe persisting financial and economic crisis, the legitimacy of EU policies andpolity is becoming an issue of growing political salience. On the other hand,the principles of “good governance” enshrined in the European Commission’sWhite Paper on European Governance (2001) such as openness, transparency,participation, accountability, effectiveness and subsidiarity are becoming objectsof public questioning and academic debate. This article focuses on the last ofthese principles: subsidiarity. Its aim is to elucidate the relationship betweensubsidiarity and the legitimacy of policies designed at EU level. Through meansof theoretically informed and empirically grounded analysis this paper claimsthat if the principle of subsidiarity is respected and implemented throughout thepolicy process, EU policy-making can aspire to satisfy the condition of both inputand output legitimacy.

The paper starts with a conceptualisation of two kinds of legitimacy in thecontext of EU governance. It then introduces the concept of subsidiarity linkingits scope and application within the common framework of legitimacy arguments.

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Finally, it focuses on the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty and the practicalapplication of the principle by national and regional parliaments. It shows how,through a subsidiarity control mechanism, parliaments can collectively fulfillrepresentative and deliberative functions in EU policy-making. The paper closeswith conclusions and their implications for further research.

Two dimensions of legitimacy in the context of EU policy-making

Fritz Scharpf, a prominent scholar of public policy and European integration,distinguished between two understandings of the concept of legitimacy usingthe labels of input and output. According to Scharpf, input oriented legitimacypre-supposes that in a democratic polity, the powers of government must beexercised in response to the articulated preferences of the governed: which, inthe language of Abraham Lincoln refers to “government by the people” (1999, p.6). In modern political systems, this function is usually exercised by parliamentsas legitimate and directly elected representatives of the people. On the otherhand, output oriented legitimacy demands that democratic government shouldadvance the common good by dealing effectively with such problems that arebeyond the reach of individual’s to act upon, market exchanges and voluntarycooperation amongst individuals and groups in civil society: which, in Lincoln’sterms emphasises the dimension of “government for the people” (1999, p. 11). Inother words: while the input argument refers to the character of policy processas ensuring adequate representation and participation for the interested partiesin the process of decision-making (inclusive governance), the output argumentrefers to the effectiveness of policy outcomes understood as satisfying the socialand economic needs of the society (effective governance). Nowadays, the erosionof political trust facing public institutions and the modern state means thatpolicy-makers no longer can rely only on legitimacy capital of the polity (regime)itself as inducing sufficient support for every political decision made, but mustmake sure that public policies are able to stand on their own and be justifiableby their content, scope and effects (compare Hanberger 2004). The creation of asupranational policy framework for the European Union, where the preconditionsfor democratic accountability are not fully realised, has challenged the inputdimension of legitimacy. On the other hand, the recent economic and financialcrises have uncovered weaknesses in the output side of European governance,not only in its fiscal and monetary sphere (Scharpf 2011; Moravcsik 2012), butalso in the way EU policies are designed and implemented. The reasons for thistwofold legitimacy deficit are several. Firstly, delegation of power and policytasks from member states to a supranational agency (European Commission),where a multitude of specialised agendas and departments decide what is bestfor European citizens, has resulted in a blurring of political responsibility for

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policy outcomes. While at the national level, government is held accountable forits decisions and can be “punished” by voters in the subsequent elections, at EUlevel, citizens find it hard to locate the main decision-makers, let alone sanctiontheir actions. Secondly, European integration has caused an increase in executivepower and a decrease in national parliamentary control, which has often beenreferred to as de-parliamentarisation of EU governance structure (O’Brennan& Raunio 2007). EU level decision-making is dominated by executive actors:national ministers in the Council of Ministers and European Council, as wellas government appointees in the Commission. The European Parliament (EP),though institutionally empowered after the Lisbon Treaty, is still weak in termsof its democratic representativeness and political leverage. EU citizens do notidentify with European parties and EP elections are thought to be ‘second-order’(Reif & Schmitt 1980; Kousser 2004). Finally, EU technocratic decisions based onmarket calculations produce a “policy drift” away from voters’ policy preferences(Follesdal & Hix 2006). Due to its neo-liberal regulatory character and mainlyeconomic orientation, the EU adopts many policies that are, especially in thecontext of the current economic crisis, not supported by the majority of citizensin many Member States. 1. As Weiler aptly put it, Europe is suddenly seen (. . . )as an emblem of austerity (2012) which dramatically diminishes public trust inEU institutions. 2. On the other hand some national governments are able toundertake policies at European level that they cannot pursue at domestic level,where they are constrained by parliamentary opposition, courts or corporatistinterest groups, with such states of affair evoking social unrest. An illustrationof such states of affair was the recent bout of European protests against theACTA agreement elaborated in anonymous technocratic circles of governmentsand corporations, or demonstrations against austerity measures resulting fromthe adoption of the Fiscal Pact.

Subsidiarity as a remedy for EU legitimacy deficit?

One of the main promises of the Lisbon Treaty was to increase the democraticlegitimacy of the EU through, inter alia, enhancing and extending the principleof subsidiarity. While the enhancement meant equipping national parliamentswith effective tools for controlling the compliance of EU policy-making with theprinciple of subsidiarity, the extension referred to including, for the first time,regional (sub-national) legislative chambers into the very process. Taking intoaccount that few legal or political concepts in the European acquis communautaire

1 According to the latest figures published in the Guardian (April 2013) public con-fidence in the EU has fallen to historically low levels in the six largest EU coun-tries, see: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/24/trust-eu-falls-record-low, accessed25.10.2013.2 The analysis of Standard Eurobarometers 75-79 covering the years 2010-2013 reveals a

gradual decline in public trust in EU institutions oscillating around 30 per cent in 2013.

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have provoked such a degree of controversy and also interest as subsidiarity has.Its conceptualisation will be addressed below.

The conceptual challenge of the principle of subsidiarity

The principle of subsidiarity links the input and output dimensions of legitimacyinasmuch as it regulates the allocation and the use of authority within a politicaldecision-making process according to democracy- and efficiency- related argu-ments. Normatively, it reflects the democratic ideal that policy process shouldbe controlled by those affected by it to ensure that policies and laws reflect theinterests of and respond to the needs of a society. Functionally, the principle holdsthat powers or tasks are to rest with the sub-units of the political system unlessa central unit is more effective at achieving certain specified goals.

At EU level, the principle of subsidiarity is enshrined originally in article 5(3)of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) which states that “in areas which donot fall within its exclusive competence, the Union shall act only if, and in sofar as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved bythe Member States, either at central level or at regional and local level, but canrather, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achievedat Union level”. As a matter of fact, article 5(3) TEU does not define subsidiarityper se but rather sets a rule when the EU should intervene in order to complywith the principle (on the evolution of the concept in EU treaties see Duff 1993;on the origin of subsidiarity and its evolution within the case law of the Court ofJustice of the EU see Horsley 2012).

And so, according to article 5(3) TEU two conditions should be fulfilled forEU action to be justified: 1) insufficiency of member states in performing theaction at national level (insufficiency test) and 2) added value of the same actionperformed at EU level (added value test) (See Schutze 2009; Kiiver 2012). Thesetwo substantive conditions for the application of the subsidiarity principle requirefurther notice. What kind of evaluations should be employed to assess whethera certain action is in fact “better achieved”? Although words “sufficiently” or“better” might turn out contestable and can be interpreted using different ra-tionales and criteria, it is commonly admitted that in this context the objectivewhich constitutes the fundament and gives sense to the subsidiarity principle isthe maximum relative efficacy of the level of governance which acts within thelegal framework of the attribution of competences (Popelier & Vandenbruwaene,2011). In this sense, the principle of subsidiarity encompasses the requirement ofrationality and certain moderation in the exercise of competences shared betweenthe EU and member states entailing a twofold logic of conduct: i.e. negative,expressed by the right to say ‘no’ to the unjustified (inefficient, irrational) EUintervention leading to unnecessary centralisation of policy-making; and positive,according to which the EU should act to help the member states when theyare not capable of achieving the desired results by intervention at national level.

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Taking the above into account, we could then define subsidiarity as a principledetermining the level of governance at which particular policy should be exercisedconsidering the relative efficiency of action and its proximity to citizens.

The practical application of the subsidiarity provision as stated in article5(3) TEU requires taking two kinds of concern into consideration: political (alsocalled material) and legal (procedural). With respect to the first, the two al-ready discussed conditions of insufficiency and added value should be satisfiedby the legislators. In other words, the EU action must be necessary, should bringadded value over and above what could be achieved by a Member States actionsalone, and with the former two being satisfied, the decisions should be takenas closely as possible to the citizen in accordance with the general commitmentof EU legislators included in the Preamble of the Lisbon Treaty. In this sense,subsidiarity has a considerable normative appeal in representing a “good” and“just” rule of governance (Burrows et al. 2004). Yet, deciding whose action (EUor member state) will be more efficient, beneficial and thus legitimately entailingan eminently political interpretation and at the same time, a certain degree ofdiscretionality. From this point of view, the final decision about the legitimisationof policy intervention at the best suited level of governance is rather an outcome ofpolitically and economically grounded arguments rather than absolutely objectiveevaluation (Compare Palomares Amat, 2011).

As regards the legal aspect of subsidiarity, we refer to certain proceduralrequirements which EU legislators need to fulfill before presenting legislativedrafts and which can later become subject to the judicial control of the EUCourt of Justice (For the role of the Court in subsidiarity control see Horsley2012). Here, the object of control can be threefold. Firstly, the correct exerciseof competences has to be observed. It is clear that subsidiarity applies in thesphere of non-exclusive powers, i.e. competences shared between the EU andmember states. 3 Secondly, the legislator needs to include in the draft legislativeproposal a justification of the planned action with regards to the subsidiarityprinciple, but also in the form of a comprehensive impact assessment of theproposed legislative measures [art. 5 of Protocol no. 2 on the application ofthe principles of subsidiarity and proportionality attached to the Lisbon Treaty(hereafter Protocol no. 2)]. Through such assessment the Commission evaluatesthe potential economic, social and environmental consequences of its future leg-islation, as well as those regarding the regulatory burden for the private andpublic sectors, which is also part of the Commission’s commitment for BetterRegulation [See COM(2009) 15 final]. In this respect, it should be noted that

3 Shared competences between the Union and member states occupy the broadest categoryof policy fields in the Lisbon Treaty. These include: internal market; economic, social andterritorial cohesion; social policy; agriculture and fisheries; environment; consumer protection;transport; pan-European networks; energy; area of freedom, security and justice; joint securityissues with regard to aspects of public health; research, technological development and space;development cooperation and humanitarian aid.

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Protocol no. 2 also mentions another principle which should be observed byEU legislators, namely, the principle of proportionality according to which “thecontent and form of EU action shall not exceed what is necessary to achievethe objectives of the Treaties” [art. 5(4) TEU]. Thirdly, the judicial controlcan also extend to the sphere of specific pre-legislative requirements imposedon the legislator by the Lisbon Treaty such as the obligatory consultations withparticular stakeholders, including regional and local authorities (i.e. Committeesof the Regions) or representatives of the civil society and social partners (i.e. theEuropean Social and Economic Committee) (Implicit in art. 2 of Protocol no. 2;explicit in art. 307 TEU).

Subsidiarity control provisions in the Lisbon Treaty

The most important institutional provision related to the control of the princi-ple of subsidiarity is undoubtedly the parliamentary mechanism of subsidiarityscrutiny known as the Early Warning System (hereafter EWS). Within its frame-work, national parliaments have eight weeks from the date of the transmissionof an EU draft legislative act to analyse it and issue a reasoned opinion ifthey consider that the draft in question does not comply with the principle ofsubsidiarity (art. 6 of Protocol no. 2). Two procedures can emerge from thisprocess:

• “Yellow card”: when at least one third of national parliaments (one voteper chamber in bicameral systems) oppose the draft legislative act on thebasis of its non-compliance with the subsidiarity principle, the initiatorof the contested draft must review the proposal. He may then decide tomaintain, amend or withdraw the draft, however reasons must be given foreach decision in a form of Communication [art. 7(2) of Protocol no. 2]

• “Orange card” (applying only to EU draft legislative acts under the ordinarylegislative procedure): when more than half of the national parliamentsoppose such an act on grounds of subsidiarity breach the latter must bereviewed. The European Commission may then decide to maintain, amendor withdraw the proposal. If the Commission decides to maintain it, it hasto provide a reasoned opinion justifying why it considers the proposal to bein compliance with the subsidiarity principle. On the basis of this reasonedopinion and that of the national parliaments, the European legislator (bya majority of 55 per cent of the members of the Council or a majority ofthe votes cast in the European Parliament) shall decide whether or not toblock the Commission’s proposal. If either of them shares the opinion of thenational parliaments about the subsidiarity breach the legislative proposalwill not proceed [art. 7(2) of the Protocol no. 2]

Although national parliaments have not obtained the possibility to use the “redcard” (i.e. to veto EU legislative projects), article 8 of Protocol no. 2 grants them

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the right to bring legal action before the CJEU on the basis of subsidiarity breachprovided that they had previously issued a reasoned opinion within the EWS. Inaddition, what constitutes novelty in the context of EU multilevel governance,article 6 of Protocol no. 2 recognises regional parliaments with legislative powersas a separate category of institutions involved in the EWS by stating: “it will befor each national Parliament or each chamber of a national Parliament to consult,where appropriate, regional parliaments with legislative powers”. Although suchprovision leaves much scope for interpretation of the actual role that regional par-liaments should play in the control of the EU legislative process, it unequivocallyrecognises the possibility of them being consulted in the subsidiarity review, thusopening yet another channel of democratic participation, and thus legitimisation,in EU policy-making.

National parliaments and subsidiarity control

Although parliamentary contribution to EU policy control had already startedbefore the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty, within the so called PoliticalDialogue4, the introduction of the EWS granted the process legal leverage throughthe system of sanctions for EU legislators (i.e. yellow or orange cards). Moreover,it established an additional, next to the EP, formal link between the citizensand the Commission providing an extra legitimacy channel in the EU system ofpolitical representation.

Operationalisation of the EWS provisions required national parliaments toundertake a range of activities aimed at adapting their own administrative struc-tures towards exercising the new competences. The changes included both theintra-, as well as inter-parliamentary dimensions of their activities. Regardingthe first, parliaments had to organise themselves in terms of resources such asexpertise and personnel to meet the eight-week deadline for the submission of areasoned opinion. In relation to the second, the effective exercise of the EWSentailed establishing effective coordination systems with parliaments of othermember states as to the scope and methodology of the subsidiarity scrutiny (fora detailed overview of the EWS see Kiiver 2012).

The first year of using the procedure revealed weaknesses in the system as only59 per cent of the scrutiny processes initiated were completed on time (Kaczyński2011). Moreover, the under-provision of adequate communication and cooperationmechanisms among national parliaments hindered the effective articulation of

4 Under Political Dialogue (known also as the ‘Barroso Initiative’) the Commission transmitsall new proposals and consultation papers directly to national parliaments and invites them togive comments, criticism and positive feedback regarding their content. Within the scope of thePD, parliaments can assess the compliance with the principles of subsidiarity, proportionality,conferral and political accountability. Although the character of the PD is informal and non-binding for the Commission, it usually takes notice of their comments. It can be said that theEWS is the ‘hard core’ of the broader PD.

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common opinions. The operating procedures showed that effective subsidiaritycontrol (resulting in the review of draft legislative acts by the Commission) canonly be applied collectively via synergy rather than as individual input. 5 Until thecollective voice at national level is organised effectively, the reasoned opinions ofsingle parliaments, although acknowledged by the Commission, are of little rele-vance in the EU legislative process. The two following years (2011-2012) witnessedan increase in the number of reasoned opinions sent to the Commission. In 2011,the Commission received 64 opinions from national parliaments, which marksan increase of almost 75 per cent in comparison with 2010 (COM/2012/373).According to the IPEX database, in 2012 the Commission received 88 reasonedopinions. 6 The five most participative chambers were the Swedish Riksdag, theLuxembourg Chambre des Deputes, the Polish Sejm and Senat and the UK Houseof Commons.7 More importantly, in 2012, the first threshold for a “yellow card”was reached regarding the Commission’s proposal for a Council regulation “Onthe exercise of the right to take collective action within the context of the freedomof establishment and the freedom to provide services” (COM/2012/130 final)known also as “Monti II regulation”. The aim of the proposal was to develop alegislative framework for regulation of transnational industrial action (the rightto strike) in the context of the EU internal market (free movement). However,it met with strong opposition among trade unions and employers. Reasonedopinions were delivered by 12 national chambers representing 19 votes underthe EWS8. The main arguments against the regulation were lack of clarity as toits purpose; lack of EU competence over industrial relations; and its potentialincompatibility with the well-functioning national arrangements in the area oflabour law (compare Bruun & Bucker 2012).

This first effective use of the yellow card deserves special attention sincethe nature of this particular parliamentary scrutiny has raised certain questions.Although, according to the Commission, the reasoned opinions of national par-liaments did not address the material and procedural aspects of the principleof subsidiarity9, the Commission took notice of their position and decided to

5 However, the EWS also provides parliaments with an individual power, that cannotbe underestimated, in the sense that, by way of the EWS, each national parliament canact autonomously from its executive and express its views (sometimes differing from thegovernment) representing national public opinions directly to the EU institutions.6 IPEX is an inter-parliamentary EU information exchange: http://www.ipex.eu/IPEXL-

WEB/home/home.do, accessed 17.06.137 See IPEX database.8 Reasoned opinions were issued by 12 unicameral parliaments (Danish, Swedish, Swedish,

Lithuanian, Portuguese, Luxembourgian and Maltese) as well as the Polish Sejm, French Senate,Belgian House of Representatives, UK House of Commons and the States General of theNetherlands.9 The analysis of the reasoned opinions show that national parliaments have expressed

reservations to the choice of a wrong legal basis and the breach of the principle of proportionalityas main weaknesses of the proposed regulation. For more see Fabbrini & Granat 2013.

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withdraw the proposal. At the same time it justified this decision by pointing toinsufficient support for the measure on the side of national governments (in theEU Council). 10 It is important to notice that the proposal was objected mainlyby countries where industrial relations and high standards of social dialogue playimportant roles in domestic politics. This decision should also be viewed in thecontext of the current economic crisis where its governance has been characterisedby a lack of social policy consideration. The EU imposed austerity measures (i.e.cuts in social benefits, wages, employment reductions) affect mainly the Europeanworkforce. In the eyes of those opposing “Monti II regulation”, enforcing it,the EU would commit another above-mentioned “policy drift” away from EUcitizens and further undermine its output legitimacy. In this sense, althoughnot explicitly mentioned in the reasoned opinions, the subsidiarity argumentworked well, showing that decisions regarding labour issues should be either leftto national considerations which are more responsive to the specific models ofindustrial relations, or elaborated more carefully at EU level (for a different viewsee Fabbrini & Granat 2013). Moreover, broader interpretation of subsidiarityby national parliaments is explained by the fact that its application depends ingreat part on political evaluation which is inherent in the nature of parliamentaryinstitutions performing the scrutiny under the EWS. Parliaments as politicalactors are created to foster public deliberation on policy proposals and not to assesthem in strictly legal terms as if they were courts. In this sense, the successfulactivation of the first yellow card in the subsidiarity control mechanism canbe viewed as a precedent which might have further positive consequences forparliamentary involvement in European policy-making.

Regional parliaments11 in subsidiarity control

One of the main novelties of the Lisbon Treaty in terms of enhancing EU legit-imacy is the extension of the application of the principle of subsidiarity to theregional level [art. 5(3) TEU]. In doing this, the EU has imposed on itself the obli-gation to respect the degree of regional autonomy of EU Member States through,inter alia, taking into account the legislative competences of regional authoritieswhile drafting EU policies. In this sense, article 4 (2) TEU specifies that the EU“shall respect (. . . ) national identities, inherent in their fundamental structures,political and constitutional, inclusive of regional and local self-government”. Thetreaty, ipso facto, institutionalises for the first time, the regional tier of juris-

10 See the letter by President Barroso to the President of the European Parliament, MrMartin Schulz, Memo 12/661, 12 September 2012.11 There are currently 74 sub-national parliaments in the EU, which exercise constitutionally

attributed law-making competences in various fields of policy. They can be found in eightEU member states: three federal (Austria, Belgium and Germany), two regionalised (Spainand Italy), one devolved (the UK) and two unitary states (Portugal-Madeira and Azores; andFinland-Aland Islands). The legislative capacity varies from one Member State to another.

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diction as a distinct element of the EU system of multilevel governance. In thesame vein, the Commission is expected to extend its pre-legislative consultationsand impact assessments to regional and local level (respectively art. 2 and 5of Protocol no. 2). The dialogue which takes place between the Commissionand the regional stakeholders prior to the presentation of legislative proposalstakes several forms, such as mandatory consultation with the Committee of theRegions on key policy areas of regional concern, sectoral consultation on thespecific conditions for EU intervention in various policy fields or the structureddialogue with associations representing regional interests. The extension of theprinciple of subsidiarity to the regional level seems not only justified, but alsodesirable; most of all for legitimacy-related reasons (Weatherill 2005; Popelier &Vandenbruwaene 2011). From the output legitimacy point of view, it must beremembered that regional and local authorities implement over 70 per cent ofEU legislation (Christiansen & Lintner 2005). In this respect, their legislative,administrative and fiscal capacities in dealing with specific policies are crucialin conducting subsidiarity and policy impact analyses to estimate the territorialeffects of European legislation. The increased capacity of regional authorities ininfluencing EU policy-making through their involvement in the decision-makingprocess should ideally translate into co-responsibility for governance, awarenessof its costs and increase in its effectiveness (Borońska-Hryniewiecka 2013c). 12

Next to efficiency-related arguments, the inclusion of the regional level intothe EWS should also be considered as an enhancement of EU input-orientedlegitimacy. Regional parliaments are legitimate and directly-elected institutionsrepresenting the “multiple demoi” of the EU (compare: Nicolaidis 2003; Benz2011) and equally contribute to the democratic legitimacy of the EU (compareBursens et al. 2012). The Special Eurobarometer (307/2009) reveals that whileonly one third of Europeans tend to trust their national governments (34 percent), half of the citizens express trust towards their regional and local authorities(50 per cent). The same survey also shows that a large majority of Europeansfeel that public authorities at the regional level are not sufficiently taken intoaccount in EU policy-making (59 per cent). These findings imply that EU cit-izens not only entrust regional parliaments with a significant scope of politicalresponsibility, but they also expect regional responsiveness to the possibility ofbeing consulted on EU related issues. In this case, the inclusion of regional parlia-ments as the local representative institutions into the scrutiny of EU legislation

12 It is commonly admitted that one of the reasons behind the failure of the Lisbon Strategywas the fact that it was too much of a top-down strategy with ambitious but quite abstractindicators imposed by Brussels and objectives lacking joint frameworks for implementationfeeding on the potential of the various territorial levels of government and non-state actors.(Compare: After Lisbon - the role of regional and local authorities in the new Strategy forSustainable Growth and Better Jobs, a study commissioned by the Committee of the Regionsand written by Metis GmbH on the basis of interviews conducted among by the LisbonMonitoring Platform on the CoR in 2010).

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affecting sub-national competences, links political decisions at supranational levelwith citizens’ preferences on the ground. Finally, the involvement of regionalassemblies in subsidiarity control could become a useful way of accelerating theEuropeanisation process of sub-national political elites, bridging the gap betweenregional politics and EU policies (Bauer ET AL., 2010) which, in the long run,could help overcome the long-lasting ‘deparliamentarisation’ at the sub-nationallevel.

The conducted empirical analysis reveals that since the introduction of theEWS regional parliamentary activity in the sphere of EU affairs has increased.The questionnaires conducted in Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, Finland, theUK and Belgium reveal that formal inclusion of regional parliaments into thedomestic scrutiny process has taken place, albeit in differing ways, and newpatterns of interactions between the central and sub-national authorities are beingestablished (for more see Borońska-Hryniewiecka 2013a and 2013b). Moreover,there is a general agreement among the majority of the representatives of regionalparliaments that participation in the EWS has a positive spill-over effect throughenhancing the Europeanisation process of the sub-national administration and po-litical elites, increasing their knowledge about EU legislation and responsivenessto EU affairs. In their analyses of EU draft legislative acts regional parliaments,similarly to the national chambers, take a broader scope addressing the questionsof proportionality and policy substance. In this way their awareness is raisedregarding the contents of EU legislation thus enhancing democratic legitimisationand co-responsibility for local policy outcomes. Furthermore, subsidiarity scrutinyis also conducted by the Committee of the Regions, which in 2012 establishedREGPEX, an electronic database serving as an information exchange platform forregional parliaments and governments in the process of subsidiarity monitoringand impact assessment procedures. Today, the network has gathered over 140members representing not only regional parliaments, but also local governmentsand municipal authorities from federal, regionalised and unitary member states.13

Summing up, such a multi-level system of subsidiarity control, in spite ofits still short experience and the existing weaknesses, creates the first legislativetransmission belt in the EU system of compound representation thus enhancing(re-) parliamentarisation of the EU governance structure. With regards to theEWS, some authors have even proclaimed the emergence of a ‘virtual third cham-ber’ collectively fulfilling the legislative, representative and deliberative functionin the EU (Cooper 2012). 14 Although such claims might be exaggerated, theexchange of views and cooperation between the Commission, the Member States’parliaments and regional assemblies should ideally, result in the positive-sum

13See: https://portal.cor.europa.eu/subsidiarity/Pages/default.aspx, accessed 24.10.2013.14 For contrasting view see: Pieter De Wilde, Why the Early Warning Mechanism does not

Alleviate the Democratic Deficit, OPAL Online Paper no. 6, 2012, p. 3.

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legitimacy required to justify policies coming from the EU.

Conclusion

The aim of this article was to clarify the relationship between legitimacy andsubsidiarity in EU policy-making and to show in which ways the application ofthe latter can reduce the legitimacy deficit of the EU. The paper has explainedthat subsidiarity involves considering both the input and output dimension oflegitimacy in which both democracy- and efficiency- oriented arguments are takeninto account. The principle of subsidiarity can then be used as an effective toolguiding EU institutions as to the form, scope and intensity of their actions.While Scharpf (1999, p. 12) holds that EU policy-making, due to its regulatorycharacter, can only aspire to satisfy the output dimension of legitimacy, thisarticle has shown that, at least from a formal point of view, the newly estab-lished parliamentary system of subsidiarity control also fulfils the input orientedlegitimacy requirement throughout the policy-making process. By scrutinising EUlegislation national parliaments collectively perform the controlling, deliberativeand representative function linking the EU and domestic polities. Moreover, inthe new institutional perspective of the Lisbon Treaty regional parliaments havealso been granted new competences in the field of subsidiarity monitoring thusbecoming an emerging player in the EU “multi-level parliamentary field” (Crum& Fossum 2009). The extent to which regional parliaments are included into theEWS will depend on the internal dynamics of the member states and certainmeso-level factors such as the inter-institutional relations between the involvedactors, either in the horizontal or vertical dimension (see Borońska-Hryniewiecka2013a). Yet, it can be expected that in general, the inter-parliamentary relationsinduced by the EWS will create a deliberative space among parliaments and thusindirectly enhance the democratic quality of European governance. Additionally,the potential use of the new tool for bringing cases before the CJEU on the basis ofsubsidiarity breach might result in a more careful and inclusive elaboration of EUpolicies before these become legislative drafts. In this sense, strategic interactionsbetween EU institutions, interest groups and the Committee of the Regions orthe European Economic and Social Committee are likely to be the main sourceof an increased policy legitimacy.

While the EWS has certainly created new modus operandi between the Com-mission, national and regional parliaments, further comparative studies are neededto confront and develop the proposed “legitimacy through subsidiarity” argu-ment. There are two possible ways to conduct research in this field. The firstis through a comparative analysis of the inter-institutional dynamics at play indifferent domestic parliamentary systems. Such perspective will allow detectionof possible weaknesses and assess the challenges of inter-parliamentary relationsin the sphere of EU affairs. The applied approach can take into account eithernational or sub-national levels of analysis, or combine the two by looking at

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the vertical inter-level parliamentary relations in policy-control in EU decen-tralised states. The second research strand should focus on particular policyfields to analyse in which ways cooperative, policy-oriented forms of governanceare created between parliaments of issue-interested member states. Here too,the perspective can be national, sub-national or link both levels of analysis.The literature still lacks in-depth studies of parliamentary engagement in thepolicy shaping phase, especially in cases of policies with significant social impactsuch as the environment, sustainable development and labour regulations. Aresearcher wanting to “test” the input legitimacy of certain policy dossiers shouldtake into account questions pertaining to the absence or presence of adequateconsultative procedures and impact assessment analyses as well as the qualitativeand quantitative aspects of parliamentary input in their elaborations. It couldbe expected, that with time and more institutional adjustments in place, moreparliamentary input will be channelled upwards to the Commission through theEWS. This also encourages the development of more robust theories regardingthe actual and potential impact of the EWS on both parliamentary mobilisationand horizontal inter-parliamentary cooperation in the EU.

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• O’Brenan John and Tapio Raunio. ’Deparliamentarisation and EuropeanIntegration‘, in (eds.) J. O’Brennan, T. Raunio, National Parliaments withinthe Enlarged European Union. Abingdon: Routledge, 2007. pp.1-26.

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Karolina Kichewko

European Social Pacts Policy (the Netherlands, Irelandand Italy)

Abstract

The main aims of this article are: a presentation of the theoreticalframework for the analysis of the social pacts policy (taking into con-sideration that social pacts are phenomena which are very difficult toclearly define) and the presentation of the practice of this policy in chosenEuropean countries (including three cases of “using” social pacts for theshaping of public policy, taking into consideration the fact that the formand content of social pacts vary from country to country). Social pactsare very special kinds of agreements between the representatives of thestate and the interest groups. They can include various issues of socialand economic policies, but they can also be used for solving economicdifficulties and sustaining progress, including the development of the state.Social Pacts Policy is useful for a weak state and interest groups, whichas a result of it can have an influence on public policy. Although, itsapplication is not a facile process of agreement between the state and thesocial partners, it can have various forms and can include different goals ofsocial and economic policies. Similarly, the range, institutionalisation andlength of social pacts are not the same in all countries. Moreover, as thearticle indicates it refers to the economic, cultural and social circumstances,which can also cause the disappearance of the social pacts mechanism.Keywords: social dialogue, social pact, social partners, and industrialrelations

Analytical Framework for Social Pacts

It is often the opinion that the conclusion of social pacts is caused by secondary(external) factors related to domestic, social and political conditions. Present-ing this thesis in a different way, we say that inter alia global pressure, worldcompetition and European integration enforced the conclusion of a deal betweensocial partners and the government (see Baccaro & Sang-Hoon 2008a). On theother hand, there is the opinion of which “shock of system being a direct impulsefor conclusions of social pact can be caused by the factor of different nature,for example macroeconomic crisis and it taken place in Ireland in mid 1980s”(Baccaro & Sang-Hoon 2008a, p. 18). However, in this study we will not considerwhich of the above-mentioned endogenous or exogenous ways of explaining theconclusions of social pacts roots is correct or more significant (i.e. which hasgreater driving force). But via the use of Western-European state practices we willshow the significance and importance of this category (social pacts) for effective

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state functioning in the area of industrial relations. Concluding an axiom forus, will be the high value of social pacts, in particular in the context of themanagement of social change (creation of public policy). The significant andimportant role of social pacts refers to the possibility of creating social consensusover the main disputable issues of social and economic policies. They, therefore,can help to avoid industrial conflicts as well as creating a common understandingand a way of fight against unemployment and social exclusion etc. What isaccepted by social partners and state agendas. In this sense, social pacts policycan be seen as an improvement of the state’s functioning through the assuranceof social peace and can be a manner for the shaping of economic and socialpolicies which is accepted by the industrial relations actors. Of course, there isthe possibility of security and the realisation of the interests of chosen groups bysocial pacts, but it is related to representativeness into the social dialogue at acentral level. Moreover, another problematic issue can also be the functioning ofsocial pacts in changeable economic and social conditions which have an influenceon the filling out of social pacts records or the non-realisation of pact records. Forexample, a situation like this occurred in Ireland, where the current agreement isa ten-year pact due to unrealised issues in the “traditional”, previously three-yearsocial pacts.

In this fragment of the article, we may formulate the following research ques-tions: (1) Can we define social pacts policy in a clear way? (2) What issues areregulated by social pacts? (3) Does social pacts policy create economic as wellas social policies? (4) Is there one pattern of social pacts policy in Europeancountries? We can also make three hypothesis: (1) The economic difficulties leadto the conclusion of social pacts. (2) There are various ranges of European socialpacts and they include the various issues regulated by such social pacts policy.(3) There are different “models” of social pacts policy in European countries.In other words social pacts have different forms from country to country withinEurope.

For the realisation of the above-mentioned, the structure of the article willbe as follows: in the (first) theoretical chapter there is consideration of the term“social pact” as well as an interpretation of social pacts policy. In the (second)practical chapter, we will present three chosen case studies describing the useof special pacts policy. In the final part (conclusion) we will recapitulate allconsiderations.

Focusing on the theoretical side of social pacts we can say that especiallystrong social pacts have appeared in Europe, they are an immanent feature ofsocial dialogue, they can even be described as one of the most perfect aspects ofit. Nevertheless, an understanding of the essence and significance of these forms isan extremely difficult process because there are serious semantic variances in thearea and on the other hand, the process of understanding them is complicated bythe mixing of some varying terms. Therefore, in Western-European practices forthe description of the analysed category in this study we use inter alia following

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a cluster of ideas: social pact, social charter, social code, social rule, frameagreement, general agreement, procedural agreement, basic agreement (Sroka2009b), social partnership agreements etc.

One can ascertain that neither social dialogue nor social pact have a cleardefinition. It does not imply the existence of an explanation gap in the literatureof the subject. The publication edited by Rafał Towalski emphasises that socialpact „is a particular kind of collective agreements in which the state participates”(Towalski 2007, book cover). Whereas, as Jacek Sroka underlines „social pacts arethe exceptional important acts, their initiator is mostly government, which aimsto social partners’ enlisting for defined reforms’ programme in following issues:reduction of unemployment, wage freeze, reduction of inflation, of trade deficit,or integration with international structures” (Sroka 2009b).

It cannot polemicise with the opinion that the conclusion of social pacts isa „political product”, since the inclusion of social partners into the process ofthe creation of public policies is an aftermath of the government’s weakness andconsequently the impossibility of independent implementation of reforms (see ofit below). On the other hand, the opinion is also valid that a range of the state’sinvolvement in the process of creating a social pact is varied, because the statecan only play the role of signatory of agreement. It can also play the role ofactive mediator in the communication between social partners, approving thedecisions which are taken by other actors, but the state can be the initiator andsupporter of social pact negotiation processes, too (Towalski 2007). Although, therange and profile is at the same level as social partners’ „participation” in thisagreement is also different, but „in traditional understanding all forms of regularcontacts and agreement between the employers and the employees are significant”(Towalski 2006, 44). Of course, it is not a sufficient understanding, because socialpacts currently include a wide range of economic and social issues, therefore theseagreements contain not only a deal between traditional social partners (such astrade unions and employers’ associations) but they also include a wide pillar ofsocial organisations (NGOs). Therefore, the negotiating actors’ ring is wider butthis notice refers to certain states. An exemplification of this opinion is the Irishsocial partnership, which since 1996 the community and voluntary pillar haveparticipated in negotiations at central level, the National Economic and SocialCouncil (NESC) includes the environmental pillar, community and voluntarypillar as well as, of course, the trade union, business and employer organisation,agricultural and farming organisation pillars (the traditional social partners),the representatives of government departments and the independent nominees.Therefore, social pacts policy can be interpreted as an important part of socialdialogue (materialising it in concrete records within the agreements) which leadsto wider social compromise over the principles and rules in the social and economicarea including the labour market and it also regulatly appoints the trajectoriesof versatile state development. It includes not only economic issues, but also(equally) social questions. The above-mentioned example of the Irish social pacts

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policy confirms this feature. ”In the early 1990s, the common understanding(in this country: author’s note) also includes labour market policy matters andactive local interventions undertaken for social issues such as: qualifications, localrecovery, literacy, drug addiction etc. Therefore, an agreement is not only limitedfor economy as it would not be enough” (O’Donnell 2007, pp. 69-70). Hence, socialpacts, obtaining their power from a synergy effect, do not require an accidental,chaotic approach for economic and social difficulties, but they require a focus onnational priorities, including solutions that realise these priorities which will beclose to the social (cultural) context of every state.

European Social Pacts

The threat of social balance is a factor which strongly determines the conclusionsof social pacts. Based on this opinion, we can say that the crisis in the economicarea combined with the political (government) impasse is the factor deliveringsocial pact potential. Indeed, observing the experiences of European social pactsand paying attention to the social, political and economic environment in whichthey are made. The crisis in these three areas has become the factor in creatingthe social pact potential in Ireland, Italy and similar conditions have led to the“implementation” of social pacts policy in the Netherlands. Bellow, we will makea brief analysis of Dutch and Italian pacts and a wider analyse of the Irish pactprocess, which has been recognised as a very effective system for the explorationof the mechanisms offered by the social partnership formula.

Lucio Baccaro and Sang-Hoon Lim stresses that „analyse of Irish, Italianand South Korea examples permits to make a thesis that social pact is result ofoccurrence of »weak and moderate«” (Baccaro & Sang-Hoon 2008a, p. 17). Inthis context, social pacts seem to be the outcome of the agreement between theweak government combating politically as well as the economic crisis with themost moderate fraction in the union movement (Baccaro & Sang-Hoon 2008a)1. Therefore, the time of conclusion for social pacts is usually a critical timedetermined not only by the deep economic collapse of the state, but also by theimpossibility of the government’s independent function. That government withits weak position („related with parliamentary election” 2) loses the opportunityfor any real influence on social reality. To paraphrase, it is weak for independentdecision making to lean towards crisis combat too, which implies the necessityfor the conclusion of broad social coalitions, which will permit a way for working

1 The fraction which is able to accept a strategy of cooperation with the government, thefraction which thinks that employees’ interests can be crossed with the interests’ of employersand governments.2 Election aspect is an issue which is taken by the above-mentioned authors for defining

government position. (Weak government which is not able to cope with troubles by itself,which must seek allies among the major social forces for actions. This cooperation is useful forcarrying out political reforms in crisis times).

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out a change of negative circumstances. Generally, in times of a weak state,there is no way to solve the social problems, and from the broader method ofsustaining development and progress, this paving the way for social partnership(or a social partnership network) permitted to shaping a network of relations, inwhich social partners and the government through the use of their resources aimfor the desirable social changes (results).

However the economic crisis is also (if not mainly) determinant for the processof building social pacts (a scheme of this process is presented in figure 1). Itseems to be confirmed by the practices of the above-mentioned European states.The Irish as well as the Italian social pacts policy was borne in conditions ofserious economic difficulties. Similar problems accompanied the conclusion ofsocial pacts in the Netherlands „which had passed by 1970s and 1980s (calledDutch disease) to the prosperity period (Dutch delight)” (Kowalski 2006a, p. 51)and the significant reason for this bloom is due to social dialogue and partnershipmechanisms.

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Figure 1. Scheme of creation process of social pact

Source: own study on the basis: Baccaro & Sang-Hoon 2006a, pp. 17-21.

Focusing on three chosen countries and nationalities (Dutch, Irish, Italian socialpacts) we will seek the indicators which have similarities in the social pactspolicy area. Although selection of these cases permits us to present an analysis ofdifferences in this area. In the context of similarities, we will consider the factorsthat “bring” social pacts and also indicate that the unemployment issue is animportant impulse for cooperation over social pacts (at least in the initial phaseof social pacts policies). While the differences which are visible in Dutch, Irishand Italian social pacts policy will be useful for an indication as to the topic ofinstitutionalisation (deep and permanent use vs temporary use) as well as thevarious range of agendas within social pacts policy.

Dutch Social Pacts

As stressed above, the Netherlands is a country which also uses social dialoguemechanisms. It is a matter of fact that social dialogue helped in passing fromthe difficult economic situation to the Dutch prosperity period permitting thereduction in unemployment or the liquidation of a flexible and “broken” labourmarket. Social pacts in the Netherlands were strongly focused on shaping thesituations in the labour market. The Wassenaar Agreement was one of the first

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social pacts to be concluded in Europe (Kowalski 2006a, p. 51). It initiatedthe policy of wage restraint. ”The primary motivation for this policy was therapidly growing unemployment and massive lay-offs at the beginning of the1980s” (van het Kaar 1997). Therefore, this agreement, which was signed by therepresentatives of government, employers and employees in 1982, aimed at growthof competitiveness as well as the creation of jobs in the Netherlands. Moreover,it included wage moderation and reduction in working time. Therefore, this caseis important because it was one of the very first social pacts policies in Europe.

Irish Social Pacts

Indeed, in concluding the understanding of social pacts policy in individual states,we do not simply analyse the main foundations of these agreements, as a simpleexplanation of their outcomes does bring „not too much”. Therefore it is necessaryfor deeper recognition in the social and economic context, in which they (socialpacts) are created. We will commence an analysis of each social pact system byshowing the conditions accompanying these kinds of agreement constructions.

Looking to the early 1980s and the grave economic collapse visible in Ireland.In this country, which was „»hard done by« in the international race for prosperityand better living standards. The two key questions dominating political andeconomic conversation were, firstly, who was responsible for this economic messand, secondly, how could we get out of it?” (Hastings et al. 2007, p. 1). Onetime Ireland’s unfavourable situation, appointed by inter alia the high unemploy-ment level, excessive expenditure in the public sphere, low competitiveness, deepinflation, a grave area of emigration, had required not only the government’sactivities, but also wide social consensus referring to a way of getting the stateout of crisis and reducing the claims declared by all social partners. A significantproblem was the unemployment rate. Before 1986, the level of unemployment roseto 18 per cent in Ireland (Hastings et al. 2007, p. 1), although its real size wasconsiderably higher. In this context “it should” cite the Billy Attley’s statementwhich accents the seriousness (size) of the unemployment problem in the 1980sin Ireland, he said: ”I remember talking to somebody from Trinity in 1986 wherethe whole engineering class of that year went first-post out of the country. Therewas no work for them, simply no work. So it was like a plague, every house wastouched by it and when you talked to people [. . . ] all they were talking aboutwas don’t mind about pay if you could get a job for your son or daughter, if youcould get them into employment of any description and keep them home” (citedby Hasting et al. 2007, p. 9).

Moreover the application of measures such as “a transformation” of peopleregistered as unemployed to people who have a right for early retirement, whichimplied that a considerable majority of them would never return to work again,was also significant. In the analysed period here, the number of people out of workwas permanently growing which can be illustrated by the growth of dismissal at

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work which jumped from 91000 in 1980 to the level of 226000 in 1985 (Hastingset al. 2007, p. 2). The Condition of the Irish economy was made worse by aserious growth in taxation. As Paul Tansey notices ”the marginal rates of tax forsingle people earning average manufacturing wages rose from 39.5 per cent in the1980-81 period to 56.6 per cent five years later” (cited by Hastings et al. 2007, p.2). Emanation of the wrong situation in Ireland (which is a natural phenomenonin the context of the above considerations) was the high frequency of strikes.They had a large size in the mid-1970s, although in the late 1970s and in theearly 1980s they had reduced in tendency and a similar (but more downward)tendency in the strike area can be observed after 1987 (see: table 1.). Generally,current Irish industrial relations can be defined as more cooperative (peaceable)which transfers as a fall of a works day lost, this economy is rarely ”shaken” bylarger strikes.

Table 1. Strikes 1962-91Year Number of

strikesWorkersinvolved

Work DaysLost

1962-66 418 141,664 2,219,0111967-71 606 194,100 2,805,7151972-76 817 168,899 2,038,1781977-81 712 174,968 3,424,2941982-86 686 306,388 1,951,0791987-91 272 68,415 766,519

Source: Roche, William and Tom Murphy (eds) (1998), Irish Industrial Relationsin Practice (2nd edition), Dublin: Oaktree Press, cited by: Hastings et al. 2007,p.3.

Ending the considerations regarding the „quantitative” issues, we will pay partic-ular attention to the acute issue of emigration, because it was a significant Irishproblem during this period (but not only). Emigration followed in waves from theperiod of the Great Famine and caused a fall in the population from 8 000 000 to 4000000 in 1980 (from it only 2 900 000 people lived within the Republic’s border)(O’Connor 2008, p. 52). The above-mentioned indicators do not describe in anexhausting way the economic and social problems which caused the economiccollapse in Ireland, because their accurate analysis would require individual study,therefore they serve to show the size (intensity) of factors determining the crisis.

Irish economic success can be interpreted in various ways3, including by theapplication of a social partnership approach to industrial relations. The„successof the Irish partnership is merit to the fact that we have succeeded in narratingonce again our social history in another way. We have linked all social groups in

3 Ireland’s success is interpreted in various ways and in this context it indicates theinvestments aboard, neoliberal interpretation as well as European integration.

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this new narration referring to the social challenges” (O’Donnell 2007, p. 71). Theshaping of efficient social pact mechanisms has been possible due to the existenceof a strongly cooperative mindset of Irish representatives of government as wellas social partners (which included employers, employees and farmers in the initialperiod). The Irish endogenic feature is the result of this country having a power-fully appointed Anglo-Saxon (antagonistic) tradition which changed its industrialrelations under a model that distinguishes considerable levels of cooperation. Ineffect, it brought a national partnership idea, which materialised in the socialpacts of 1987 (see Table 2), which were concluded over a three-year period. Thatinterval of time was characterised by all previous agreements, although not allissues were regulated by pacts over such a long period (for example in the pactentitled Sustaining Progress wage agreement was only an eighteen months deal,not three years pay agreement). And the current social partnership agreement inIreland is a ten-year pact.

The evolution of Irish social pacts policy is a natural practice, because overthe first years of the pact process, Irish social partners’ activity was focused onthe mechanisms permitting the overcoming of the crisis and its pejorative conse-quences. Although it should be emphasised that “modern” Irish social pacts havetheir roots in the wage agreements of the 1970s4. The first Irish social partnershipdocument Programme for National Recovery (1987 – 1990) was concluded undercritical circumstances that assigned the framework trajectories of developmentof state through the more effective use of human capital, economic and socialresources of state. Moreover, it paid attention to issues such as European inte-gration, globalisation (which was related to the definition of Ireland’s role andposition under these conditions), pay policy, taxation regulation, social equity,employment policy, labour legislation and competitiveness. In these spheres, itanticipated the definite measures, for example a verification of the tax system,improvement of tax enforcement, facilitation of access to education for disad-vantaged groups, pay increases, the black economy, development of the states’industry etc., this seven-section pact5 begun the period of Irish prosperity.

As we have noticed above, Irish social pacts clearly changed their character,passing from the macroeconomic issues to the wider matters of the labour market,training and education plus social areas etc. Therefore, the range of social pactswas gradually widened, adjusting to the conditions and situation of the country,

4 It can accept the opinion that Irish social partnership is a continuation of pay agreementswhich were concluded after the second world war, especially including the period of socialpartnership experiments in 1970s Ireland aimed at the centralisation of collective bargainingand the opinion can also be accepted that partnership agreements are a completely new qualityin the Irish system.5 Section I European Community Dimension, Section II Macroeconomic Policies, Section

III Tax Reform, Section IV Greater Social Equity, Section V Employment, Section VI LabourLegislation, Section VII Review and Monitoring Committee, Appendix State-Sponsored Bodies– Proposals. See more in Government of Ireland 1987.

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for example, the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (2000-2003) tendedtowards the creation of solutions which are agreeable to the permanent, dynamicdevelopment of Ireland, and it also included social issues such as housing, pub-lic transport, rural development and social inclusion, adaptation for continuingchange with lifelong learning, childcare etc., a significant issue was also therenewal of social partnership. With the changed process of social pacts in Ireland,we a wide change in the area of subject issues, which was linked with the pillarsparticipating with the social partnership process as well as the changes in theperiod of agreements. Firstly ”from 1996 the process was widened to include arange of social NGOs known as the »community and voluntary pillar« (C &V)”(O’Donnell et al. 2010, p.1). Secondly, from 2006 currently a ten-year frameworkagreement (Towards 2016). The Ten-year Framework Social Partnership Agree-ment 2006-2015) is in force in Ireland. The elongation of the social pact periodhas mainly been linked with the perception that certain foundations of the pactcannot be realised in a three-year period and they require a wider frameworkof time. Although, there is the feeling that certain issues amongst the pactsfoundations cannot be realised even in a such long period. And the pay issuesare excluded from the ten-year period because the wage agreement from Towards2016 was concluded in twenty seven months. This agreement strongly shows thesignificance of social partnership as an essential element for the multidimensionalstates’ development, (for economic and social matters, including macroeconomicissues, economic development, children, people of working age, older people andpeople with disabilities). Moreover, this agreement focused on issues such asthe macroeconomic area, productivity, innovation, knowledge, society, enterprise,different branches of industry, art, culture, sport area, workplace, employmentrights etc. The social dimension of Towards 2016 is reflected in The LifecycleFramework. According to it a person is a superior element of social policy andit distinguishes in this context the phase of childhood, people of working age,older people as well as people with disabilities, simultaneously showing the certainactions, which have an application in the definite life cycle, for example education(lifelong learning), has high significance to people in the working age phase. ThePact touches the issues of public sector modernisation showing the necessityfor active participation in the process of employees, of the cooperation of civilservants and the necessity of “modern” qualifications among employees in thepublic sector. The above considerations can be completed by one more conclusion.There is also a critical (negative) strand towards social partnership in Ireland,criticism of this idea, by referring (for example) to this idea as ”being a funnyform of democracy” (O’Donnell 2007, p. 72) in which the democratically electedgovernment shares its rights with social partners or signs agreements with them.Therefore, despite the wide application of social partnership in Irish industrialrelations until 2009, it was also criticised in different ways. Now this system doesnot function in Ireland, it has collapsed „after the government announced thattalks with the public sector trade unions on an agreed method of securing a 1

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billion euro reduction in the public pay bill had failed” (Sheehan 2010).

Italian Social Pacts

In Italy the economic and political crisis had ”accompanied” the creation ofagreements between the representatives of social partners and government. Theunprofitable economic Italian position was linked with the problems of the ex-change rate, reduction of exports and the increase of imports. The situation inItaly was deteriorated by the wave of political scandals referring to all-embracingcorruption which touched all parties. Therefore, the economic crisis, politicalchaos (action of clean hands) determined the changes, including the social dia-logue system.

The history of Italian social pacts is linked with the 1980s period, althoughthese social dialogue experiences can be described as a pejorative effect in thedialogue matter. Signed on 23 January 1983 and 14 February 1984 by the govern-ment and the most essential centrals of trade unions agreements relating to wage,wage cost reduction as well as valorisation, did not bring expected the social andeconomic results (Kowalski 2006b, p. 81). They only implied the opinion aboutending the negotiation period, however in the 1990s Italian people begun themost important agreements and features of the pact process focusing on oneprogramme issue which appeared in a definite period.

The 1992 agreement was a kind of prologue in the social dialogue area. Inthe agreement of 21 July 1992 related to wage and reduction of inflation whichwere necessary for the realisation of the Italian “dream” about entrance into theEuro Zone. The Tripartite national Agreement of 23 July 1993 (Accordo 23 Luglio1993 ) is described as the ”Italian social dialogue constitution” (Kowalski 2006b,p. 81) and it paid attention to a concentration in the reduction of inflation.It „outlines a thoroughgoing reform of the Italian industrial relations system,based on four main objectives: income policy; a restructuring of bargaining pro-cedures; modification of forms of workplace union representation; and policieson employment and measures to support the production system” (Eurofound).Its supplement was the Pact for Employment (Patto per il Lavoro) which wasconcluded on 24th September, 1996, and aimed at the economic developmentof Italy, the increase in employment, i.e. reforms in training and the educationsystem, combatting unemployment among the young, long-term unemployment,unemployed women and Southern Italian residents, including a development ofthis part of the country and investments in infrastructural policy. This pactallocated ”a total amount of about ITL 15,000 billion for its implementationover the 1997-1999 period” (Pedersini & Carpo 1997). Whereas, the agreementof 22 December 1998 focused on employment. The Social Pact for Developmentand Employment (Patto sociale per lo sviluppo e l’occupazione) was signed bythe government and 32 employers’ associations and trade union organisations(Trentini 1999). It emphasised the importance of cooperation between the gov-

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ernment and social partners for the economic and social issues in policy decisions,“dispersion” of the level of concentation (regions, provinces, communes dialogue),and moreover the pact paid attention to a two-tier system of bargaining (national,company level), reformation of public administration, the inflation rate as well asa reduction in taxation. In 2002, Italian people signed the successive agreement.A Pact for Italy (Patto per l’Italia) distinguished “three areas: the programme forincome policy and social cohesion, the programme »from welfare to work« andthe programme for investment and employment for Southern Italy” (Kowalski2006b, pp. 83-84). Therefore, this agreement of 5 July, 2002 created an areafor the reforms in the tax system and labour market as well as reforms in theregions of Southern Italy. Although, “its contents [. . . ] are very similar to various»pacts for employment« signed in a number of European countries [. . . ]. Onenovelty in the new pact’s employment provisions, in the Italian context, is thenew measures for the participation of social partners in the management of someaspects of the labour market [. . . ].The pact thus entrusts joint bodies with themanagement of job placement services and the »social shock absorbers«, and ofprocedures to help companies »emerge« from the illegal economy, and »irregular«undeclared workers to »regularise« their position” (Paparella, Rinolfi 2002). In2003 Italian social partners concluded the “innovative” agreement, because itwas a non-governmental pact. So it was signed by the representatives of tradeunions and employers’ associations without the representatives of government.Signatories of the Pact for Development, Employment and Competitiveness of19th June, 2003 aimed at influencing political decisions and demanded the takingof actions to increase the state’s competitiveness, employment as well as devel-opment. Thus, this agreement focused on research, training, the South of Italyand infrastructure, it also sought the possibilities of influencing the government’sfuture economic policy (Paparella & Rinolfi 2003). The example of the Italiansocial pacts policy seems to be a confirmation that economic and political crisisprovides the pacts potential, which transfers into particular priorities permittingthe achievement of measurable benefits in economic and social areas. Table 2presents varied examples of social pacts in three countries of Europe.

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Table 2. Examples of social pacts in Western Europe

Country Social PactIreland Programme for National Recovery (1987-1990),

Programme for Economic and Social Progress (1991-1993),Programme for Competitiveness and Work (1994-1996),Partnership 2000 (1997-2000),Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (2000-2003),Sustaining Progress (2003-2005),Towards 2016. Ten-Year Framework Social PartnershipAgreement 2006-2015 (2006-2016).

Italy Agreement of 23 July 1993,Pact for Employment 24 September 1996,Social Pact for Development and Employment 22ndDecember 1998,Pact for Italy 5 July 2002,Pact for Development, Employment and Competitivenessof 19th June 2003.

The Netherlands Wassenaar Agreement (1982),Dutch Flexibility and Security Act (Wet Flexibiliteit enZekerheid, Dutch Flexibility and Security Act - Hesselink2009) (1996) – (“aims to establish a balance betweenemployers’ need for flexibility and employees’ need foremployment security. This is done by a number ofmeasures such as offering employees more security re-garding their employment contract, but also by extendingthe possibilities for employers to conclude temporaryemployment contracts”).

Conclusion

The states lose their “power” in periods of permanent change, therefore foreffective functioning they need close cooperation with different interest groups.Social dialogue, being an interaction between social partners and the government,permits the transfer of information between the actors, creating an area of socialconsensus for the most important issues: priorities for the country. In this contextsocial pacts policy, which can be understood as the materialisation of the socialdialogue process in the form of agreement, is the strategy which is projected toachieve the national priorities in the chosen areas. In consequence, therefore, it isalso the implementation process of these economic and social issues in socialreality. During this process, both social partners and the government should

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have an equal position, in which they are co-operators, who are responsiblefor public policy in these areas. It requires the reduction of particular demandsfrom the side of social partners as well as the introduction of the resources ofall actors, which they dispose of ”every day” in the pact game. It is not aneasy process and it is difficult “art”, although “there is no alternative for socialdialogue, it is one-way you cannot turn back in the democracies” (Sroka 2009a).Concluding our considerations (seeking an answer for the first research questionindicated in the initial part of this study) we could define social pacts policyas some kind of materialisation of social dialogue in the form of agreement overeconomic and social issues, but neither social dialogue nor social pact is a clearlydefined phenomenon, they do not have an evident theoretical base, because wecannot dispose one universally accepted definition for these issues, but they alsodiffer from country to country. It is also refers to the next question about issuesregulated by the social pacts policy. Therefore, the answer to the second researchquestion indicates that there are social pacts which are focused on labour marketmatters, such as in the Netherlands. There are also social pacts that regulatethe wide range of economic and social issues, and not only economic issues,but also the records referring to issues related to children, people at workingage, older people, people with disabilities, culture and sport, such as in Irishsocial pacts policy. Therefore, we can answer “yes” to the third research questionabout the possibility of the creation of social and economic policies by theseagreements. They can be used by the state and the interests groups to shapesocial and economic policies. We could say that the Netherlands, Ireland andItaly have their “model” of the social pacts policy, i.e. Dutch social pacts arefocused on labour market issues, Irish social pacts are wider and multidimensionalagreements (including various matters but also the broad range of actors signingthe deals), Italian social pacts are mainly focused on economic issues. There is not,therefore, one European pattern for social pacts policy which could indicate ordefine the actors, issues and period of validity of agreements. All countries definethemselves “models” of this agreement between the state and social partners. Ofcourse, simultaneously, a level of institutionalisation of social pacts is differentin various countries. The deepest institutionalisation we can see is in the Irishcase, where they have been used as a tool of creation for public policy since 1987,despite the social partnership system collapsing in the country in 2009. Dutch andItalian social pacts were not so deeply institutionalised, but in Italy social pactswere strongly used during the 1990s. Therefore, the concept (of social pacts) canbe a permanent element in the industrial relations area, but it can also only bea temporary instrument in social dialogue at central level.

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i „umiarkowanych”: Irlandia, Włochy i Korea Południowa‘.Dialog. PismoDialogu Społecznego, 2008, no. 3/2008 (20), pp. 17-26.

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Iwona Reichardt

Book review:Rainer Eisfeld, Radical Approaches to Political Science.Roads less traveled

Barbara Budrich (2012), 268 pages

As the title of Rainer Eisfeld’s recent book Radical Approaches to Political Sci-ence. Roads less traveled suggests, the publication highlights topics infrequentlycovered by mainstream political science, which traditionally focuses on issues suchas political and party systems, elections, political institutions etc. This statementis especially true for the second part of the title; as the author himself explains,it derives from a suggestion made by his colleague and co-author of his earlierbook, Leslie Pal, who said that “roads less traveled” alludes to “searching whereothers have not”.

Additionally, in the first part of the title there is another important pieceof information regarding the content of the book. It is expressed in the word“radical” which, as the acclaimed political scientist Klaus von Beyme states inthe Introduction: “in German sounds ‘more radical’ than in Anglo-Saxon traditionand French ideologies”. As von Beyme further explains: “Radicalism implies twoaspects of the characterisation of a way of thinking within political science: anormative position that is not satisfied with a focus on individuals’ politicalbehavior and on institutions, as has been predominant since the behavioral rev-olution in the United States, a rather moderate leftist position as an engagedpolitical scientist.”

The book is indeed the work of an engaged political scientist. Rainer Eisfeld,today professor emeritus of political science at Osnabruck University received hisPhD at the University of Frankfurt: the institution, which, given the traditionand legacy of its school of critical thinking developed by Theodor Adorno, MaxHorkheimer and later Jurgen Habermas, was, as von Beyme also writes in theIntroduction: “the incarnation of a normative position of committed leftist socialscientists”. Not surprisingly, for a disciple of this kind of thinking within politicalscience, Eisfeld’s first two books were titled: Pluralismus zwischen Liberalismusund Sozialismus (Pluralism between Liberalism and Socialism) and SozialistischerPluralismus in Europa (Socialist Pluralism in Europe), respectively. And yet,although recognised as a “radical liberal”, Eisfeld has never opted for any form ofauthoritarianism: neither socialism nor communism. His inspiration was primarilythe works of the British thinker Harold Laski and especially Laski’s ideas of adynamic pluralist. Pluralism became the ideological basis of the opposition toauthoritarian communism. It achieved relevance after its collapse in Central and

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Eastern Europe when the states of the former socialist bloc started transitioningthemselves towards democracy, all in the context of an ever greater interconnect-edness between the peoples and markets.

These processes, as Eisfeld argues in the first essay titled Political ScienceTaking Sides – Why, How? had a significant impact on contemporary politicalscience. On the one hand, they led to unprecedented advances in the discipline’sinstitutionalisation, especially in the newly democratising countries of Centraland Eastern Europe. This observation has allowed Eisfeld to refute the allega-tions, also formulated by some prominent political scientists, that political sciencehas been “out of step with the world”. On the other hand, Eisfeld, being athorough researcher of both the discipline and the achievements (or lack thereof)made by his fellow political scientists, notes that very few political scientists havepaid attention to the phenomena that are behind these macro processes. By doingso, he continues, they’ve been ignoring issues that are at the very heart of politics,namely: power and authority, participation and control over agenda setting.

Therefore, propagating an engaged role in political science and political sci-entists, Eisfeld believes that as much as the capitalist economies require toughregulation, the discipline of political science needs to (re-)define itself as a scienceof democracy. He finishes the manifesto-essay with a poignant statement: “Polit-ical science must address the public – the citizens whom it needs to win as anaudience – and it must take sides in the doing. As a science of democracy it isinevitably partisan.”

For a Polish reader, one of the most interesting essays is titled: TowardsCreating a Discipline with a ‘Regional Stamp’: Central-East European PoliticalScience and Ethno-Cultural Diversity. In this text, Eisfeld focuses on the idiosyn-crasies of political science in Central and Eastern Europe, where institutionalcooperation and research networks are still underdeveloped, and where politicalscience has been marked by an almost absence of critical theory. Consequently, thedominating approach is still institutionalism with a strong emphasis on currentpolicy-making and applied research. Political science, as practiced in the region,is then descriptive although, as Eisfeld rightly points out, it is here more thananywhere else where it should play the role of a critical and often oppositionistforce. It should be publically critical of power structures skewed in favor ofethnically privileged majorities. Therefore, in the next essay, titled Pluralism andDemocratic Governance: A Century of Changing Research Frameworks, Eisfeldstates, among others, that “pluralism may well (re-)emerge as the discipline’sdominant paradigm for inquiry into the 21st Century’s increasingly multi-ethnic,multi-cultural polities.” The essay reviews a century of pluralist investigationinto how economy, civil society and government have been interacting and howthey should interact, whilst another essay (titled: Pluralism as a Critical PoliticalTheory) links pluralism and socialism as complementary tasks.

Evidently, as Eisfeld argues throughout the book, external factors have beeninfluencing the shape of political science which, despite its aspiration to be the

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discipline of objective analysis, has also fallen prey to numerous temptations andideological pressures. Bearing this in mind, another great value of the book liesin the essay titled German Political Science at the Crossroads: The AmbivalentResponse to the 1933 Nazi Seizure of Power. Its conclusions result from Eisfeld’sresearch on the complexities of German political science, embodied by the GermanPolitical Studies Institute (Deutsche Hochschule fur Politik), established in theinterwar period, and its response to the non-democratic regime of the Third Reich.In this text, Eisfeld proves wrong quite a “comfortable” and popular narrativethat since the early decades of the 20th Century German political science, withsuch prominent figures as Hannah Arendt, Hans J. Morgenthau or Karl W.Deutsch being forced into exile, was immune to the non-democratic influences ofthe Nazi regime. Eisfeld questions this belief arguing that it was “hetero- ratherthan homogeneity which marked German political science before and during theNazi seizure of power”. As the basis of this thesis, Eisfeld distinguishes threedifferent schools (a national, a functional, and a democratic approach) which hadstarted to evolve in Germany in the interwar period and which reacted differentlyto the introduction and later implementation of the new regime.

Throughout this seminal analysis, Eisfeld reveals the extraordinary skill ofexamining heavily burdened axiological issues with adequate distance and per-spective. And although this skill is what distinguishes the work of an academicfrom the writing of a journalist or political commentator, experience in manycountries (Germany and Poland included) shows that issues of such a sensitivenature as succumbing to a totalitarian regime are at the highest risk of notbeing objectively examined: scientists not being excluded from this. This explainswhy our knowledge of them often remains based on preconceptions rather thanacademic research. This statement also holds true for the next issue tackled in theessay titled Myths and Realities of Frontier Violence: A Look at the GunfighterSaga in which Eisfeld argues that the American myth of a violent frontier “evolvedinto a ‘venerable tradition’ and for this reason continues to guide the Americansociety’s collective perceptions of present and future course of actions.”

The final two essays focus on Portugal’s transition to democracy. Today, theymay seem like a prophecy and warning at the same time. Eisfeld first publishedthese words in 1986: “Portugal has been and is, economically as well as politically,a weak applicant. It will remain weak during the rest of the 1980s. The EuropeanCommunity cannot prevent that. But contrary to what is commonly said and evenassumed, accession might make matters, by its impact, considerably worse for thecountry.” Evidently, the global economic crisis which started in 2008 hit Portugalvery hard, bringing Eisfeld’s predictions to reality resulting in the EuropeanUnion investing billions of Euros in bailouts and rescue packages. Additionally,if we take Eisfeld’s discourse on Portugal and apply it to today’s context ofcountries in the eastern half of Europe we can see a parallel argument. Ukraine,which is a very large Eastern European country, also has aspirations of joiningthe EU. It does not take profound knowledge of international affairs to say that

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as a state, Ukraine is economically and politically weak. Hence, we could verywell be repeating what Eisfeld observed for Portugal in the 1980s in twenty yearsfrom now.

Summarising, Radical Approaches to Political Science is a unique collectionof essays which is of value not only to any political scientist sensitive to politicalphenomena and their developments, but also or perhaps primarily, to all thosewho in their academic work find room for methodological reflection with regardsto the state of our discipline. It is this kind of awareness that affords us theavoidance of such pitfalls as excessive descriptiveness and aim at what Eisfeldpropagates throughout the book: becoming critical thinkers. By doing so, we canmaster the science of democracy.

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Notes on Authors:

.

Roman Hajek is a Ph.D. candidate in Media studies at the Institute ofCommunication Studies and Journalism at the Faculty of Social Sciences, CharlesUniversity, Prague. His research is focused on local media, political communica-tion, activist media and the impact of the Internet on political communication.

Inta Brikse is a Professor and head of the Department of CommunicationStudies at the University of Latvia (Riga). Her main research interests are focusedon studies of journalism culture, public broadcasting and development of thepublic sphere in post-soviet space.

Ieva Beitika is a PhD Candidate for the Department of CommunicationStudies at the University of Latvia (Riga). Her main research interests are focusedon studies of public service broadcasting, media policy development and publicvalue and media management in European media systems.

Matus Misık is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Political Scienceat Comenius University, Bratislava. He predominantly deals with energy securityissues within the EU, relations with the Eastern neighbourhood, perceptionsamongst member states and relations between Scandinavian countries and theEU.

Renata Kunert-Milcarz is an Assistant Professor for the Department ofEuropean Union Studies at the Institute for International Studies at the Univer-sity of Wroclaw. In 2011, she defended with merit her PhD thesis titled Supportingdemocratization and democracy in selected states of the former USSR by Europeanactors. Her research interests encompass political systems in Eastern Europe andSouth Caucasus, European integration, comparative research on democratisation,their mileage, specificity and possible strategies for the supporting of democraticdevelopment and the psychology of politics.

Ramona Coman is Professor Assistant in Political Science at the Universitelibre de Bruxelles (ULB). She is a research fellow of the Centre d’etude de lavie politique (CEVIPOL). She received her BA in political science from theUniversity of Bucharest, her MA in European politics form the Institute ofEuropean Studies-Brussels and her MA and PdD in political science from theUniversite libre de Bruxelles (May 2008). She co-edited with Jean-Michel DeWaele Judicial Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe (2007, Vanden Broele);with Justine Lacroix Les resistances a l’Europe. Cultures nationales, ideologieset strategies d’acteurs (2007, Editions de l’Universite de Bruxelles). She recentlypublished with Editions de l’Universite de Bruxelles Reformer la justice dans unpays post communiste. Le cas de la Roumanie (2009).

Karolina Borońska-Hryniewiecka is an Assistant Professor of the De-partment of Political Science at the University of Wrocław. In 2012/2013 shewas a Jean Monnet post-doctoral fellow at the European University Institute.

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Her research interests revolve around the various dimensions of EU multilevelgovernance. Her current project focuses on the role of national and regionalparliaments in EU policy-control.

Karolina Kichewko (PhD, University of Wrocław), cooperates with theChair of Social Policy at The Pontifical University of John Paul II, Cracow.

Iwona Reichardt is a PhD candidate at the Jagiellonian University andDeputy Editor-in-Chief of New Eastern Europe.

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Polish Political Science Review vol. 1/2013

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Transcript of Polish Political Science Review vol. 1/2013