Conference Agenda

The neighbourhood matters for the EU. It has held active policies towards its neighbours for over two decades: the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) was launched in 2004, and the Eastern Partnership (EaP) in 2009. As part of these policies, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova have established Association Agreements and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) with the EU, facilitating trade further by gradual approximation of local legislation, rules and procedures, including standards, to those of the EU. Although membership was not on the table, in the wake of the Russia attack against Ukraine, when Ukraine and Moldova applied for EU membership in 2022, candidate status was granted. In November 2023, the Commission adopted the 2023 Enlargement Package and recommended the Council to open negotiations with the two countries. This paper aims to assess the impacts of the war in Ukraine on EU foreign policy towards its Eastern neighbours. We do so by the lenses of debates on Europeanization. According to Gawrich et al.(2009) there are three dimensions of Europeanization research: i) Membership Europeanization, which refers to the impact of the EU on its member States (current members); ii) Enlargement Europeanization, related to countries in the accession process and candidate countries (perspective members); and iii) Neighbourhood Europeanization, for those without membership perspective (“EU’s neighbouring ‘outsiders’”). Our aim is to assess the Ukraine and Moldova’s relationship with the EU as both countries start the accession negotiations.

The European Union (EU) enlargement policy has been considered the most effective tool of the EU as an “EU external governance” in exporting democracy, the rule of law, fundamental freedoms, and other values on which the EU is founded in third countries. Considering the lessons learned from previous accession cases– especially those in Romania, Bulgaria, and Croatia- the EU's approach to addressing the rule of law reforms early in the accession process shifted toward a bold strategy. This paper analyses the role of the EU as a promoter of judiciary reform in candidate countries, focusing on the vetting process in Albanian. The paper argues that a dilemma exists between legal compliance with EU standards and implementing reforms. While the EU, through judiciary reform, aims to transform the Albanian judiciary system in compliance with the Justice and Home Affairs acquis, political polarisation in Albania has hampered institutional set-up, effectiveness, independence, and the fight against corruption. Moreover, the vetting process has paralysed the judiciary system by increasing the backlog and delaying the length of proceedings. By adopting a dogmatic legal methodology, the paper provides a detailed theoretical discussion of the EU’s external dimension as a (legal) normative power. It analyses the Europeanization of the judiciary system in Albania. Moreover, the paper assesses the impact of judiciary reform and discusses the extent to which judiciary reform in Albania is considered successful.

Over the past decade, Moldova has made substantial progress in its path towards European integration, culminating in the granting of candidate status in June 2022. However, Moldova remains a country with strong links to corruption and had been acknowledged to be a 'captured state' by the European Parliament. However, throughout the 2010's, Moldova was widely seen to be the 'poster child' for reforms in the Eastern Partnership. Indeed, throughout this period, the European-orientated elite are now seen to have been engaging in corrupt practices. This raises questions regarding the extent to which the European Union can successfully project its norms, such as in the areas anti-corruption and rule of law in countries in which there is a high level of corruption.

Therefore, this paper will examine the extent of Europeanisation of anti-corruption policies in Moldova, during the period of 2014-2020. This period was chosen while considering that this was the period between the Association Agreement coming into force, the classification of Moldova by the parliament as a state captured by the interests of the oligarchs, and the rule of the socialist elite. It will investigate to what extent genuine Europeanisation can be observed, or was it a case of declarative Europeanisation in which the elites were engaging with symbolic compliance with the EU's acquis. Finally, the conditions under which successful Europeanisation can occur in the context of countries with high level of corruption will be posited.

The EU’s traditional approach to enlargement has relied on the Copenhagen Criteria and acquis compliance as the measures to judge a candidate’s suitability for membership. However, these measures do not say much about the candidate’s actual readiness to assume both the burdens and privileges of membership. Instead, it is essentially assumed that competitiveness and convergence will more or less automatically follow from deeper integration.

This paper challenges that assumption. By following a different methodology, based on the concept of ‘Integration Maturity’, it suggests that a series of economic indicators, as well as the candidate’s economic performance over time, will better reflect a candidate’s preparedness to benefit from deeper integration, or, alternatively, suggest that more time should be spent achieving sufficient competitiveness and convergence.

To illustrate this point, this paper examines the cases of Slovenia and Croatia, who joined the EU in 2004 and 2013, respectively. Both had been part of Yugoslavia, and therefore had similar starting points for their economic transitions in the 1990s. Yet, while the former has prospered since accession, the latter is one of the worst performing members. What this paper suggests is, that this divergence was entirely predictable, based on the two countries’ economic performance on several indicators during the years leading to accession. This finding has implications for the way future accessions should be assessed, especially as the EU has recently decided to open accession talks with several more countries, and since politics may well trump economic considerations.