Following an enthusiastic and largely cheered 2004 integration, the Central European Countries tried hard to assert themselves in the new family order and to recover half of century stolen history. In the collective political mind, the driving idea was that of “returning to Europe” with Europe wishing to accommodate their desires for sovereignty, self-determination, political identity, ability to make decisions and chances to be listened to. President Chirac (2003) warned them that they were not accepted in the EU to have anything to say but nobody took him seriously. On the contrary, memories from recent past as well as the Kakanian one (Robert Musil) returned and pushed these countries towards creating themselves a stronger political profile within the Union.

My claim is that, beyond populist and nationalist declarations, we have a legal legacy coming out from the debate between Kelsen on one hand and Ehrlich – Gumplowicz on the other, around the question of the proper origins of law: an autonomous system of rules or the society’s demands and customs. I intend to dig into this little discussed inheritance to extract the stereotypes with which these countries emerged as independent national-states one hundred years ago and which they could not overcome yet. Obviously, Kafka’s Trial stands as a starting point, as a kind of informal judge.

Thus, “the man without qualities”, “expected to keep silence” is particularly the one who seriously challenged the EU’s status quo since he was accepted into the club. My question goes back to the above-mentioned debate. I will try to identify the consequences of choosing Kelsen’s paradigm and compare it with the warnings of the other camp. I expect this approach to outline what is sociologically inherent to these societies and will be extremely hard to reform and, on the other hand, what is politically driven holding removable roots and effects

Research on democratic backsliding in the EU focuses primarily on challenges to fundamental EU values within the Union, with little attention paid to the impact of democratic backsliding on the EU's external relations. This paper argues that the EU's failure to react credibly to escalating violations of the rule of law and democratic values by its member states in recent decades upsets the equilibrium between ensuring the continued preservation of the rule of law inside the Union on one hand, and promoting it in external relations on the other.
I contend that this asymmetry could promote the spread of illiberalism in the EU's neighboring countries by indicating to illiberal actors that the EU lacks the ability to resist them, potentially emboldening them to deviate from their EU acquis commitments in the expectation of impunity. This may ultimately erode the EU's standing as a normative force in the area. To investigate the diffusion of illiberalism and its potential negative impacts on the EU, this paper presents a case study of Georgia, a country that has been regarded as a leading example of democratic transition and Europeanization in the EU's Eastern neighborhood. This paper shows that the spread of illiberalism does occur in Georgia, mainly through personal, legislative, and rhetorical mimicking of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. This intends to undermine the principles of EU enlargement as a merit-based process, instead reducing it to economic benefits while neglecting democratic values. The paper contends that this can disadvantage pro-EU forces domestically and ultimately result into reducing attractiveness of EU membership into public and lead to "accession fatigue".

When accessing the European Union, independent countries willingly renounce part of their sovereignty and accept EU norms and obligations. Despite their commitment, member states are often challenging and at times deviating significantly from EU laws to pursue their self-interest.

The discrepancy between expected compliance with EU obligations and practice is reflected in the infringement procedure. Launched by the European Commission, the infringement procedure investigates failures to transpose EU laws on the national level. Although such failures may be imputed to domestic bureaucratic shortcomings, studies have shown that countries are more likely to violate EU laws when their strategic goals conflict with EU obligations.

The following question then arises: how do Member States behave when their self-interest contrasts with the European Union’s norms?

While new institutionalist scholars have offered explanations for how national interests and European values can coexist, they have failed to account for cases where behavioural inconsistencies arise. Furthermore, the increasing number of infringement procedures and repeated non-compliance on targeted issues suggest the need for further analysis.

This article aims to explore potential explanations for the member states' behaviour when their self-interest diverges from EU obligations. Employing qualitative case studies, I test the interpretations offered by two prominent new institutionalist theories, normative and rational choice institutionalism.

I expect to find that these established new institutional theories have limited explanatory power. I then propose a novel new institutionalist approach that combines rational choice institutionalism with some normative elements.

The aim of the analysis is to show Poles' support for European integration from accession to the EU until now, with particular emphasis on Eurosceptic voices. The concerns of opponents of integration in the initial period of Poland's membership in the EU will be shown, as well as whether they are present in the public debate after 20 years. What is extremely important here is the analysis of the conflict between the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) in Poland in 2015–2023 and the EU over the rule of law. The point is to show the arguments used by politicians in Poland in the above-mentioned dispute and the public perception. This analysis is an attempt to answer the questions how eight years of rule by a soft Eurosceptic party influenced Poles' attitude towards the EU, how this translated into the results of the elections to the European Parliament in the middle of PiS's rule and after the end of PiS's rule in Poland, what Polish Eurosceptics have to say offer to their voters instead of European integration, how the ruling party's narrative regarding the European Union has changed.