THE ROLE OF NATIONAL IDENTITY ON THE EU ACCESSION CONDITIONALITY IN WESTERN BALKANS

ULUSAL KİMLİĞİN BATI BALKANLARDA AB ÜYELİK KOŞULLARININ GEÇERLİLİĞİ ÜZERİNDEKİ ETKİSİ

Abstract

The European Union (EU) has formally initiated the vast majority of the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECS) into the Union and Western Balkans’ remaining non-EU countries have became the new target of EU enlargement since 2004. The Union, however, has faced some difficulties in transferring its rules to non-member countries in Western Balkans by means of the EU political accession conditionality in comparison to Central and Eastern European Countries. Here are two questions to mind: ‘Under what circumstances could the conditionality be effective?’ and ‘why does the EU conditionality play relatively limited role in the domestic politics of the Western Balkan states?’ An “external incentive model” is adopted by Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2004) to articulate the issue. This study addresses this contestation, arguing that the “external incentive model” is incapable of fully answering these questions and that national identity has a huge impact on the determination of the effectiveness of EU accession conditionality by focusing on the problems limiting this effectiveness in two Balkan states, namely Croatia and Serbia. The reasons why the paper has chosen Croatia and Serbia as case studies are that they are republics of former Yugoslavia and that they have shared war history in the 1990s, however act differently on the way to the European Union (Massari, 2010). Although Croatia has become a member of the Union, Serbia still has got a long way to go The European Union has utilised political conditionality as one of the most significant strategies to export its governance and to encourage non-member countries to obey the rules of the EU (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2004). Political conditions, which are necessitated by the Union from the very beginning, can be described as a competitive party system, and free and fair elections. As for the essential political conditions of EU accession that the EU confirmed in 1993, which are also defined as the Copenhagen Criteria, they are the stability of democratic institutions, rule of law, liberal market economy, human rights and lastly the protection of minority rights (Bieber, 2013:2). The required political conditions are flexible. By which it means that some specific requirements could be added to the conditions. For instance, the UE required cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the context of Western Balkans (Frerburh and Richter, 2010:269-71). Predominant studies select “external incentive model” to articulate the logic of EU conditionality and political conditions. This model is based on a rationalist cost-benefit calculation that assumes that states are regarded as rational actors, seeking to boost their interests (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2004). The tool of conditionality is perhaps the most significant instrument that the EU external governance applies to force would-be member states to obey the rules of the EU. That is, the Union decides its instructions as conditions and would-be member states are expected or required to accept these conditions to receive rewards. Consequently, the target government would face three various pressures namely from the Union, domestic and international politics in return for EU external incentives (Trauner, 2011:8). It is therefore the credibility of the EU conditionality plays a key role in evaluating the pros and cons of EU rewards as opposed to domestic compliance (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2004:663-7). This model is, however, unsuccessful in fully articulating why the EU political conditionality could perform better in states like Croatia than in states like Serbia in the context of Western Balkan despite the fact that the Union has provided these countries with rewards. At this point, national identity, as a constructivist variable, has a huge impact on the determination of the effectiveness of EU accession conditionality by focusing on the problems limiting this effectiveness in two Balkan states, namely Croatia and Serbia. National identity is the main theme that determines whether conditionality can be effective or not. Constructivists argue that wouldbe member states would acknowledge the influence of the Union by means of socialisation and persuasion processes. It is these processes internalizing identities with the help of domestic actors (Trauner, 2011). Considering the rules of the EU appropriate and compatible with political conditionality helps domestic actors to stick to given EU rules (Schimmelfennig et al., 2006:27-52). In this sense, national identity, as a filter actor, influences EU conditionality. It is, therefore, crucial to note that states, as social actors, often shape and reshape national identity when they face or interact with different social structures. The EU political conditionality has raised doubts about its effectiveness in the countries in question. This is because they had ethnic conflicts in 1990s that shaped their national identities. It is this historic background affecting the effectiveness of EU political conditionality in Croatia and Serbia in different lights. As a result, the European Union (EU) has formally initiated the vast majority of the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECS) into the Union and Western Balkans’ remaining non-EU countries have become the new target of EU enlargement since 2004. The Union, however, has faced some difficulties in transferring its rules to nonmember countries in Western Balkans by means of the EU political accession conditionality in comparison to Central and Eastern European Countries. In this paper, it is argued that the “external incentive model” is incapable of fully explaining the issue in question and that national identity has a huge impact on the determination of the effectiveness of EU accession conditionality by focusing on the problems limiting this effectiveness in two Balkan states, namely Croatia and Serbia. The reasons why the pape

Özet

Avrupa Birliği (AB) 2004 yılından bu yana Orta ve Doğu Avrupa ülkelerinin büyük çoğunluğunu resmi olarak birliğe kabul etti ve Batı Balkanlarda geriye kalan üye olmayan ülkeler AB'nin yeni hedefi haline geldi. Ancak, Birlik AB politik üyelik koşulları yoluyla kurallarını Orta ve Doğu Avrupa ülkelerine kıyasla Batı Balkanlardaki diğer üye olmayan ülkelere aktarırken birtakım zorluklarla karşılaşmıştır. Burada akla iki soru gelmektedir: Birinci soru, "Hangi şartlar altında bu koşullar etkili olabilir?" iken; ikinci soru, "AB üyelik koşulları neden Batı Balkanlarda bulunan ülkelerin iç politikasında kısmen sınırlı bir rol oynar?" şeklindedir. Bu meseleyi açığa kavuşturmak için Schimmelfennig ve Sedelmeier (2004) tarafından "dış teşvik modeli" benimsenmiştir. Bu çalışma "dış teşvik modelinin" bu soruları tam anlamıyla cevaplandıramadığını ve ulusal kimliğin Batı Balkan devletleri olan Hırvatistan ve Sırbistan'da AB üyelik koşullarının etkililiğini belirleme noktasında önemli bir role sahip olduğunu ileri sürmektedir. Çalışmanın Hırvatistan ve Sırbistan'ı durum çalışmaları olarak ele almasının sebepleri; bu iki ülkenin eski Yugoslav Sosyalist Federal Cumhuriyeti olmaları ve 1990'lı yıllarda ortak bir savaş tarihi paylaşmalarıdır. Belirtilen bu ortak özelliklere rağmen bu iki ülkenin Birliğe olan üyelik sürecine ilişkin tutumlarının birbirinden farklılık arz ettiği dikkat çekmiştir (Massari, 2010). Hırvatistan AB üyeliğini hâlihazırda 2013 yılında elde etmiş olmasına rağmen, Sırbistan'ın bu üyeliği gerçekleştirme noktasında kat etmesi gereken daha çok yol vardır