Accession's Democracy Dividend: The Impact of the EU Enlargement upon Democracy in the New Member States of Central and Eastern Europe

• Published date: 01 July 2004
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0386.2004.00222.x
• Date: 01 July 2004
• Author: Wojciech Sadurski

Accession’s Democracy Dividend: The

Impact of the EU Enlargement upon

Democracy in the New Member States of

Central and Eastern Europe

Wojciech Sadurski*

Abstract: One of the main factors in ensuring the widespread support for accession to the

European Union amongst the various populations of Central and Eastern Europe is the

perception that it will serve to entrench and strengthen the process of democratisation

after the fall of Communism. The purpose of this article is to examine this claim, that

accession will provide a ‘democracy dividend’in this fashion. To this end, the article begins

by examining the political conditionality of the accession process, and the extent to which

the process of democratisation can be understood as a result of ‘external’ pressures. It

also discusses the extent to which the effectiveness of political conditionality is likely to

survive after the accession takes place. The article then moves on to consider the effects

of accession upon democracy in the states of the region by looking in detail at three areas

that have been particularly important: the role of national parliaments, the new constitu-

tional courts, and the tendency towards decentralisation and regionalism. The article con-

cludes by noting that, although not all of the developments discussed are necessarily good

for democracy in the region, the real dividend coming from the accession process lies in

the fact that, on a macro-level, membership in the EU will make the democratic transi-

tion in Central and Eastern Europe practically irreversible.

I Introduction

One of the important motives that has inclined many in Central and Eastern Europe

(CEE) to favour strongly accession to the EU has been the conviction that, once in the

Union, their own states will become more robustly democratic. The hope has been that

the EU will provide extra protection against authoritarian or totalitarian temptations,

that it will help fight corruption, and that it will improve the quality of public admin-

istration and the system of justice—put simply, that accession to the Union will help

improve and consolidate democracy, the protection of human rights, and the rule of

European Law Journal, Vol.10, No. 4, July 2004, pp. 371–401.

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK

and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

*Professor in the Department of Law,European University Institute in Florence, and in the Faculty of Law,

University of Sydney. My thanks to Ms Ania Slinn for excellent research assistance.

law.1At the very least, it is expected that the accession will make new Member States

more resilient against crises and potential upheavals; that it will add extra protection

against a possible slide into chaos so that, even if it will not add any positive features

per se,it will at least help cushion democratic institutions against the worst threats

should a crisis situation arise, and thus render democratisation irreversible. ‘Even if the

accession will not be a panacea for any of the pathologies of our democracy, it will

nevertheless strengthen the stability of the state, so that if there are some major crises

...membership in the EU will reduce their consequences’. This view,expressed recently

by the Polish political philosopher Marek Cichocki,2echoes a view widely shared

among proponents of accession.

This, of course, was not the only factor in securing widespread support for accession,

and there are those who have not been persuaded by this point of view, but one should

not underestimate the strength and salience of the ‘civilisational’ arguments (as they are

usually referred to) in influencing the pro-accession preferences.3Moreover, of all of the

‘civilisational’ or ‘raison d’état’-related factors, a concern for the modernisation of the

state and consolidation of democracy are generally viewed as being among the most

important (with modernisation, in this context, being understood essentially as Euro-

peanisation). Indeed, the strength of this feeling has induced Cichocki to the rather

melancholic reflection that, once again,as so many times over the last two hundred years

of its history, the process of modernisation has been introduced to Poland from the

outside. This is, for him, cause for a certain sadness because ‘if we asked why so many

people support the accession the answer would have to be: because Poles in fact do not

believe in their own state, in their own capacities, in their own elites. They do not believe

that their own state can be the principal factor of modernisation and of the transfor-

mation for the better. This is what the EU constitutes for Poles’.4Another renowned

Polish public commentator, Teresa Bogucka, observed, similarly, that the process of

accession to the EU has revealed some striking symptoms of the ‘Polish complex’: while

the nationalistic and populist opponents of the accession must hold the strength of

Polish culture in very low regard because they fear that, within the EU, Poland will

immediately lose its cultural identity, the proponents of the accession seem to have a sim-

ilarly low opinion of their country, as ‘they believe that the EU will compel us to match

the “norms of civilisation” because we are unable to do so on our own’.5I would venture

a guess that this combination of hope (that ‘Europe’ will help us acquire and consoli-

European Law Journal Volume 10

372 © Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004

1This is confirmed consistently by public opinion polls. For example, a Polish public-opinion expert

states: ‘Respondents [to public-opinion surveys] expect that our membership in the Union will lead to

improvement of the functioning of the political system, strengthen the rule of law, improve the level of

knowledge and education of Poles, and improve the protection of the environment’, Bojenko-Izdebska,

‘Postawy i oczekiwania wobec integracji Polski z Unia˛ Europejska˛’ [‘Attitudes and expectations regard-

ing the integration of Poland within the European Union’], in M. Grzybowski and M.Berdel-Dudzin´ska

(eds), Prawo i ustrój Rzeczypospolitej polskiej w perspektywie integracji z Unia˛ Europejska˛[The Law and

the Government of the Republic of Poland in the Perspective of Integration with the European Union]

(Wydawnictwo Wyz

.szej Szkol

/

y Informatyki i Zarza˛dzania, 2002) p. 87.

2M. Cichocki, contribution to a discussion in Res Publica Nowa (Warsaw) no.176, 5 May 2003, 58.

3A leading Polish sociologist, Henryk Doman´ski, recently reported that, in 1998–2000, around 40% of

respondents defined the benefits of accession in terms of ‘benefits for Poland’while between 24 and 33%,

as benefits for themselves,Henryk Doman´ski, ‘Jak rozumiemy integracje˛?’ [‘How do we understand inte-

gration?’] Res Publica Nowa (Warsaw) no. 176, 5 May 2003,61.

4Cichocki, op. cit. note 2 supra,at 51.

5T. Bogucka, ‘Co mamy zrobic´, by odzyskac´ dume˛?’ [‘What should we do to regain our pride?’], Gazeta

Wyborcza (Warsaw) 8 August 2003.