School of Politics and International Studies

The impact of EU political conditionality in the Western Balkans – the cases of Croatia and Macedonia

The study of the role of international organisations in democratisation in recent years has singled out the EU as an important actor in bringing about democratic transformation in post-communist societies. The Eastern enlargement has largely confirmed the belief that the EU facilitates democratisation in countries undergoing regime change. The main mechanism of EU influence in the post-communist countries has been conditionality. Conditionality denotes the asymmetric relationship between the Union and the candidates in which the EU sets the criteria and provides incentives for their fulfilment by the candidate countries. Conditionality has also underpinned EU’s approach towards the Western Balkans countries, which are in the queue for EU accession.

This research examines the impact of EU conditionality on the political transformation of the Western Balkans through the case studies of Croatia and Macedonia. Focusing on how conditionality operates in practice, the study will examine in what way this mechanism has affected the political transformation of Croatia and Macedonia. Combining theoretical analysis with on the ground interviews at both the EU and the national level, the study will provide insight into the how the EU monitoring process has operated, what its benchmarks have been and assess its impact upon the political elites, institutions and policy outcomes in these two countries.

Academic literature on political conditionality in the EU accession process has focused on the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, as the original laboratory where the research on conditionality developed. The conclusions of these studies raise concerns over the applicability of the conditionality literature from the previous enlargement to the case of the Western Balkans. On the other hand, despite the differences between the regions, the research on CEE cannot be discarded because it represents the closest experience in both temporal and regional terms to the processes which are ongoing in the Western Balkans. Moreover, most of the available studies on both EU political conditionality and the democratic consolidation in the conditions of post-communism are related to the experience of the CEE countries. In addition, the Western Balkans’ relations with the EU are still under researched when compared to the burgeoning academic literature on the relations between the CEE countries and the EU. Research on the Western Balkans in the last two decades has predominantly focused on the dissolution of the Yugoslav federation, the rise of nationalistic tendencies and the nature of the armed conflicts all over the region. Literature on the impact of EU conditionality on this region has started slowly appearing in the last two years, despite these countries’ elaborate relations with the EU since the mid 1990s. 

Against this background, the study will examine the circumstances in which EU political conditionality has been most effective and the reasons behind its success or failure in the Western Balkans. Parallel with the conclusions on the impact of conditionality in the two case studies, the analysis will draw specific attention to general problems of conceptualizing and measuring the impact of political conditionality. Hence, the research will contribute to the explanation and improved understanding of EU political conditionality and its impact on national institutions in candidate countries, while enriching the literature on the Western Balkans and EU enlargement.