Among the criteria for accession to the European Union are democracy and
the Rule of Law. In the insightful analysis offered by the author of this
book, these concepts – while admirable and even necessary criteria in
principle – are almost impossible to measure, and any judgement grounded in
them will always be difficult to justify. In his words, ‘by including analysis
of democracy and the Rule of Law within the field of the EU enlargement law,
the Union entered an unstable terrain of vague causal connections and blurred
definitions.’ Dr Kochenov addresses this problem by proceeding as follows:
1. Outlining EU enlargement law in general, including the principle of
conditionality and the role played by the analysis of democracy and the Rule
of Law in enlargement preparation;
2. Focusing on the role actually played by the monitoring of democracy and the
Rule of Law in ten candidate countries, scrutinizing the way the EU used the
legal tools and competences outlined in its enlargement law.
The book adopts the EU’s own understanding of democracy and the Rule of Law,
as derived directly from the substance of the numerous legal and political
instruments issued by the Community Institutions and especially the Commission
in the course of the pre-accession process. In this way it demonstrates the
actual – as opposed to the officially announced – role played by the
assessment of democracy and the Rule of Law in the candidate countries in the
regulation of enlargement. Many formidable inconsistencies in the application
of the conditionality principle are thus laid bare. This leads the author to a
series of recommendations on policy and procedure that he demonstrates could
be profitably applied to the regulation of current and future accessions,
using the Commission’s own structure of monitoring pre-accession reforms in
the three areas of the legislature, executive, and judiciary in candidate
countries. The probity and soundness of these recommendations, firmly grounded
as they are in the actual pre-accession monitoring and its consequences for
the pre-accession progress of ten Eastern European countries admitted to the
EU in 2004 and 2007, will greatly interest policymakers and scholars concerned
with the future of European integration.
Avant-propos. Abbreviations. Table of Cases. Table of Treaties,
Instruments & Legislation. Introduction.
Part One: The Law. I. EU Enlargement Law and
Practice. 1. Enlargement Law at Treaty Level. 2. Enlargement
Practice. 3. Bridging the Gap between Enlargement Law and Practice.
II. The Legal Framework of Conditionality. 1. The Instruments of
Conditionality. 2. The Issue of Legal Competence.
Part Two: Application of the Law. III. The Commission’s Fusion of
Democracy and the Rule of Law. 1. Democracy and the Rule of Law in the
Structure of the Copenhagen-Related Documents. 2. Democracy and the
Rule of Law: An Uneasy Fusion? 3. The Commission’s Approach: Democracy,
the Rule of Law and the