From Political Transformation to Europeanization and Democracy in the New European Union Member States: An Attempt to Review Results

IntroductionI have been induced to write this text in response to the article 'The Rocky Road of Europeanization in the New Member States: From Democracy to a Second Try at Democratization' published in the latest issue of the Polish Sociological Review by a well-known Hungarian political scientist, Attila Agh. Generally speaking, the article was devoted to the results of the political transformation. The countries under consideration were Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.1 These countries joined the European Union at different times, i.e., on 1 May 2004 (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia), on 1 January 2007 (Bulgaria and Romania), and on 1 July 2013 (Croatia). It is worth mentioning that with the exception of Poland, which is classified as a medium-size country (38.7 m people), the seven other countries are small (Bulgaria- 7.5 m people, Croatia-4.2 m, the Czech Republic-10.3 m, Hungary-9.8 m, Romania- 22.3 m, Slovakia-5.4 m, and Slovenia-2 m), with a total population of 62.5 m, or 10% of the entire population of the European Union. These states, as well as the Baltic states, are commonly referred to in the literature as New Member States (NMS) (Fisher 2010). As the history of international relations shows, what determines the position, place, and role of a state in the international order is its political system, its economic, scientific, and technical potential, its foreign policy, and many other factors that are decisive for its quality, attractiveness, and efficiency. Large, strong states, commonly called empires or superpowers, have greater possibilities in this area. They are the ones that carry out offensive foreign policy, create international conditions, and play the main roles in the international arena. They are also the ones-not small or medium-size countries-that eventually decide on the shape and nature of developing international systems (orders) or such specific entities of international relations as the European Union, and play major roles in them. This is expressed, inter alia, in bilateral and multilateral international contacts, membership in international alliances, and initiatives concerning the international community (Los-Nowak 2011, Toynbee 1925). The scale, range, and character of that membership in international life are also different because the raisons d'etat, interests, and possibilities of individual states are different.In addition to the above-mentioned eight states, the group of 'new democracies' or 'new Member States of the European Union', which joined the EU on 1 May 2004, includes the post-Soviet countries of Northern Europe-Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia-as well as Cyprus and Malta. Nota bene, it is not known why Agh skipped these countries (especially the Baltic states) in his analysis. Although they belong to Northern rather than Eastern Europe according to the UN classification, they are in fact new post-communist member countries of the EU. It seems possible that the omission was deliberate, because the social, political and economic situation in these small countries is different and better, and democracy is less facade-like than in other new member states of the EU and thus less in accord with the author's a priori thesis.It is also not clear to me and does not emerge from the text why Agh included Croatia in the group of 'new Member States of the EU' when it has been de jure and defacto a 'new' member of the EU only since 1 July 2013, and he did not consider the Baltic countries, which have longer histories of membership. Croatia declared independence in 1991 and became independent after the collapse of socialist Yugoslavia, but it is still at the stage of political transformation and on the path to Europeanization. Thus it cannot be compared even to Slovenia, which is also a post-Yugoslavian state but which joined the EU as early as 2004 and today has different democratization- and Europeanization-related problems. …