EU Expansion:
Central and Eastern Europe

Ainius Lašas

Context (1)1989- Year of Revolutions: Poland,Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary,Romania, and Bulgaria.
- The Baltic Way- EU assistance program for the CEECs

Context (2)1990-1991- Reunification of Germany- Collapse of the Soviet Union- Beginning of Yugoslavia wars
- Dissolution of the Warsaw Pact
Challenges: recession in Western economies,
stabilization and transformation of the Eastern
bloc (new political institutions, market-basedeconomies), nuclear weapons, ethnic tensions,regional security and stability.

Puzzle ofEastern Enlargement• Why did the EU decide to open its membership doors
to the CEECs?
- Candidates’ GDP per capita – 24% of the EU average- Redistribution of EU structural and cohesion funds,
redistribution of votes in the Council of Ministers,
flight of capital, influx of migrants, etc.
- New dividing line? Members vs. neighbors?

Dominant Explanations• Economic interests (Vachudova 2005)• Geopolitical concerns (Skalnes 2005)• Institutional norms & identity:- European identity (Sjursen 2002;Sedelmeier 2005)- Rhetorical entrapment based on institutionalnorms (Schimmelfennig 2003)

Alternative explanation
Collective guilt/responsibility of theEuro-Atlantic community over the “blacktrinity”: the Munich Agreement, theMolotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and the YaltaPotsdam Conferences.

Collective Guilt (1)- Historical-Psychological Legacies
These are persistent emotional states shared by agroup of political actors, which are intrinsicallylinked with past events and experiences vis-àvis other groups of actors.
- Group Dynamics• Responsibility through membership in a group• Responsibility for something not done(Arendt 1987)

Collective Guilt (2)- Operationalization –Victim Restitution• “The basic action tendency of guilt is to make repairs,
to undo the bad one has caused” (Elster 1999).
• Norms constitute and regulate behavior(Checkel 2001; Sedelmeier 2005)

Western Countries Involvement
Level ofInvolvement

MunichDirectParticipation

France, UK
Germany, Italy

Indirect
Participation

MolotovRibbentrop

Yalta-Potsdam

Germany

USA, UK

Italy

Countries Affected by the “BT”
Countries

MunichEstonia
LatviaLithuania
PolandCzech Republic
Slovakia
Romania
Hungary
Albania
Bulgaria
Slovenia
SerbiaMontenegro
Macedonia
Croatia
Bosnia-Herzegovina

Mol-Ribbentrop

Yalta-Potsdam

X
X
X
X

X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

X
XX

Preference Order
Western Political Elites

Activation ofhistoricalpsychologicallegacies

Western Political Elites

Member state interests

Collective guilt

Institutional Norms
and Rules

Member state interests(Collective guilt)

Institutional norms

Commit to Large Expansion
in Medium-Term

Hypotheses
1.
2.
3.
4.

Extensive guilt-related discourse
The right of the CEECs to accede to the EU
Early commitment to enlarge
Regional approach to enlargement

Case Analysis- Opening EU accession negotiations(Luxembourg Summit, 1997)

Opening EU Accession
Negotiations (1)- Copenhagen Summit (June 1993):
accession criteria- EU Commission’s “Agenda 2000” (July1997) - First group of candidates (CzechRepublic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, andSlovenia)

Opening EU Accession
Negotiations (2)- Objections led by Denmark and Sweden: toorigid and legalistic- Danish Foreign Minister Niels Helveg
Petersen: “Historic obligation to ensure Europe
grows together.”- German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel: “Allthree states will relatively quickly join the EU,and we will not admit formation of two groups
from the Baltic states.”- Alternative plan: formal negotiations and prescreening process

Opening EU Accession
Negotiations (3)- Luxembourg compromise adopted basedlargely on the Danish proposal- Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar:“This has been a political agreement of greatsignificance that erases the unjust borders of theEuropean continent drawn by Yalta.”- Helsinki Summit (December 1999) – second
wave of candidates (Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia,Lithuania, and Slovakia)- Complete convergence of two groups by mid2001.

Research Findings- Sensitivity among Western political elites:
Germany, but not so much the UK and France- Guilt discourse on both sides (public andprivate)- Right to return to Europe.
- Early commitment? 1993.
- Regional differentiation? Cases of former
Yugoslavia, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine.

Conclusion
Danish Prime Minister Anders FoghRasmussen (Copenhagen Council 2002):“We decided to heal our continent. We decided to create one
Europe. Today we have closed one of the bloodiest anddarkest chapters in European history. Today we have openeda new chapter.”