(Page 22 of 54) - "Civilizing" the Post-Soviet European Space: A Comparison between the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) authored by Stivachtis, Yannis.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the European Commission

confirmed that “negotiating…new types of agreements has to be subject to
political conditions.” In May 1992, the European Council underscored that
“respect for democratic principles and human rights … as well as the
principles of a market economy, constitute essential elements of cooperation
and association agreements between the Community and its CSCE partners.”
Henceforth, the EU added a clause to the agreements that stipulated a
suspension of the agreements if partner countries failed to comply with
theses principles. In November of the same year, the European Council
approved guidelines for PHARE, the EEC’s main program of assistance to the
CEECs, which made aid conditional upon the “state of advance of the reforms
in each of the beneficiary countries.” On this basis, Croatia and Serbia-
Montenegro have long been denied PHARE aid. In July 1993, the new
regulations of the aid program for the former Soviet republics (TACIS)
strengthened conditionality too: “The level and intensity of the assistance will
take into account the extent and progress of reform efforts in the beneficiary
country” (all cited in Schimmelfenning et al. 2005:30).

Finally, at its Copenhagen Summit in June 1993, the European Council

established the “stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of
law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities” as the sin qua
non for accession to the EU.

The political conditions have been tied in with EU’s programs of financial

assistance, the accession partnerships and the whole pre-accession strategy
(Papadimitriou and Phinnemore 2004; Knill and Lenschow 2005). It is worth
mentioning that additions have been made to the original criteria - which
were vaguely phrased - notably in the inclusion of the fight against
corruption, prompted by growing evidence of widespread corruption in most
post-communist states.

Although one should expect a well-considered integrated approach to

conditionality by the EU, in effect, there is no clear meaning attached to it.
Thus, implementation of ‘democratic conditionality’ tends to be
disaggregated. Actually, not unlike the standard of ‘civilization’, the evolving
definition of ‘democratic conditions’ has been incremental, and sometimes ad
hoc (Pridham 2002b:206). However, EU’s thinking on the ‘political conditions’
has evolved considerably. It has become more precise due to the need to
improve analysis of how ‘political conditionality’ is being met (Pridham,
2002a, p. 958). The EU has been criticized for demanding higher political
standards of candidate countries compared with Member States (Pridham,
2002a, 957). Despite these deficiencies in designing ‘political conditionality’,
the EU provides a consistent and direct pressure for the introduction and
elaboration of democratic rules and procedures but also civil and other rights.

EU ‘Democratic Conditionality’: The Application and
Implementation Process