Challenging the European Union in a Process of Fifth Enlargement. How Has the Eu’S Approach to Eastern Europe Changed Before, During and After the Enlargement of
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- Date Submitted: 05/08/2011 03:05 PM
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Challenging the European Union in a process of Fifth Enlargement. How has the EU’s approach to Eastern Europe changed before, during and after the enlargement of 2004?
The process of enlargement influences in many different ways functioning of the EU’s institutions, budget as well as life of citizens from existing EU’s states. During the enlargement procedure every single issue becomes important - from the economic aspects and security issues, to the fields of identity or democratic values. Especially in relation to the most complex enlargement in the EU’s history, the concept of widening and deepening European Union turned into a big challenge. In order to understand how the EU approached new tasks it is crucial to refer to constructivist internationalism theory. In view of the fact that constructivist ideas underline strategic role of actors, it is important to mention, that during EU’s eastward enlargement, the role of every single actor has been significant in terms of economic, political, administrative and institutional framework. Following principles of constructivist internationalism, the aim of enlargement is to develop closer cooperation on issues where member states and acceding states already have important cooperation either within or outside the organizational shame of EU. However constructivist internationalism tackles only pragmatic discourse and it is important to mention as well about ethical and moral approach. This gives way to Habermas’ theory of communicative action, where the actors are featured as capable of evaluating the validity of norms. “We make an analytical distinction between three different types of discourses which enable us to distinguish between pragmatic, ethical-political, and moral arguments in justification of enlargement” (Habermas 1993). Based on these two theories I assume that the policies as enlargement or integration are obtained as a result of complex processes and multi-dimensional procedures, where the approach...
The process of enlargement influences in many different ways functioning of the EU’s institutions, budget as well as life of citizens from existing EU’s states. During the enlargement procedure every single issue becomes important - from the economic aspects and security issues, to the fields of identity or democratic values. Especially in relation to the most complex enlargement in the EU’s history, the concept of widening and deepening European Union turned into a big challenge. In order to understand how the EU approached new tasks it is crucial to refer to constructivist internationalism theory. In view of the fact that constructivist ideas underline strategic role of actors, it is important to mention, that during EU’s eastward enlargement, the role of every single actor has been significant in terms of economic, political, administrative and institutional framework. Following principles of constructivist internationalism, the aim of enlargement is to develop closer cooperation on issues where member states and acceding states already have important cooperation either within or outside the organizational shame of EU. However constructivist internationalism tackles only pragmatic discourse and it is important to mention as well about ethical and moral approach. This gives way to Habermas’ theory of communicative action, where the actors are featured as capable of evaluating the validity of norms. “We make an analytical distinction between three different types of discourses which enable us to distinguish between pragmatic, ethical-political, and moral arguments in justification of enlargement” (Habermas 1993). Based on these two theories I assume that the policies as enlargement or integration are obtained as a result of complex processes and multi-dimensional procedures, where the approach...