What kind of Europe? a view from the periphery

South European Society and Politics, 2000

The Power of the Norm. Fragile rules and significant exeptions, ed. E. Betti, K. Miller, Vienna: IWM Junior Visiting Fellows' Conferences., 2016

The paper tackles the EU as a version of Europe's geopolitical configuration and the concept of Europe as it has been implied or articulated at different stages of its development. The demarcation line is drawn between the " Old " EU in the shadow of the bipolar world structure and the " New " EU after its expansion eastwards. The theoretical framework of the research involves symbolic geography and ideology studies. The focal point would be the gap between Western and Central-European Europe in their imaginaries concerning themselves, 'Europe' as a symbolic entity, and strategic positioning of themselves within this entity. The range of questions to be posed in the context contains the following: What does the geocultural notion of ‘Europe’ imply? Is the EU as ‘Europe’ functioning as an inclusive project as it ultimately declares, or has exclusion always been its flip side? And how do different parts of ‘Europe’ correspond to each other within the EU project?

EU and its Neighbours, 2011

Main challenges in the future of Western Balkans Integration 57 to the EU -the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

1996

to make research results, accounts of work-in-progress and background information available to those concerned with contemporary European issues. The Institute does not express opinions of its own; the views expressed in this publication are the responsibility of the author. The Sussex European Institute, founded in Autumn 1992, is a research and graduate teaching centre of the University of Sussex, specialising in studies of contemporary Europe, particularly in the social sciences and contemporary history. The SEI has a developing research programme which defines Europe broadly and seeks to draw on the contributions of a range of disciplines to the understanding of contemporary Europe. These include the Centre for German-Jewish Studies. The SEI draws on the expertise of many faculty members from the University, as well as on those of its own staff and visiting fellows. In addition, the SEI offers a one year MA course in Contemporary European Studies, a one year MA course in the Anthropology of Europe and opportunities for MPhil and DPhil research degrees.

2011

EU enlargement will depend on many factors and challenges that will determine not only the pace of this process but also will carry alongside the settlement of many open problems in various forms, between Western Balkan countries and member states of EU. The purpose of this text is to provide a better approach, as the enlargement process, especially with the Western Balkan countries, not forgetting Turkey, as one of the most powerful and influencing country not only in the Balkan Peninsula, but also in the Middle East and beyond. The question whether the traditional strategies and actions of EU enlargement process are satisfactory for this changed geostrategic environment, needs to be researched in different ways. It will seek to answer in a separate process, reforms and problems that need to be faced by all acceding and candidate countries for integration into this organization. Only if we take the basic and processing milestone of EU enlargement with the countries of Central and E...

On 7 May 2009 leading policy-makers from the European Union (EU) are scheduled to hold a high-level meeting with political leaders from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine (see map on p. 2) in order to launch a new Eastern Partnership (EaP). It is high time for EU policy-makers to renew and to reinvigorate the relationships with these east European neighbours, as indeed with the southern neighbours (the subject of a parallel initiative to develop the Union for the Mediterranean). The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) had run its course in its previous format. The EU (further) enlargement policy is running up against problems. However, the content of the EaP has so far been sketched only in outline. It has been launched at what has turned out to be a difficult moment, given the political turmoil inside some of the target countries. Much more thought -and imagination  needs to be given to how to reshape these relationships and to which tools are needed for the job. In particular:

This article examines the extent to which Europeansation is salient in the accession process. In other words, it analyses the appropriateness of the concept of Europeansation as a process within the EU itself (EU institutions and member states) to the context of candidate countries' accession process.

Südosteuropa, 2018

In this chapter, I explore different ways of considering national and transnational belonging in Europe, but then turn to thinking about the culture of Europe in terms of system and practice. While identity is important to consider in that context, I propose that we might compensate for the attitudinal bias of most studies of European and national cultures and consider in addition the ways in which national statuses within the European Union change while nonetheless reproducing the European Union's cultural system. I also consider the relatively abiding structures associated with European integration and elaborated through the Prodi Commission’s Euro and enlargement projects. I follow that by a more critical engagement of the systemic and practice-based contradictions around solidarity, equality, and diversity in enlargement and in the current sovereign debt crisis. I argue that while the Euro crisis might be resolved within the cultural formation of the European Union, especially if solidarity and equality are rearticulated with freedom and prosperity, the challenge of Mediterranean engagement makes explicit the deeper cultural problems associated with unreflexive secularity and cultural racism in European cultural formations. By considering these less articulated elements of European identity, the potentials of a more transcendent European Union grow

Southeast European Politics, 2002

This article discusses the Europeanization capacity of the Balkan states and demonstrates their Europeanization potential contrary to common assumptions of incompatibility between the Balkan and European integration. Using as case studies EU-candidate Romania and the Republic of Macedonia the paper argues that EU membership aspiration can actually bear significant transformations and adaptations in the Balkan domestic scenes. This creates new prospects for the future regional role of the EU and allows for new considerations concerning the region's place in the New European Architecture. In the first part, Europeanization is analysed as a EUoriented process, directly dependent upon specific mechanisms and intervening confining conditions. Analysis is based on a combination of supranational institutionalism, Europeanization approaches a nd democratisation theories that acknowledge the international dimension of democratisation. In the second part, the broader EU framework for the region and the more specific one for the promotion of regional development are presented, followed, in the third part, by the institutional response of the two case study countries. In the last part, the limitations of the current European system and the need for a parallel EU enlargement in the Balkans are discussed. Introduction: The Balkans today-Europeanization and the incompatibility of Balkanisation The Balkan 1 region constitutes today an inseparable part of the under formation 'new' European space. However, its incorporation into the New European Architecture has proved particularly problematic with negative consequences for the whole of the European space and the evolution of European integration. In fact, the Balkans, and more specifically what the EU calls 'Western Balkans', remains the least integrated and most unstable region of the continent. Throughout the Cold War period, the Balkan Peninsula constituted the area of division par excellence. With the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and within the broader unification euphoria that followed the Maastricht Treaty, the prospect of a c ommon LEEDA DEMETROPOULOU 88 Balkan future in a democratic and prosperous Europe looked feasible. However, the violence that characterized Ceausescu's overthrow, the anarchical situation that dominated the Albanian political scene and especially the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia indicated that transition and integration would be much more costly and demanding in the southern easternmost European corner. There is no doubt that the past decade has been exceptionally difficult for the Balkan countries. Constant hostilities created deep-seated resentments and led to the emergence of a polarized patchwork of nationstates. In most of the countries, struggle, lack of reform consensus, limited democratic experience and weak institutions impeded politico-economic progress; delayed and unimplemented reform programmes derailed the countries from the path of fully functioning market economies leading to inferior economic performance, declining living standards, rising unemployment and increased poverty (The World Bank, 2000). Within this context and following the continuous ascription of the Balkan adjective to the atrocities of the Yugoslav wars, it is of no surprise that old pejorative connotations (Todorova, 1997) of inherent savageness have re-emerged. According to Uvalic, the prevalent view has been that people in the Balkans are primitive and uncivilized, and that by analogy, their economies are also backward, underdeveloped and inward-oriented (Uvalic, 1997:19-34). Further developments in the region and references to the past strengthened these images that had no place in a stable, peaceful, Europeanized and prosperous continent, making 'Balkans' and 'European integration' incompatible and seriously doubting the Europeanization capacity of the concerned countries. In this article, contrary to such assumptions, it is argued that the Balkans can be Europeanised. Using as case studies EU-associate Romania and the non-EU-associate Republic of Macedonia it is argued that EU membership aspiration can actually bear significant EU-oriented transformations and adaptations in the Balkan domestic scenes, thus creating new prospects for the future regional role of the EU and allowing for new considerations concerning the region's place in the New European Architecture. In the first part of the article, Europeanization is analysed as an EU-centred process, directly dependent upon specific mechanisms and intervening confining conditions. Analysis is based on a mixture of Europeanization approaches, supranational institutionalism and democratisation theories acknowledging the international dimension of democratisation. In the second part, the broader EU framework for the region and the more specific one for the promotion of regional development are presented, followed, in the third part, by the institutional response of Romania and the Republic of Macedonia. In the last part, the limitations of the current system are discussed and the need for a parallel EU enlargement in the Balkans is emphasised.