Questioning the EU’s Transformative Power: Democratic Backsliding and the Design of EU Enlargement Policy

This paper examines the endurance of the EU’s ‘transformative power’ in the context of the rise of democratic backsliding among both new and aspiring EU member states. It argues that the incentive-based logic of ‘democratisation by integration’ has failed to develop the same traction in the Western Balkans region that it did for Central and Eastern Europe. Drawn-out accession negotiations and a more complex transition process involving sensitive issues of statehood and interethnic relations have resulted in sluggish reforms and a tendency to privilege formal compliance over more sustainable, domestically anchored changes. Comparing the cases of Croatia and Serbia, the paper argues that the EU has struggled to integrate these new realities into its strategic approach to enlargement. First, the decision to forego a post-accession Cooperation and Verification Mechanism for Croatia has resulted in a serious degree of backsliding on media freedom and minority rights during the country’s first years of EU membership. Second, the introduction of a ‘new approach’ with an early focus on rule of law issues for subsequent candidate countries, including Serbia, failed to prevent an increasingly obvious degree of executive aggrandizement and the strategic manipulation of elections by the Serbian government. Rather than attempting a reproduction of the CEE enlargement model, which itself is being challenged by instances of democratic backsliding among the new member states, this paper argues that the EU would do well to consider a thorough review of its enlargement policy and an expansion of socialisation-based mechanisms in the pre-accession phase.