EU Member States Supporting Democracy in the Eastern Neighborhood?

The European Union’s democracy support policies have an existential problem: they are external and top-down in nature. Literature in contrast highlights the role of internal and local actors as central to sustainable democratization. This article investigates whether the agency of EU member states in democracy support functions replicates the asymmetry and mixed results associated with the EU’s top-down democracy promotion, or if their vertical agency in the neighborhood provides opportunities for more sustainable results. The article draws on 30 research interviews conducted with state officials and civil society experts in the EU, EU member states and Ukraine and Moldova during 2023. Drawing from role theory, it investigates the roles of EU member states in supporting democratic development in Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus. Not limiting itself to the study of projects labelled as democracy support, it analyses a broad variety of member state activities from the point of view of building more democratic Europe. It looks into role expectations and role enactment of France, Germany, Poland, Romania and Nordic EU countries in particular. The analysis of the interview data led to a formulation of three role categories for the member states: Firstly, member states were found to perform as “advocates and supporters” who bring up and keep the development of their non-member neighbors on the EU agenda, initiate and shape EU democracy support policies, and invest resources in bilateral support programmes. This role was often associated with member states in a close geographical and cultural proximity to the non-member neighbors. Secondly, member states were found to perform as “role models” for their non-member neighbors, especially if they have recently experienced democratic transitions that could serve as a road map or a guidebook with “lessons learnt” and best practices for the neighbors. Thirdly, however, member states were also found to play the role of “gatekeepers” for EU membership, categorically or case-by-case vetoing the EU enlargement. This role was considered to undermine democratization because of decreasing the impact of conditionality, limiting the political attention, resources, and assistance provided by the EU to the partner states, and because of directly or indirectly negatively affecting the popularity and achievable results by liberal political actors in the neighborhood. Some member states were associated with more than one of these three categories. The article concludes that EU member states play a mixed role in supporting democratization in the Eastern neighborhood. The variety of the member states’ experiences of democratic transitions appears as a positive resource that can be utilized by agents of change in the neighborhood. At the same time, the member states’ diverse roles and agency do not overcome or change the starting point that the EU uses unilateral power in its neighborhood in the context of the enlargement process. In fact, the member states seem to represent even more arbitrary and problematic use of power in that process in contrast to the EU institutions, whose monitoring role was considered rules based and useful for democratic transitions.