Europeanization and effective democracy in Romania and Bulgaria.

• Author: Racovita, Mihaela
• Position: POLSCI FOCUS - Essay

The drive towards Europe has been part of Romanian and Bulgarian political agenda, the syncope of communism apart, since the early days of state building and nation-building in the nineteenth century. This "'geocultural Bovarism,' a disposition to leap frog" into Europe, was motivated by the "fear...that the country would fall right off the edge into another continent altogether" (Judt 2001, 10). Post-1989 however, these aspirations did not automatically translate into ability to change and conform to European standards. The road to EU membership was rocky for both Romania and Bulgaria. Political instability and lack of political will, despite public consensus across party lines over EU accession, led to relative slower economic and political reforms and poorer record of acquis implementation (Dimitrova and Dragneva 2001; Phinnemore 2006). The two neighboring countries made all too often the headlines in Western media not because of their Europeanness but because of corruption. The Telegraph called Sofia "Europe's corruption capital" (Freeman 2008), and the New York Times wrote that "Romania defends record on corruption" (Dempsey 2008). As their notoriety as corruption heavens increased, so did the scrutiny of the European Union as part of the integration process. Since mid-1990s, the European Commission annual reports repeatedly pointed at the inefficiency and lack of will of national actors, spread across branches of power, to curb corruption.

By 2007, lack of progress in addressing high level corruption threatened to derail Romania and Bulgaria's bid for EU membership. This article relies upon the theoretical framework provided by literature on Europeanization to examine the pre-accession impact of EU political conditionality upon effective democracy by adjusting readings of rule of law, transparency, quality of bureaucracy, government stability with corruption. Among Central and Eastern European (CEE) candidate countries, (15) Romania and Bulgaria registered the slowest progress in terms of transparency, accountability and rule enforcement. This article argues that successive government tactics of window dressing and backtracking and reluctance by national political elite to implement reforms are responsible for delaying and sometime neutralizing Enlargement-led Europeanization upon the quality of democracy in these countries. This article reviews the track of EU political conditionality from the signing of the Europe Agreements in 1993 to their accession, investigates the variation of the corruption trends between 1990 and 2007, analyzes the problems posed by corruption at the micro level and proposes some explanations. The findings show that public perception of corruption and levels of effective have changed little between 1993 and 2007 despite EU political conditionality, European Commission monitoring system through annual country reports, roadmaps and regular feedback.

Europeanization and Domestic Change

Over time, theoretical and methodological approaches of the ever increasing field of Europeanization have diversified, from macro to micro analysis and from case studies to cross country studies (Cowles et. al 2001; Featherstone and Radaelli 2003; Borzel 2005). Europeanization, understood here as "processes of (a) construction (b) diffusion and (c) institutionalization of formal and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles, 'ways of doing things' and shared beliefs and norms which are first defined and consolidated in the EU policy process and then incorporated in the logic of domestic (national and subnational) discourse, identities, political structures and public policies" (Radaelli 2003), has been since the early days of post-communist transition the key variable in determining domestic reform in CEE. Scholars are by and large in agreement that through the policy of conditionality (reforms in return for funds and membership) the EU has been able to influence domestic change (Grabbe 2006). Theoretically, the "external incentive model (Schimmelfenning and Sedelmeier 2004)" (which was EU driven) has proven more useful in explaining the EU's ability to influence domestic change and rule adoption than models of socialization and/or lesson-drawing, which are CEE driven (Borzel and Rise 2000).

Enlargement-led Europeanization happened through the policy of conditionality developed by the European Councils of Copenhagen and Madrid and enforced in practice through the Commission's Annual Reports and the screening processes. In time, the Commission expanded the areas monitored as part of the rule of law dimension, including corruption and judicial reform. Through 'active' (i.e. conditionality) and 'passive' (i.e. membership) leverage (Vachudva 2005), the EU directly influenced changes in CEE domestic politics due to the speed and breath of measures it required and the willingness of candidate countries to comply (i.e. Grabbe 2001; Dimitrova 2002; Papadimitriou and Phinnemore 2004). However, the EU impact was neither continuous nor definitive. While the EU did shape, direct and occasionally determine change, the CEECs were not passive recipients of Brussels rules and regulations (Vachudova 2005; Jacoby 2004; Hughes et. al 2004). Cross-country and cross-policy studies (e.g. Schimmenfenning et al. 2003; Schimmenfenning and Sedelmeier 2004; Borzel 2005) have found that during pre-accession the Europeanization of CEE was sensitive to similar variables as in the case of old member states plus variables specific to post-communist politics (i.e. weak institutions, political fragmentation and instability, central planning). Meanwhile, the adoption costs and veto players only explained variation in the timing of rule adoption (Schimmelfenning and Sedelmeier 2005). The EU strategy towards Romania and Bulgaria was characterized by a mix of threats and rewards, mediating pressure to reform through the provision of financial assistance and the prospect of membership per se (Spendzharova 2003). In these two countries, the EU ability to influence domestic reforms was hampered by the evolutionary and contested nature of EU conditionality as well as the considerable EU discretion in its implementation (Papadimitrou and Gateva 2009).

In Romania and Bulgaria implementation in particular was hindered by political instability, high level of politicization of the judiciary as well as the economic sector and the presence of organized crime. The level of implementation is dependent upon "the degree of ambiguity and the level of conflict related to the decision that is supposed to be implemented (Sverdrup 2007, 208)." Some scholars have argued that implementation of the acquis prior to accession has been a question of bureaucratic problems rather than political veto-maneuvers (Hille and Knill 2006). Other cross-country studies show that key to successful political conditionality were high EU credibility and low government adoption costs (Schimmelfenning et al, 2003) as adoption costs "increase the more EU conditions negatively affect [...] the government's domestic power base" (Schimmlefenning and Sedelmeier 2005, 29).

While Enlargement-led Europeanization has promoted the democratic and liberal elements of government (Vachudova 2005), the EU ability "to penetrate domestic institutions is not perfect, universal or constant," as "adaptations reflect variations in European pressure as well as well as domestic motivations and abilities to adapt" (Olsen 2002, 356). In Romania and Bulgaria the impact of Europeanization was truncated by corruption, traffic of influence and the survival of organized crime networks. Since the Copenhagen criteria mentioned rule of law, transparency and separation of powers and given corruption ability to distort them (corruption in legislative bodies reduces accountability and representation; corruption in the judiciary suspends the rule of law; corruption in the public administration results in unequal provision of services) corruption became subjected to EU monitoring mechanisms. Romania and Bulgarian country reports increasingly pointed out lack of progress in addressing high level of corruption as well as lack of political will.

For the purpose of this article, this article operates with a definition of corruption as "any conduct or behaviour in relation to persons entrusted with responsibilities in public office which violates their duties as public officials and which is aimed at obtaining undue gratification of any kind for themselves or for others" (PMG 2003). In CEE, governmental corruption is a protracted problem, present during communism, when the "communist autocracy was tempered by corruption" (Levin and Satarov 2000), and continuing after 1989 because of the "moral chaos" and opportunities for corruption created by privatization and transition more generally (Campos and Fidrmuc 2003). This article investigates the impact of corruption and deficiencies in government accountability on the quality of democracy and operates with a concept of 'effective' versus 'formal' democracy. The spectrum of democratic definitions expands, throughout literature, from minimalist--based on a "procedural minimum" that features free and fair elections, universal suffrage, and basic civic and political freedoms (Collier and Levitsky 1997), to maximalist ones (including bureaucratic quality, government accountability, etc.). This article operates with the following definition of effective democracy: a system where "democratic practices have spread throughout society" and are free of "patrimonialism and clientelism" which "eat away at democratic authority" (Heller 2000, 488).

Model of Analysis

Operating with the assumption that "hidden" (outside overt electoral fraud picked up by other indices) and widespread corruption distort the traditional readings of democracy, this article follows six determinants of effective democracy: political competitiveness, quality bureaucracy, low level of...