Europos sajungos pletros politicos kaita: "treciojo kelio" paieskos

In: Politologija, Heft 4, S. 3-32

Abstract

This article is devoted to the models of integration without membership as a method to solve the EU "enlargement versus deepening" dilemma. Stagnation of EU enlargement implicates that policy alternatives to enlargement & various models of integration without membership become essential. Authors dealing with issues of external europeanization often conclude that models of integration without membership rely heavily on methods similar to enlargement methods. It is recognized, however, that alternatives to enlargement lack an essential mechanism, an incentive that would induce reform & approximation to European standards, ie., these models do not provide a membership opportunity. Thus principle of conditionality that lies at the heart of such models fails without proper incentives to reform. Therefore a vicious circle emerges: with no membership opportunity there is no reform incentive & lack of reform hinders the possibility to transpose cooperation with EU to a qualitatively upper political, economic & institutional level. That raises a question if the enlargement "toolkit" (conditionality principle first of all) may fruitfully function in models of integration without membership. Adapted from the source document.