Implementacija europskih standarda demokracije u procesu pridruzivanja EU: Usporedba Slovacke i Rumunjske

In: Politicka misao, Band 39, Heft 4, S. 11-30

Abstract

A Croatian translation of an English paper delivered at the conference, "The New Dialog between Central Europe and Japan. Part Five. The Countries of Southeastern Europe in Transition: Between Globalization, Integration, and Fragmentation," held in Zagreb, 12-14 Sept 2002. Although the condition of democratization has never been precisely spelled out by the European Union (EU) for candidate states & the organization has no clear concept of democratic consolidation for the continent, the postcommunist countries desiring EU membership have made serious efforts to develop democratic institutions & legislative frameworks to accommodate EU democratic standards. Thus, there is a palpable link between the process of EU enlargement with new members & the spread of democracy in Central & Southeastern Europe. A comparison of Slovakia & Romania demonstrates, however, that individual candidate countries achieved these objectives through different paths, on their own timetable, & with different end results. The Slovak experience during the third term of Vladimir Meciar's government, 1994-1998, shows that pressures for the implementation of democratic political conditions are ineffective if a national government does not consider EU membership a priority. However, the new Dzurinda government reacted positively to the EU political conditioning & implemented a series of democratic reforms, overcoming occasional difficulties in achieving consensus on contentious issues. In Romania, the impact of democratic conditionality was rather negligible before the change of government in 1996, while slow at best during the Centrist-Right government that followed. Although the return to power of social democrats in 2000 accelerated democratization in this country, progress overall was impeded by economic hardships & the ineffectiveness of state administration. 32 References. Adapted from the source document.