Supervisors info:
Φιλίππα Χατζησταύρου,Βοηθός Καθηγητή, Τμήμα Πολιτικής Επιστήμης και Δημόσιας Διοίκησης, ΕΚΠΑ
Summary:
During the last decades, plenty of opinions have been articulated regarding the way the European Union promotes their interests in the international system. The prevailing opinion in the 21st century, is the one which supports that the EU functions as a “normative power”, that is, according to Manners, the ability to shape the conception about what is considered “normal” in the international relations. The EU has a set of means for promoting their values to third countries, the most efficient of all being the process of enlargement. In this analysis, it is investigated whether this process is being done with the same efficiency as it was done in the past. For this reason, the weak spots of the enlargement process and of the concept of normative power are displayed. A comparison between the results and the evolvement of this process follows, in two time periods: During 1995-2004, with the case of the admission of the states of Central and Eastern Europe, and during 2007-2016, with the case of the Western Balkans. Finally, the enlargement fatigue is investigated, as well as the reasons which cause it. This analysis comes to the conclusion that, indeed, because of the above factors, the ability of the EU to “convince” the candidate countries to efficiently adopt its values, has declined during the years that followed 2007.
Keywords:
European Union, normative power, enlargement process, conditionality, backsliding
