Attila Ágh

Anticipatory and Adaptive

Europeanization

of Hungary

Kossuth Publishing Co.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Islands of Theory

I. Europeanization in a Central European Regional Context

II. Democratic Structures in ECE

III. The EU Development and the Accession of the ECE Countries

IV. Two new challenges: accession to the eu and early consolidation

V. Parliamentarization as Europeanization in ECE

VI. Europeanization of the central government in Hungary

VII. Europeanization and Regionalization in Hungary

VIII. Accession Negotiations: A Hungarian View

IX. From Copenhagen to Copenhagen: Hungarian Perspectives

References:

The Economist:

Imprint

Introduction: Islands of Theory

The book series of ‘Together for Europe’ has grown out from the research efforts of the Hungarian Centre for Democracy Studies (HCDS) on studying the Europeanization of the Hungarian political system. We have conducted EU research for many years in the framework of a team called Together for Europe, supported by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS), and have decided to give this name to the book series as well. The first volume of this series has focused on the preparations of the EU membership; therefore I have chosen the title

Anticipatory and adaptive europeanization in hungary.

In the HCDS we have had four international conferences in the early 2000s on EU enlargement and the conference papers have been published in our working paper series Budapest Papers on Europeanization and some of my conference papers have been converted into the Chapters of this volume.

Beyond the HAS the research activities of the Hungarian Centre for Democracy Studies have been sponsored also by the European Commission in the framework of the six-country project ‘Organising for Europe’ led by Prof. Brigid Laffan at the Dublin European Institute. The matching fund has been provided by the Hungarian Ministry of Education on the Europeanization of the Hungarian Polity in the framework of the Higher Education Research Fund (NKFP). The XXI Century Institute has been both our partner in the above-mentioned Hungarian project and the co-sponsor of some international conferences on the EU. Finally, the National Scientific Research Fund (OTKA) in Hungary has also supported our research on the Europeanization of the central government. All research efforts in political science in Hungary have been this kind of ‘patchworks’ of sponsorship as I have indicated above. The Hungarian Centre for Democracy Studies is grateful to all sponsors for their contributions, last but not least to the Hungarian Parliament – and to the Speaker of the Hungarian Parliament, Katalin Szili - for the publication of this book.

Higher education in Hungary has not yet returned to normalcy after a decade of drastic budget cuts, so it badly needs ‘Europeanization’ also in financing the university sector in order to Europeanize its research capacity and to join the international network of EU studies. The political science literature on the European Union has become a big industry in the member states, although the Eastern enlargement issues have remained to a great extent under-researched. This topic has been even more under-researched and under-represented in the candidate countries, since the views and worries of the ‘elder brothers’ (the incumbent members) have prevailed in the literature on enlargement and those of the candidate countries have been largely missing or not articulated enough.

The main aim of this volume is to build up, or at least to make a contribution to, a theory of Europeanization from the point of view of the Central European newcomers. I would call it, continuing the metaphor of Stanley Hoffman, an island of theory. It is enough to say here that there have been many theories on the EU and Europeanization but no Grand Theory as a big synthesis has emerged yet. Thus, the situation is similar to that when the ‘crisis’ of comparative politics broke out in the seventies and Stanley Hoffman suggested his island of theory approach. I would like to add, however, that there are many big islands of theory in and about the EU and my effort aims at contributing to this archipelago system with my small island of theory. Hopefully, this book helps to build bridges from the small Hungarian island to those big islands of well-established theory on Europeanization.

I. Europeanization in a Central European Regional Context

This introductory Chapter tries to place the Europeanization of Hungary in a regional context and to outline a conceptual framework for the entire book. It investigates the present situation of small states in the Central European region and raises the issue of small states' research in its subsequent periods. The prospects for the Central European region to develop a stable framework of co-operation and a dynamic regional identity in the EU accession period are also briefly outlined. The analysis of small states in East Central Europe (ECE) displays the urgent need for their further development towards consensual democracy that will be discussed in the second Chapter giving the theoretical foundation for the entire book. The move towards some kind of consensual democracy enables the region as a whole to cope with the dual challenge of Europeanization and globalization that has so far produced a performance crisis. This performance crisis indicates in the third Chapter the interrelationships between the political development of the EU and the ECE accession process. The fourth Chapter analyses the 'political harmonization' of ECE polities with the EU, focusing on public administration reform. Furthermore, the fifth Chapter deals with the role of the ECE parliaments as parliamentarization of Europeanization. The sixth Chapter concentrates on the Europeanization of the Hungarian central government and its accession management, while the seventh Chapter puts Europeanization and Regionalization into the centre of the analysis as a whole, since sub-national regionalization is a vital issue in the process of structural accommodation to the EU polity. The eighth Chapter follows the accession negotiations from a Hungarian point of view, finally, the ninth Chapter leads to the current situation of the process ‘from Copenhagen to Copenhagen’ in October 2002.{1}

1. Introduction: regions matter

The Central European countries have arrived at a historical juncture. The Cold-War period and/or the Yalta system divided Central Europe into two parts. Austria as its Western part became a Western outpost or periphery, compensated for its separation from its organic contacts by an advantageous position as a bridgehead to the 'East'. Its Eastern part – nowadays known as East Central Europe (ECE) and comprising Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Croatia – was for many decades on the other side of the Iron Curtain, which cut Europe into two across Central Europe. Central Europe was therefore the symbol as well as the biggest victim of the bipolar world and hence it has benefited relatively most of its collapse. Central Europe has recovered and returned to the European scene with deep and far-reaching consequences for all Central European states. After decades of divergence, a tendency of convergence has again become dominant in Central Europe, both between its Western and Eastern parts and within its Eastern part.{2}

These ideas appeared already in the eighties in the re-emergence of the term Central Europe and, concurrently, as a re-emerging regional identity. They were further developed in the early nineties after the collapse of the bipolar world with the political reunification of Europe. But they soon faded away under the impact of short-term considerations and interests, conceptualized as the seemingly huge gap between 'East' and 'West' in Central Europe and the supposedly divergent developments in the ECE countries. Despite its new difficulties, Central Europe has become a symbol of economic and political success among the 'post-communist' countries. Hence many new democracies have been eager to be called Central European. Ambitious Western analysts and comparatists have indeed tried to lump together all the 27 'post-communist' states under a common denominator to prove their skills in comparison. Similarly, the 'polite' and under-informed Western politicians are ready to call everything Central Europe between Prague and Vladivostok, to exercise their smooth diplomatic skills. Against this general confusion, it is high time to point out that 'regions matter' in the 'post-communist' world, since they have their own historically defined borders, common concerns, organic traditions and contacts, and increasingly returning historical identities with shared interests. Although the term Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) has now been widely accepted, it is still too often used interchangeably with the term ECE. Hopefully, this Chapter can contribute to the conceptual clarification and to a better understanding of Central Europe as a region in its own right.

In the early 2000s we are in a new situation. The historical divisions between Central Europe, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe not only re-emerged in the early nineties, displaying their deep structures and the relevance of long durée, but have become much more marked after the first decade of freedom. The ECE states have completed the stage of democratic transition and have begun a sustained economic growth in the period of early consolidation. Meanwhile, the Balkan states have remained in the initial stage of democratization – or at most in some stage of democratic transition - and they are still struggling against economic crisis deriving from 'transformation', state failure and nation-building. On the other hand, with the coming EU membership of the ECE states, the differences between Austria and the ECE have drastically diminished politically, and in the long run they tend to decrease economically as well. Once the organic, intra-regional contacts are re-established, Austria ceases to be a country on the Western periphery and becomes a core country in Central Europe, an active member of the community of the Central European small states. The new situation has produced new identities at four levels, namely (1) Central European regional identity, (2) EU or 'European' identity, (3) national identities, and (4) sub-national or regional identities within each country.

All these four levels of identity can be seen in a rather well developed form in the EU member states, excepting Austria’s regional identity which could not develop properly, since Austria’s old partners were missing. Such regional partnership and identity can already be observed in the Nordic region and increasingly also in the Mediterranean one (the so-called Barcelona process). Of course, the ECE countries also share some initial form of regional identity, although still in a restricted and contradictory way. However, the increasingly common, shared interests will produce an assertive regional identity in a fertile confluence of both 'European' and national identities. In addition, regions appear in a second meaning with increasing regionalization within each country, which has recently been a dominant trend in the EU member states.

It is easy to identify the factors delaying the emergence of this multi-layered identity structure in the ECE:

1. The ECE states suffer from Euro-fatigue that is, from the tension between words and deeds, promises and facts of EU assistance in the periods of association and accession, perceived by them also as a sovereignty conflict.

2. They have been divided by competition for entry into the EU in the process of accession negotiations and the EU negotiators have consciously used the divide et impera method.

3. They still try to cope with their problems of economic and political recentralization, which does not leave enough room for sub-national units such as 'regions' to develop their political and economic autonomy and corresponding local-regional identity.

4. However, as compensation for their relative backwardness and for want of a better perspective, they try to reassert the Central European regional consciousness but so far without having taken all the necessary practical steps for its implementation (as e.g. the Visegrád political co-operation).

My central thesis in this Chapter is that since the early nineties there has been a multi-faceted (both domestic and international), intra-regional convergence in Central Europe that may reach a higher stage of regional integration within the EU in the next ten years (see from the economic aspect Macedo, 2000 and Grozea-Helmenstein, 2001, and from the institutional aspect Hauser, 2001). The regional divides have become so big and deep among the post-communist regions and countries that some analysts have even warned about the dangers of “a new demarcation line” in the post-communist world (Karatnycky, in Nations in Transit 2001, 2001: 15-16).

When analysing the Central European region, this Chapter tries to provide first of all a new conceptual framework instead of following the well-known path of 'transitology' with isolated country analyses. I try to elaborate a theory of enlargement expressing the views of the candidate countries and to build an island of theory for its coherent representation. Many Western analysts declare that the European integration theory in general and the theory of Eastern Enlargement in particular have suffered from a “theoretical neglect”, i.e. they have been “under-researched” and “under-theoretized” (Schimmelfenning and Sedelmeier, 2002: 500-501). It is true to a great extent, but the special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy that they have recently edited represent a very one-sided Western view without due consideration of the ideas and interests of the candidate countries. To balance this one-sided approach I focus on the synthesis of the domestic developments and EU demands in the candidate states by pointing out new achievements, and even more, the new difficulties but without exaggerating them into a separation of two worlds, ‘East and West’ completely apart, as the authors of the Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier volume have made.

Here the small size of the Central European states comes in as a decisive factor and this problem of small states’ behaviour is an important factor in the recent literature as well (see Gstöhl, 2002). Because of their small size, the Central European countries have common interests to a much greater extent than do bigger states, since of necessity all development projects within the infrastructure and transport, all kinds of environmental regulations and dangers concern them more closely and directly than they do the bigger states. Even the increasing intra-regional conflicts prove it. For example, the Czech nuclear reactors 'are', actually in Austria, since they are so near. These small states have common rivers and share both water and air pollution, but also the burden of illegal immigrants and they enjoy the same tourist groups who are interested in the common cultural heritage of the Central European region. As far as its territory and population is concerned, Central Europe is more or less equal in size to a big country like Germany or France, which is just one factor of the closer interest and increasing regional identity of its states. Most probably this common 'geographical' regional interest and identity will appear inside the EU and it will put the question of small states into a new conceptual framework in EU politics and policy. The institutional reform of the EU may take various shapes, one of the possible versions being regional representation in the College of European Commission and/or the Presidency of the European Council, with spokesmen for the regions.{3}

{1} I took part in the international project on small states organized by the Institut für Dunauraum (IDM Vienna) in 2001. Some part of this Chapter was written within this project in an earlier version. I have to indicate that throughout this work I rely on my two books (Ágh, 1998 a,b).

{2} Region has several meanings. Here I use the term 'region' in a historical context as a unit embracing some countries. Later on I will use this term for the sub-national units. Furthermore, in this Introduction I use the term Central Europe where Austria is included, i.e. the region as a whole, and East Central Europe (ECE) for its Eastern part. Usually, in the other Chapters I try to use ECE in order to avoid misunderstandings with CEECs.

{3} Poland is a special case, I will return to it later. Even without Poland, Central Europe as a region has about 40 million inhabitants. About Poland and ECE see Góralczyk et al, 1995, Kostecki et al, 2000 and Staniskis, 1999.