Monitoring the Monitors: EU Enlargement Conditionality and Minority Protection in the CEECs
Publisher: Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe Volume: 38 pages, pdf Description: The ‘Copenhagen criteria’ have been widely viewed as constituting a successful incentive structure and sanctioning mechanism for the European Union (EU) in the promotion of human rights and the protection of minorities. The EU’s ‘conditionality’ on the accession of the Central and Eastern European candidate countries (CEECs) is one that potentially embodies a power asymmetry whereby the EU can use conditionality as an instrument to exert political leverage on candidates to ensure the requisite outcomes in policy or legislation.