Re-examination of EU normative power in light of the revised enlargement methodology towards the Western Balkans

Bojinović Fenko, Ana (author), Kočan, Faris (author)

The aim of this article is to re-examine the concept of “EU normative power” in the revised EU approach to enlargement policy announced in 2020. Drawing on conceptualisation of power in Foreign Policy Analysis the article applies the reading of the EU’s soft and hard power – both as capability and as influence – to EU normative power. The empirical part thus identifies above four elements within the EU’s promotion of its particular norms and within the EU’s strife for international normality via enlargement policy. The results show that the new enlargement methodology does offer change of EU normative power. The EU could more effectively condition the respect of its particular norms by an exemplary domestic practice assuring its own domestic and foreign policy legitimacy and in turn by developing and applying the needed capabilities for achieving attractiveness. Even though a plan of positive conditionality and better-defined conditions in direct negotiations carries such potential, a risk exists that the biggest novelty – the ‘phasing-in’ paradigm – would only explore EU’s norm-related hard market power capabilities by keeping the Western Balkans countries as candidates forever, thus undermining EU’s legitimacy and hard power influence of negative conditionality. To promote international normality, however, the EU needs to activate other elements of soft power influence, namely agenda setting and persuasion.

• Language: English
• Keywords: European Union, normative power, hard power, soft power, Western Balkans, revised enlargement methodology
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2022
• Number of pages: Str. 411-432
• Numbering: Vol. 74, no. 3
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-143340
• UDC: 327:061.1EU
• ISSN on article: 0025-8555
• DOI: 10.2298/MEDJP2203411B
• COBISS.SI-ID: 124441603
• Publication date in RUL: 15.12.2022

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Međunarodni problemi = International problems = Meždunarodnye problemy
• Shortened title: Međunar. probl.
• Publisher: Institut za međunarodnu politiku i privredu = Institute of International Politics and Economics
• ISSN: 0025-8555
• COBISS.SI-ID: 6012674

Licences

• License: CC BY-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Description: This Creative Commons license is very similar to the regular Attribution license, but requires the release of all derivative works under this same license.

Secondary language

• Language: Serbian
• Title: Preispitivanje normativne moći Evropske unije u svetlu revidirane metodologije politike proširenja spram Zapadnog Balkana

Abstract

Cilj ovog članka ogleda se u preispitivanju koncepta normativne moći Evropske unije u kontekstu revidiranog pristupa politike proširenja iz 2020. godine. Polazeći od koncepta moći u okviru spoljnopolitičko-analitičkog pristupa, u ovom članku se tumači meka i tvrda moć Evropske unije (u formi sposobnosti, kao i uticaja) prema normativnoj moći EU. U empirijskom delu identifikuju se četiri elementa povezana sa promocijom određenih normi EU, kao i sa nastojanjem za “međunarodnom normalnošću” kroz politiku proširenja. Rezultati pokazuju da revidirana metodologija omogućava promene normativne moći Evropske unije. EU bi mogla da efikasnije uslovljava poštovanje svojih normi kroz unapređivanje sopstvene prakse, poput svog unutrašnjeg i spoljnopolitičkog legitimiteta i razvoja i primene neophodnih sposobnosti za postizanje veće privlačne snage. S jedne strane, agenda pozitivnog uslovljavanja i adekvatnije definisanih uslova kroz direktne pregovore sadrži takav potencijal. Međutim, postoji i rizik da najveća novina – paradigma „postepenog pristupanja” bude ograničena samo na tržišni deo normativne moći Evropske unije kroz trajno zadržavanje zapadnobalkanskih zemalja u svojstvu kandidata, što bi podrilo legitimitet i uticaj tvrde moći kao deo negativnog uslovljavanja. U cilju promovisanja “međunarodne normalnosti” Evropska unija bi kroz pristupe poput dnevnog reda i ubeđivanja mogla da aktivira i druge elemente uticaja u okviru meke moći.

• Keywords: Evropska unija, normativna moć, čvrsta moć, meka moć, Zapadni Balkan, revidirana metodologija politike proširenja

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P5-0177
• Name: Slovenija in njeni akterji v mednarodnih odnosih in evropskih integracijah