The book provides the first comprehensive comparative analysis of the development of EU enlargement conditionality across four different enlargement waves - the first (2004) and the second (2007) phase of the Eastern enlargement, the EU enlargement to Croatia (2013), and the ongoing enlargement round involving Turkey and the Western Balkans.

This book fills a significant gap in recent literature on European Union politics by examining the EU’s ‘other’ eastern enlargement, completed in 2007 with the accession of Bulgaria and Romania. It focuses on both the process and the effects of the 2007 enlargement within the wider context of the post-communist countries’ accession to the EU, and, more broadly, within the context of the history of EU enlargement. The book brings together in-depth analyses of a wide range of issues, both from a comparative perspective and through single case studies. Individual contributions shed new light onto EU enlargement through a theoretical re-evaluation of the ‘strategic action’ paradigm, as well as through historical analyses of the 2007 enlargement and of its implications for future EU enlargements. Further insight into the process of EU enlargement is gained through systematic exploration of the impact of accession on policy-making and institutional structures in Bulgaria and Romania. Altogether, the contributions exemplify the multi-faceted nature of EU enlargement and accession, as well as the extent to which the process of acceding to the EU is not completed with membership, either for the EU or for the candidate countries. This book was published as a special issue of Perspectives on European Politics and Society.

The book provides the first comprehensive comparative analysis of the development of EU enlargement conditionality across four different enlargement waves - the first (2004) and the second (2007) phase of the Eastern enlargement, the EU enlargement to Croatia (2013), and the ongoing enlargement round involving Turkey and the Western Balkans.

In this book, the ERECO-PGV[1] network wishes to make an overview of the cooperation implemented by and in the European Union and to describe the concrete forms they have taken. The issue is to analyze the internal European cooperation between economic actors, politicians, and EU citizens at different levels, but also to focus attention on the external cooperation (neighborhood policies, external policies, and collaborations with international institutions: NATO, OECD, WTO, etc.). Carrying uncompromising attention on this issue means rethinking the European project in light of today's challenges. From the very beginning, the EU was based on and called for forms of multinational cooperation, bilateral (internal and external) at different levels, involving economic actors, public actors, local authorities, and civil society. The frameworks for this cooperation as well as for the successive enlargements of the EU were drawn up in the context of European negotiations, in particular during discussions on the European Treaties. European values, standards, and rules are embodied in the texts of agreements, resolutions, and European directives and Treaties signed by all member countries. They establish the functioning of European institutions and the framework of democratic life in Europe. The emergence of current crises (Brexit, COVID-19, migration crisis, non-respect of rule of law rules, refusal of certain member countries to apply the European Charter of Human Rights, etc.) is questioning the project of the European Union and introduced the challenges which should be overcome by the proposal of the new project able to face the internal complexity of the Union and to answer to the pressure of a conflicting international context. What remains of the European ideal affirmed in the treaties of 1957, 1992, and 2007? How to "re-enchant" the common project? Yet, the European Union remains attractive to new candidate countries. How do they read the integration conditions into the EU with regard to their own projects?

Among the criteria for accession to the European Union are democracy and the Rule of Law. In the insightful analysis offered by the author of this book, these concepts - while admirable and even necessary criteria in principle - are almost impossible to measure, and any judgement grounded in them will always be difficult to justify. In his words, 'by including analysis of democracy and the Rule of Law within the field of the EU enlargement law, the Union entered an unstable terrain of vague causal connections and blurred definitions.' Dr Kochenov addresses this problem by proceeding as follows: 1. Outlining EU enlargement law in general, including the principle of conditionality and the role played by the analysis of democracy and the Rule of Law in enlargement preparation; 2. Focusing on the role actually played by the monitoring of democracy and the Rule of Law in ten candidate countries, scrutinizing the way the EU used the legal tools and competences outlined in its enlargement law. The book adopts the EU's own understanding of democracy and the Rule of Law, as derived directly from the substance of the numerous legal and political instruments issued by the Community Institutions and especially the Commission in the course of the pre-accession process. In this way it demonstrates the actual - as opposed to the officially announced - role played by the assessment of democracy and the Rule of Law in the candidate countries in the regulation of enlargement. Many formidable inconsistencies in the application of the conditionality principle are thus laid bare. This leads the author to a series of recommendations on policy and procedure that he demonstrates could be profitably applied to the regulation of current and future accessions, using the Commission's own structure of monitoring pre-accession reforms in the three areas of the legislature, executive, and judiciary in candidate countries. The probity and soundness of these recommendations, firmly grounded as they are in the actual pre-accession monitoring and its consequences for the pre-accession progress of ten Eastern European countries admitted to the EU in 2004 and 2007, will greatly interest policymakers and scholars concerned with the future of European integration.

In this book, leading scholars of EU law, judges, and practitioners unpack the judicial reasoning offered by the UK Advocates General in over forty cases at the Court of Justice, which have influenced the shape of EU law. The authors place the Opinions in the wider context of the EU legal order, and mix praise with critique in order to determine the true contribution of the UK Advocates General, before hearing the concluding reflections by the UK Advocates General themselves. The role of Advocates General at the Court of Justice of the European Union remains notoriously under-researched. With a few notable exceptions, not much ink has been spilled on analysing their contribution to the judicial discourse that emerges from the Court's Palais in Luxembourg. More generally, their impact on the shaping of EU law is only sporadically explored. This book fills the lacunae by offering an in-depth analysis of the way in which the UK Advocates General contributed to development of EU law during 47 years of the UK's membership of the EU. During their terms of office, Advocates General Jean-Pierre Warner (1973-1981), Gordon Slynn (1981-1988), Francis Jacobs (1988-2006), and Eleanor Sharpston (2006-2020) delivered over 1400 Opinions. This staggering contribution of the four individuals and their cabinets of legal secretaries was supplemented by an Opinion of a then Judge of the Court of First Instance, David Edward, who was called to act as an Advocate General in two joined cases in what is now the General Court. With the last UK Advocate General departing from the Court of Justice in September 2020, an important era has ended. With this watershed moment, it is apt to take a look back and critically analyse the contribution to development of EU law made by the UK Advocates General, and to elucidate the lasting impact they have had on the nature of EU law.

The unification of Europe became a fact in April 2003, when the European Union decided to admit 10 new members. The scope of this expansion is unique in the EU's history and brings with it unprecedented challenges in terms of the numbers of the people involved, the social and cultural differences between the states that are concerned, as well as in their geostrategic importance and interests. It is amazing, especially in the light of the simultaneous proposals for the deepening of the European Union, that support for this enlargement of the EU, enlargement in a historical obligation rather that a calculated risk. Some of the more important ramifications of this momentous change are dealt with in the book with the aim of clarifying the significance, the extent and the costs of the coming changes in the EU.

This collection of essays discusses the relation between Europeanisation and democratisation in new member states and neighbour countries. The essays were presented at the "Europeanisation and Democratisation: The Southern European Experience and the Perspective for the New Member States" conference held in Florence, Italy, in 2005.