From neighbourhood to membership: Moldova’s persuasion strategy towards the EU

Policy-specific effects of transgovernmental cooperation: a statistical assessment across the EU’s post-Soviet neighbours

“…Some of the Eastern Partners see their participation in the ENP as a step towards membership (Verdun and Chira, 2008). In this context, membership aspirations might be, in particular, strategically used to indicate their intentions to deepen economic integration with the EU thereby bringing benefits to the ruling élite (in terms of voter support and economic benefits).…”

Europeanisation Beyond the Member States

“…Countries that would like to become members -such as Ukraine, Moldova, or Georgia -behave as if they were subject to accession conditionality, adopt EU rules in order to signal their readiness to join, and seek to persuade the EU to consider them as candidates. 33 Given the weak conditions for effective conditionality, many authors suggest that -despite the appearances of conditionality -the ENP is based de facto on a socialisation mechanism of Europeanisation. In this view, EU rules promoted in the context of ENP negotiations and policy networks may serve as a reference point for longer-term domestic political processes.…”

The European Union's Relations with Ukraine and Azerbaijan

“…The EU's Neighborhood Europeanization 34 For example, the EU can combine regional cooperation within GUAM and multilateralism with the OSCE to settle the Transistrian conflict. See examples of policy proposals in Boonstra (2005) and Verdun and Chira (2008). 35 For example, in February 2007 Mr. Saakashvili, along with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, signed the Tbilisi Declaration on a Common Vision for Regional Co-operation.…”

“…Because power is so concentrated in the presidency, Georgia is considered to be slipping into authoritarianism (International Crisis Group, 2007) with decreasing capacities to build effective state institutions and to secure public confidence in them (Aprasidze, 2009). 32 In Moldova, politics have been less stable in recent years (Verdun and Chira, 2008). Even though former opposition (pro-EU) parties won the July 2009 parliamentary election, it was unclear whether they would be able to elect a new president through amendments to laws on presidential elections and avoid another parliamentary election (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2009b, 2009c.…”