A short conclusion

overall, we can say, the main conclusion of our inter-ethnic research is that the Hungarians and the Polish resemble each other: in both countries the political culture is based on a strong pillar of the collective historical experiences, namely the memories remain through generations and are a legacy to the further socialization processes. In the Czech republic there are much weaker signs of the past, as follows cultural factors, subjective impressions and experiences gained are dominating their judgment about other nations.

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rUSSIAN PoLICy toWArDS CENtrAL EUroPE AND HUNGAry1

Within 25 years since the beginning of reforms, relations between russia and Central European countries² underwent dramatic changes: from their merely entire destruction, till the decisive break through at the threshold of the 2000’s that steadily and persistently draws the path towards a new type of relations.

The most tragic years in bilateral and regional relations had been 1990’s, marked by the fall of trade relations merely till the bottom. The major trend in russian foreign policy in the 1990’s had been the summing up and the closing up of all the mutual economic debt issues. There practically remained no place for common ground in political interests. Even cultural ties had fallen dawn to the lowest level as compared to the whole of the after war period. It seemed than, that the only interest of East-Central European countries, as well as of former USSr republics towards russia had concentrated itself around compensation claims. Consequently, russia in early 90’s had started the search for new trade partners, political allies and new role in the region and world geopolitics. Thus, the paths of the former allies since the beginning of the 1990’s went in different directions.

When we speak about such country as russia, possessing nuclear armaments, controlling space and thus responsible for the general international climate, we should understand that its geopolitical interests lie far beyond traditional continental ties. After an evident defeat in continental relations in early 1990’s,

1 The project on russia- East-Central European countries’ relations after joining the European Union has been carried out under the financial aid of russian Foundation for Humanities. Project N 12-03-00650.

2 Some remarks on terminology: russian political science more frequently uses the term East-Central Europe which seems more corresponding to russian geopolitical vision. The times when both the East and West had called this part of Europe “Eastern” has gone.

And the time when we could see it geopolitically “Central” did not come yet, at least as we see it from russia. The region did not manage yet to undertake the mission of a bridge between East and West and is rather drifting towards it with a changing speed, which rather indicates the category of movement which is not bad at all. At the same time, we in russia are not certain about whether we are that very “Eastern Europe” that would give the region the full right to call itself “Central”.

Lyubov Shishelina

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russia, for more than a decade, had concentrated itself on the more remote interests of World geopolitics.

As to the countries of East-Central Europe, the situation of political uncertainty and economic degradation eastwards, that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, put these countries in front of the necessity to search for the new alliances. All the pre-reform discussions about possibility of neutrality had faded away very quickly. Slovakia was the last country of the region that in the beginning of the 1990’s had tried and gave up the efforts in reaching the neutral status. Global situation towards the end of the 80’s – beginning of the 90’s with an evident trend towards unipolarity and worldwide interdependence, had excluded completely the possibility of other choice than joining the existing political and economic integration for post-socialist states.

Thus, both the sides in the 90’s undertook a serious effort to change the strategic vector of their foreign policies towards intensifying the Western ties.

However, it was the West, namely the European Union, which in the beginning of the 2000-ies had stopped this process of alienation. Parallel with improvement of bilateral relations between russia and leading West European countries like France, Italy and Germany, Central Europeans had to integrate into the general wave of improvement of transcontinental relations. Besides, by the moment when they had to join the European Union it had become clear for EU that the East-European countries, and especially the former USSr Baltic republics, did not manage to fulfill all the necessary criteria. Already during the first years of EU membership it turned out that the so called „conditional compliance” of the East-Central European countries to Maastricht criteria had much more consequences that it could be adopted by the European Union.

The countries of East-Central Europe- in their turn - came to conclusion, that eastern - i.e. russian - market is inevitable for them. Further – more.

Within the following merely ten years of EU membership, it became clear that factors of traditional geopolitics, as well as inherent differences of political character with Western partners, had begun to drive russia and Central Europe closer to each other. Both had understood that the old pattern of relations had been inappropriate any more, and the search for the new one had been blocked by many factors.

Among these we can mention:

• the prevailing stereotypes and offends of the past;

• reserved attention towards the new political forces that had emerged in the countries during the reform period;

• the absence of the joint border, the negative impact of which is being multiplied by instability in the Ukraine;

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• the factor of new alliances (EU and NAto) and the necessity to comply with their general political line.

In majority of the post-socialist countries the new state holidays began to associate with revolts against USSr and russia. Historians involved the mass media in discussing the new archive documents revealing the negative sides of the common past. In many cases these had become the background for restitution claims towards russia. In relations between russia and Hungary this had revealed in re-estimating the events of 1956, of the events of the II World War on Hungarian side, and on russian side, as a response, – in starting the discussion about the role of Hungarian internationalists like Béla Kun in the revolutionary events and 1918-1920 Civil war in russa.

Last generation of socialist elites, namely socialist-reformers, on both sides, had much more in common, and personally knew each other. Thus, they became more successive in building up new relations than new political forces of conservative or radically liberal character. Quite in this line had been russia’s attempts to build relations and cooperation presumably with Hungarian socialists and to restrain from relations with conservative politicians. Hungary, in its’ turn, had relied in its political preferences on russian liberal politicians that in the course of time formed an opposition to state power. It became a surprise for russia that Hungary did not share russia’s anxiety about its conational minorities that occured in the former USSr republics after the dissolution of the USSr, though russia had demonstrated an inclination to study and follow the patterns of Hungarian diasporal policy towards Hungarians in the neighbouring territories.

Eastern enlargement of the EU had got its continuation in the Eastern partnership policy that had turned the former USSr republics into territories of the ambitions of the enlargening West, symbolized by the EU and NAto, performing here against the interests of the East, embodied in russia. Thus, instead of sphere of cooperation, the territories of former USSr republics – the objects of this policy - had turned into the areas of rivalry and confrontation between us. As to our relations with Hungary, in the times of USSr we had been neighbours and all bilateral issues had been settled without the participation of the third side. Currently the questions of transfrontier trade and cooperation belong to the spheres of our relations with Ukraine.

Consequently many of the issues of bilateral trade like transit of oil and gaz depend rather on the will and politics of the Ukraine, than on our’s.

All this added to mutual mistrust. Many of the Central European countries had been afraid of the russia’s attempts to restore its influence in this region,

Lyubov Shishelina

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even then, when russia’s foreign police strategy - in 2000 – had ranged the relations with the region among the last in the list of priorities, devoting to the description of it less space in the document than for the countries of the African continent.³

towards the end of the 90’s new schemes of relations had become restricted to entirely economic spheres and only to a little extend had spread to cultural spheres.

reality of confronting interests – due to participation of Central European countries in NAto had arisen for the first time in full scale during the Balkan war of 1999. Thought the countries of the region restrained from direct participation in the conflict, they definitely acted as the allies of the side, opposite to russia, who, from the very beginning, rejected the idea of any kind intervention and war. Merely the same situation had repeated at the background of the conflict in Iraque.

The first break through in relations between russia and Central European countries had happened on the eve of their membership in the European Union and – as we have already mentioned – due to the efforts of the leading western countries. russian foreign policy establishment in 2001 had formulated its new trend in policy towards East European countries as “no initiative on russian side, but correct response to constructive proposals coming from the countries of the region.”⁴

However the development of events had brought its corrections into this line. Since Central European countries had entered the European Union, their relations with russia had become predetermined by the rules of the membership, that had made them much more problematic and not only in the economic sphere. Nevertheless by the beginning of the second decade of the 21^st century they did manage to restore the volumes of pre-reform trade with russia and started exploring the russian market more intensely. Still, the time – merely two decades – had been lost and in front of the Central European countries had arisen much more difficult aims as rivalry with dozens of world trade marks, the search for the new forms of cooperation as well as the necessity to fight the negative trade balance, that had appeared due to russia’s enormous gas and oil supplies to the region.

3 In Foreign policy conception adopted on April 23^rd 1993 by President Boris Jelcin, russia’s relations with the countries of Eastern Europe as to priority had occurred at the 5^th place.

In President Vladyimir Putin’s foreign policy conception adopted on June 28^th 2000, these relations had been mentioned in 4,5 lines, while relations with the countries of Africa – in 5,5 lines.

4 Vice Foreign Affairs minister Alexander Avdjeev’ speech at the 4^th International Scientific Conference “russia and Central Europe in the New Geopolitical realities.” Moscow, June 14-16. 2001.

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In 2006 russian president Vladimir Putin had visited Hungary and Czech republic. That had been followed by numerous visits of the heads of these states to russia. These summits gave start to new business relations, to participation of Central European companies in russia’s transcontinental projects.

Still, there had been serious differences in relations between russia and the countries of the region. The widely spread opinion that modern russian foreign policy tries to revive using the schemes of pan-Slavic union, are too much exaggerated. If we shall compare the volumes of russia’s trade with the countries of the Balkans and the countries of Visegrad, we shall see more than six time dominance of the trade with the latter.⁵ This tendency had only strengthened during the last decade.

on the background of mass joining the European Union and queuing up for NAto of the non-Slavic and Slavic countries of the region, russian illusions about exclusive character of pan-Slavic fraternity are quickly fading away. New geopolitical realities do not leave place for sentiments about alliances based solely on ethno-cultural ties. Mercantile pragmatic interests of business are ruling the main trend of russian policy as well. They leave no space for sentiments and spiritual-ideological content of relations. russia in a certain sense remains dramatically alone as cannot find the allies even after numerous gestures towards the outer world and the vague understanding from the latter, that not all reserves of russia had been shown and used up to now.

russian-Hungarian relations had been mostly developed according to the general pattern, having both the periods of draw back and new impetuses.

one thing is evident, that that was not russia that initiated the new stage in our relations, but rather the general understanding that Hungary cannot fly having one wing only. Like in relations with other countries of the region, regional relations to a certain extend overweighed the intergovernmental ones.

In case of Hungary they had been supplemented by ethno-national line.

Having once found Finno-Ugric relatives, lately there is seen the renaissance of the turanic line in Hungarian policy towards russia. Though russian and Hungarian sense find much in common ideologically: striving for preservation of Christian and national interests, new responsibilities within global NAto and pro-Atlantic EU, do not afford these relations to rise above them. This, however does not exclude, that common understanding might sooner or later bring us to establishing a really new type of prosperous bilateral relations.

5 Дрыночкин А.В. Восточная Европа как элемент системы глобальных рынков. М., Олита, 2004, стр.186.

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ANALyZING tHE ENLArGEMENt oF tHE EUroPEAN UNIoN: KEy PrINCIPLES

1. Introduction

The enlargement is one of those political processes that characterises the whole story of the Community. Having grown from six members in the 1950s to 28 since 1 July 2013, the European Union is after 6 enlargement rounds now home to over 500 million people. The transformative power of the Community has been proven through successive enlargements.

till the period of democratic transformation neither the intensity nor the number of accessed states (6 new members) was remarkable. From the end of the cold war on accession gained more and more importance and has been on the political agenda on regular basis. In 1995 three former-EFtA member states were accessed followed by eight Central and Eastern European states plus Cyprus and Malta, then Bulgaria and romania gained membership status on 1^st January 2007 and finally Croatia became the member of the EU on 1^st July 2013. In a nutshell, 13 new member states within 18 years and the Union came to be a 28-member-state Community. The Eastern enlargement opened new phase in the history of the Community, as it was not only bigger but also more transformative than previous enlargement rounds.¹ In addition it formally ended the political and economic division of Europe after World War II. Though, the end of the process is very far, and the EU maintains that the enlargement door remains open to any European country that fulfils the criteria for membership. Currently, five countries – Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and turkey – are recognized as official candidates for membership, but all of them are at very different stages of the accession process. The remaining Western Balkan states – Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo – are considered potential EU candidates, but it will likely take many years before any of these countries are ready to join the EU.

1 SCHIMMELFENNIG, Frank: Europeanization Beyond Europe. Living Reviews in European Governance, Vol. 7/2012 No. 1. 5.

Edit Lőrinczné Bencze

[ 92 ] 2. The enlargement timing

It seems to be evident that the whole process of European integration can be separated into two main phases. The first period begins in 1973 and lasts till the accession process in 1995 when only those states were accessed to the Union that belonged to the ‘West’ side of the old continent regarding their political institutions, economic potential and ideological background. Thus their integration did not mean any difficulties as enlargements were based on the similar character and common roots of the states. Between 1973 and 1995 the Community was enlarged four times. Although the process generated several questions and disputes, the necessity of enlargement was out of question.

It was so much indisputable that the EC signed the Accession Partnership even with turkey (1963), Malta (1970) and Cyprus (1972) that countries were far from the European model.²

The next phase began with the democratic transition and concerns Eastern and Southern European countries. For the Community it lasted till 1993 to decide over the Eastern enlargement and 5 another year passed before they started the accession negotiations. The root of the Union’s anxiety can be detected in the instable political system, the incomplete democratic and economic transition of these countries. This threat was intensified by the fact that the CEE (Central and Eastern European) countries hoped to be able to finish the transition successfully due to their EU membership. As a result of the comparative analysis of the two phases several differences came into focus, like the longer term and stricter criteria, the insecure end of the accession, the stop of opt-out chance, the introduction of new instruments and techniques, furthermore, the negotiating position of the Union strengthened, meanwhile that of the candidate countries weakened. Therefore, the Eastern enlargement is not the pursuance of the previous expansion, but it should be considered as the new phase of the integration process.

In the first phase of the enlargements EU member states emphasized the positive, democratic effects – in case Greece (1981), Spain (1986), and Portugal (1986) –, as well as the positive economic effects – Ireland (1973) and Finland (1995). But, in the run-up to the Fifth Enlargement, the rhetoric of democracy and economic development was not applied to the newest candidate countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe. Instead, many EU members emphasized the negative aspects that each new candidate would have on the organization.

2 WALLACE, William: Enlarging the European Union – An overview. In: Perspectives on the Enlargement of the European Union. Ed.: CAMEroN, ross. Leiden – Boston – Köln, Brill. 2002. 1-18. (Hereinafter referred as: WALLACE, 2002.)

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In addition during the whole integration process the EU had to face the dilemma of deepening when admitting more and more states to the Community, which is also of high relevance in case of Eastern and Southern European countries integration. What is more, the EU has to cope with the challenges of the accession of new member states from Eastern Europe regarding the institutional and financial system and political questions so that the enlargement would not generate contra-productive processes.³ Thus, enlargement depends largely on the integration capacity of the EU. The whole process is continuously and dynamically questioned by the euro-scepticists. All these result in tiredness

In addition during the whole integration process the EU had to face the dilemma of deepening when admitting more and more states to the Community, which is also of high relevance in case of Eastern and Southern European countries integration. What is more, the EU has to cope with the challenges of the accession of new member states from Eastern Europe regarding the institutional and financial system and political questions so that the enlargement would not generate contra-productive processes.³ Thus, enlargement depends largely on the integration capacity of the EU. The whole process is continuously and dynamically questioned by the euro-scepticists. All these result in tiredness