Romania’s Accession to the European Union – Political Will, Political Capacity and Political Conditionality: the Perspectives of Brussels and Buchares
Romania’s Accession to the European Union – Political Will, Political Capacity and Political Conditionality: the Perspectives of Brussels and Buchares

Summary/Abstract: The role of political elites in EU accession is a central but rather unexplored concern with regard to EU enlargement. It is especially important to consider interactions between European and domestic politics and how these affect elites in their choices. The article looks at the EU's political conditionality by focusing separately on political will and political capacity. This approach is applied to Romania. On the one hand, several elite characteristics there explain the positive outlook of Romanian leaders, although they also reveal an instrumental view of conditionality as a means to achieve EU membership. On the other hand, Romania has had persistent problems of state capacity while party-political interests have with some of the conditions intervened to undermine implementation. The "safeguard clause" imposed at the end of 2004 has produced some results. It is not therefore surprising that the EU has decided to continue monitoring and sanctions in the case of Romania particularly in the light of its stricter conditionality policy since 2004.

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