Abstract: Conditionality is widely imposed on the applicant countries by the EU during its Eastern Enlargement in pursuit of promotion of human rights, democratization and ‘good governance’. It has played a very important role in enhancing the democratic reform, market economy, legal and law constructions of target countries, thus making those countries reach the EU standards, and being accepted by the EU into the bloc. In this article, the author summarizes three fundamental patterns of the EU’s conditionality, i.e., pattern of positive and negative conditionality, pattern of conditionality-appliance and pattern of technical conditionality by analyzing the EU’s conflict resolution policies in the western Balkans. The author also expounds the background and characteristics of these three patterns , and compares their advantages, disadvantages and prospects. In the end, the author gives his comments on the three conditionality patterns from Chinese perspective.

Key Words: Conditionality Patterns   EU Candidates   Western Balkan Countries

Summarizing the EU’s Conditionality Patterns in the Western Balkans

Conditionality is one of the EU’s most powerful instruments for dealing with the candidate and potential candidate countries. Since the late 1990s, the remarkable increase in the use of conditionality by the EU has been matched by an explosion of studies discussing its impact on the applicant, and most of the studies are based on rational choice mechanism ( Grabbe,1999; Mattli and Plümper, 2002; Smith, 2003; Moravcsik and Vachudova, 2003; Plümper, Schneider and Troeger, 2003; Schimmelfennig, Engert and Knobel, 2003; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2004; Coppieters and Emerson, 2004; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2005; Noutcheva, 2006). In the western Balkans, the EU conditionality is a multi-dimensional and multi-purpose instrument geared towards reconciliation, reconstruction and reform. Although there existed many  researches focus on conditionality policies in this region, generally speaking, they have the following similar features: Firstly,  it is the process of the EU’s pushing  or forcing these countries to change their inner conflict structures by aiding  to themconditionally; Secondly, the EU’s policies in the western Balkans is not only a transaction or bargaining process, but also a long lasting peace strategy. So, when the politicians and scholars applied the conditionality based on the rationalist concept and framework, they  knew that it was also an asymmetric interdependence and mutual requests and benefits process. Meanwhile long-term and positive instruments had been increasingly used during the negotiation process. Now the research question is that under what conditions the EU’s conditionality could acquire more fruitful results. To summarize different typical models of conditionality and use comparative analysis based on different case studies in the western Balkan countries to answer this question is the purpose of the research, since conditionality functions differently concerning different regions and specific questions.

What different kinds of conditionality are used? How the conditionality is conducted and the last but not the least is, what effects on the western Balkan countries the EU can acquire by using them? Since the 1990s, the EU had initiated a series of instruments and institutions in the western Balkans. The main method was to endow the applicant with the EU potential candidate, implement all kinds of conditionality which based on the Copenhagen criteria, and then let these countries conduct a set of political, economic and legal reforms and constructions. The top prerequisite was that, the antagonistic ethnics within each country should delegate their individual powers to a single and united authority, which laid the foundations for a unified and functional country. The applicant would be well aware of the big carrot and wanted to accept the conditionality to perform relevant reforms. The EU established closed reforming environment and made the applicant main national strategy and machines operate under the EU, until they got accession to the EU. In this article, the author summarizes three representative patterns — pattern of positive and negative conditionality, conditionality--compliance pattern and technical conditionality pattern. The author also tries to expound the background and characteristics of different kinds and compare their advantages and disadvantages for the first time in the international academia. In the end, from the Chinese perspective, the author analyzes how the EU should perform its conditionality in the western Balkans. The research hypothesis is that, (1) The rational choice mechanism is the EU’s main method to inspire the western Balkan countries’ reform motivations, but it is not enough to get successful state-building objective. The EU should pay more attention to the long-term, positive methods and social learning instruments. (2) Besides the sui generis institutions of the EU, the degree of seriousness of the ethnic antagonism in each western Balkan country, the unsustainability and inequity of the EU’s conditions are also important variables which could impact the conditionality’s effectiveness.

Pattern of Positive and Negative Conditionality

Negative conditionality means suspending or terminating benefits in reaction to non-compliance by a target state. Positive conditionality, by contrast, is characterized by the delivery of benefits as a reward for the performance of prescribed behavior. When implementing conditionality in the western Balkan countries, the EU may unilaterally offer benefits, including the EU membership, trade preferences or participation in the Community programmes or the EU agencies, upon conditions of the applicant countries’ prior respect for human rights, democracy, good governance and the rule of law principles regulated by the Copenhagen criteria. At the same time, the EU reserved the right to unilaterally impose the negative conditionality or withdraw such benefits in the event of the applicant’s breach of norms or regulations. So on some occasions, the positive and negative conditionality was often called ‘carrot and stick’ policy (Cosgrove-Sacks and Santos, 2001, p.79; Pippan, 2004, p.244). Through the coordination and cooperation between positive and negative conditionality, the EU tried to use ‘regatta principle’ (which was to reward the front-runner and punish the laggard) to achieve the conflict resolution objective. 

However, the pillarization of the EU’s institutions impacted the effectiveness of the conditionality. When the conflicts erupted in the western Balkans in the 1990s, the EU hammered out a series of methods of conflict resolution, but it seldom had coherent instruments and institutions. The behaviors of the first pillar--the Community and the second pillar-the CFSP (common foreign and security policy) differed due to different functions and mechanisms. The greater part of the Community instruments had three distinct features: Firstly, they had a predominantly economic nature, and brought into play the functions of substantial material resources, for example, the foreign aid, development cooperation, democracy promotion, regional cooperation, and etc; Secondly, they primarily aimed at addressing the root-causes of conflicts and were to be placed in long-term/structural perspective. That is to say, it paid more attention to the positive conditionality; Thirdly, they had an exclusively ‘civilian’ nature as opposed to some of the instruments being developed within the framework of the ESDP/CFSP (Kronenberger and Wouters, 2004, pp.101-2). Pillar II instruments covered the implementation of all the CFSP and the majority of the ESDP activities. In other words, those were instruments relating to political dialogue (declarations, demarches, high-level visits and the Special Envoys) and crisis management activities. As opposed to Pillar I instruments, they: firstly, had a predominantly political component which  aimed at giving expression and substance to the increasingly important and active EU role in international relations; secondly, focused primarily on short-term activities relating to ongoing or imminent crises; thirdly, could incorporate with both  civilian and military instruments;and fourthly,  often took the second pillar instruments as being more effective and forcible when applying negative conditionality. 

In sum, on most occasions, the first pillar embodied the EU’s soft power which focused more on the long-term, nonmilitary and positive manners, while the second pillar weighed more on forcible and negative manners. However, the positive and negative conditionality didn’t act on coordinated manners between the two pillars, and their behaviors were separated and working-style  were different. In a cycled system, the more coordination of positive and negative conditionality between two pillars, the better effectiveness they could get. However, when any discoordinations occurred between two pillars, it would cause the EU’s policies out of function– Serbia and Montenegro was exactly the case. 

Case study from the Serbia and Montenegro

The Serbs and Montenegrins within the Republic of Serbia and Montenegro came to conflicts in 2003. The EU interfered in this conflict in time. High Representative of the EU’s CFSP- Javier Solana brokered the Belgrade Agreement and the parties concerned signed it on 4 February, 2003. The agreement framework had committed the signatories to introducing a constitution which set up a functional federal country by pooling ethnic rights to overcome inequality, and designing a structural reform to end inter-ethnic tensions. The Belgrade Agreement established a unicameral parliament, a president elected by the Parliament, a court, a council of five ministers and a common army led by the three presidents (of the two republics and of the State Union). There existed a system of rotation between representatives of the two Republics within the federal executive (including foreign representation). All other competences rested with the two Republics, including economic and monetary policy, trade and customs, and policing. To achieve such objectives, the main tasks as follows should be performed:: revision of the two Republics’ constitutions, establishing the State Union court and the Parliament (through agreed electoral rules),,especially empowering the state-level court to prosecute the war criminals, creation of appropriate mechanisms to ensure the financial sustainability of the federal level, and strengthening the State Union’s administrative capacity, particularly in terms of institutions dealing with the EU integration and coordinating and harmonizing the two Republics’ fiscal and transport policies, most importantly their trade and customs regimes (Tocci, 2008, chapter 5).

Under the framework of the CFSP, Javier Solana established the foremost conditionality—the State Union must meet the demand of the constitutional link between the Serbia and Montenegro To some extent, he tried to impose the negative conditionality in advance. However, the European Community tried to make the positive conditionality mainly including the Stabilization and Association Process and the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe. Positive conditionality was not directly relevant to the survival of the State Union, and instead focused on the Copenhagen criteria. 

At the first stage, the EU stabilized the situations in Serbia and Montenegro. But as the situations went on, when the EU’s instruments touched the core interests in politics and economy of the two Republics gradually, the conditionality faced more and more challenges and its mechanism showed weakness. The Belgrade Agreement granted the absolute equal status in the new political structure without considering the different sizes and history traditions between the two Republics. Many federalists and pragmatists in Serbia believed that the State Union entrenched in law Montenegro’s de facto independence, granted it disproportionate powers relative to its size, and complicated federal decision-making (Tocci, 2008, p.155). At the same time, in the long history, Montenegrins formed the identity and tradition different from Serbs. They also felt the inequality in the State Union. What’s more, since 1998 Montenegrin government de facto had its own economic policy (including currency) independent of the federal government. Since 2000, the two Republics had developed different trade policies, including instituting customs controls on their administrative border. Further reasons for the increasing divergences between the two economies included: disproportion in economic strength - a ratio of 17:1, and different economic structures: the protectionism in Serbia and open up policy in Montenegro. All these factors prevented the EU from integrating the state functions into one center. When leaders from Montenegro sought independence, Solana wanted to impose negative conditionality, while the EC insisted on the positive conditionality and long-term instruments. Different pillars had different decision-making procedures which further damaged the effectiveness. Under the second pillar, the EU launched the crisis management, but it needed the consensus of the ambassadors from the EU member states under the Politics and Security Committee of European Council.  Under the first pillar, it made an initiative to the European Council, then the Directorate-Generals of External Relations, Directorate-General of Development & Humanitarian Aid performed the plan. The decision bodies of the two pillars had their different considerations. The exchange and coordination capacities between them were fairly weak. Their decisions to Serbia and Montenegro were divided and beyond coordination. When the EU launched the accession negotiation with the State Union, Solana allowed Serbia and Montenegro to access to the EU with the loose federal system conditions, which meant firstly accession and then state building, however, the Community emphasized that the EU must be a full functional state, which meant firstly state building and then accession. Their standards were different. This led to the distractions of Serbia and Montenegro’s state decision-making. At last, the Montenegro made a choice to independence. 

The EU’s conditionality in the western Balkans was often viewed as exogenous to Brussels’ relationship with the region. Due to the incoherence between two different pillars, the EU didn’t get the objective of setting up a functional state. Gordon Crawford had conducted relevant researches on aid with conditionality. He found that the effectiveness of conditionality relied largely on different donors’ coordination. The better coordination if they could conduct, the greater effectiveness they could receive (Crawford. 1997). Nikolas George Emmanuel, in his doctoral dissertation—Conditioning Relations: Evaluating a Political Conditionality Approach, made the conclusion that, political conditionality was most effective when close coordination existed between donors (Emmanuel, 2008). Here, if compare the two pillars with different donors, you can get the same truth. 

As a matter of fact, the peace and stability in Serbia and Montenegro is not easy to get in the short time. The EU’s approach should be geared to the principle that all measures focus mainly on positive conditionality which provides incentives for the promotion of economic development, democracy and human rights, meanwhile the use of negative measures should be considered only if all other means have failed. One reason why the EU should prefer positive conditionality to negative measures is that these measures are considered to be less disruptive of donor-recipient relations and easier to achieve greater consistency.  What’s more important is the EU should develop a new mechanism institutionally which makes the positive and negative conditionality more coordinated and coherent, thus the pattern of positive and negative conditionality can function more effectively and successfully.

Pattern of Conditionality-Compliance

The pattern of conditionality-compliance is another representative case on the EU’s enlargement to the western Balkan countries. Its operational logic is relatively the same as the pattern of positive and negative conditionality, which is, firstly granting the applicant the EU potential candidate, then letting it accept the EU’s conditionality-for example, conducting the political, economical and legal reforms. But there existed some common characteristics in the western Balkan countries: most of them were weak functional states, . That is to say, in those countries, the central government which was dominated by two or more ethnic groups had no way to form a unitary authority. For example, in BiH, the state was controlled by the Serbian, Muslim and Croatian ethnic groups, and each ethnic group carried out its political and economical policies relatively independently. The EU’s objective was to establish a single functional framework under which united different ethnic groups to a single core. The western Balkan countries would make cost-benefit calculations between becoming the EU members and keeping the current status, because the EU membership would bring economic and political benefits in the long run but incur compliance costs which the antagonistic groups must offer essential powers and interests to one center in the short run. If the long-term benefits which the EU membership brings are more than the conditionality-compliance costs, the ethnic groups will choose to accept the EU’s institutional model. If the long-term benefits are less than the conditionality-compliance costs, the ethnic groups will choose to refuse the EU’s conditions. If the long-term benefits are equal to the conditionality-compliance costs or hard to calculate in the short time, the ethnic groups will accept the institutional model but make little progress (fake compliance) (Noutcheva, 2006). 

When the author studied in Mannheim University of Germany in 2007 and was taught by Prof. Beate Kohler-Koch, he tried to make some comparisons on the conditionality-compliance relationship between different western Balkan countries. These countries were including Serbia and Montenegro, BiH, and Macedonia.

Case Study from the Comparisons between Three Typical Western Balkan Contries

Generally speaking, the EU took the following three steps to realize its objective. 

- The first step: in those three countries, the EU tried to establish something like a functional state, through which the EU wanted to extinguish the antagonism by power sharing, territory distribution or other state building methods. In Serbia and Montenegro, the EU set the Belgrade Agreement in motion which was mentioned above in detail. In BiH, the EU cooperated with USA and other international actors to sign the General Framework Agreement for Peace in BiH (also was called the Dayton Agreement) to end the violent conflicts between ethnic Serb, Muslim and Croat. However, BiH was established in the Dayton Agreement as an extremely decentralized and weak functional state. Each ethnic entity in this state had its own parliament, government, police force and army, and carried out most of the functions of a country within its territory. It was a composite, unbalanced structure in which about 80 percent of the institutional powers were held at entity level (Soloiz, 2005, p.87). On 27 March 2002, the High Representative together with BiH politicians made important constitutional amendments and signed the Mrakovica-Sarajevo Agreement. This agreement granted the same status to all the three peoples in the whole territory of BiH, which ensured that all the peoples and citizens were proportionally represented at all levels of government and public administration in each entity(Soloiz, 2005, p.96). The final objective is to transform BiH into a modern, multiethnic and functional state. That means the three ethnic groups’ presidents should devolve their powers to the level of the state government so as to establish an effective government which is capable of negotiating an accession agreement with the EU. 

In Macedonia, the EU-brokered the Ohrid Framework Agreement signed by the government of Macedonia and ethnic Albanian representatives in this country on 13 August 2001, brought an end to several months of clashes in the northwest of the country. The agreement set the groundwork for improving the rights of ethnic Albania in Macedonia. It made the signatories committed to introducing a number of constitutional amendments, legislative modifications, and structural reforms to end inter-ethnic tensions. In Article 8, it said that: “equitable representation of persons belonging to all communities in public bodies at all levels and in other areas of public life”, and Annex C, in Article 4, it emphasized the “development of decentralized government” and in Article 5, “non-discrimination and equitable representation” (Brunnbauer, 2002). In the agreement, it also emphasized to establish ‘a modern democratic country’ (See the full text of the Ohrid Agreement, Article 1.4.).

- The second step: The EU took advantage of or set up relevant institutions and instruments to implement the framework. In all three countries I mentioned above, both the EC and CFSP adopted the conditionality to them by offering the membership and other assistances (for example, the SAP, the SP, the CARDS and etc). 

_The third step: How did those three western Balkan countries respond to the arrangements? When the EU’s institutions and instruments were input into those countries, the different ethnic groups within each country were empowered with different identities. Those new identities would drive them to change their incentives so as to take new actions. Then, the EU conducted some assessments on these countries’ achievement to make clear what different ethnic groups had thought and done.

In Serbia and Montenegro, the Serbian and Montenegrin politicians considered separately whether those institutions would preserve the maximum benefits of each ethnic group. As the author had analyzed before, Montenegrins thought that they offered much more conditionality-compliance costs than the EU membership benefits. So they chose to refuse the EU’s benefits and pursued independence. In the 2004 SAP annual report, the EU found that two Republics made few developments within the new constitutional framework. In the report, it said that “The Commission started work on a Feasibility Study on opening the SAA negotiations with Serbia and Montenegro during the autumn of 2003, after the country had adopted a new Constitutional Charter and presented an Action Plan for the creation of a single trade policy and a single market. Following Parliamentary elections in Serbia, the new Government will require time to address remaining issues, including in particular political conditionality, constitutional issues and the Action Plan. For this reason, the Feasibility Study was postponed (EU Commission, 2004). ” This led to the EU giving up this institutional framework and adopted a ‘twin track’ policy (Duric, 2004) until Montenegro independence in the 2006 referendum. 

In BiH, the EU and other international actors’ fully supported the institutional reforms of the country. They managed to make BiH turn dependence on external powers to the systematic transfer of ownership to domestic authorities (Petritsch, 1999). BiH really made progress towards the EU’s one single state arrangement. In the UNDP 2002 survey, 85.8% of people in Bosniac majority areas, 52.3% in Croat majority areas and 63.9% in Serb majority areas approved of new constitutional amendments. But there were still many things to be done.Economic integration was quite the case. The fragments of the national economy and interests’ contradictions between different ethnic groups seriously hindered the healthy development of this country.  (International Crisis Group, 2001).Faced with the economic interests, the entities were hard to integrate into one functional center (Bieber, 2006, p.43). The different ethnic groups in BiH realized the benefits of integrating into the EU, however, they would also offer too much compliance costs to the EU if complied. So in the short time, they didn’t know how to balance the benefits and costs. As a result, they chose the fake compliance. That is to say, receiving the benefits the EU offered, but in practice, they didn’t comply or delayed the implementation of the EU’s demands. In BiH, although the war was over, there existed the lineages of economic warfare in economic areas (Pugh, 2002, p.469). Relevant researches (Schierup, 1993; Pugh, 2002) demonstrated that since the 1980s, reforming federalists failed to assert centrally directed budget balancing and export-led economic growth against ‘profoundly authoritarian coalition’ comprising local political elites, bureaucracies and workers. This struggle ramified trends to corporatism and nationalist quests for jurisdiction over local assets (Schierup, 1993, pp.5-56). Milan Skulic conducted some researches and pointed out that the process reinforced traditional patrimonialism, in which a small number of patriarchs dominated the mayoralties (Schierup, 1993, p.244). This system was structurally embedded into current BiH. Entrepreneurs adapted themselves to the peace by investing in postwar enterprises and enjoyed privileges. The surviving features of prewar and wartime political economy had ensured the survival of clientism, corporatism, prebendary elites and nationalist acquisition. Clientism partly determined the distribution of assets and access to economic gains. Vertically integrated enterprises controlled by political parties and patrimonies, linked the welfare of supporters to economic empires encompassing hotels, casinos, restaurants, banks, tobacco, forestry, telecommunication, energy and water companies (Pugh, 2002, pp.470-71). The profiteers formed the major nationalist parties and each hegemonic nationalist party created its own successor to gain access to all kinds of interests. Within the different entities and ethnic groups, the antagonistic ethnic groups formed interests-competing actors and parties. Allegiances were thus dominated by a social clientism that was weakly mediated by constitutions and rules which were set up by the EU. The EU made annual assessments on BiH’s economy. The European Commission identified BiH’s response to the reform priorities (market economy and cracking down gray/black economy)as ‘slow and low-key’ (European Commission, 2003) in 2003. The Parliament of BiH rejected a reform package which was agreed by political party leaders in April 2006. The package included enhancing state-level competencies, improving and simplifying decision-making procedures and the representation of minorities in the State Parliament. BiH thus missed the opportunity to take a first and important step towards a more democratic and efficient state (Commission of the European Communities2006a, final, p.6). ’ “The functioning of market forces is hampered by the strong influence of the public sector in the economy and the weak business environment and legal climate. Markets are also sometimes fragmented between the entities (Commission of the European Communities, 2006a, final, p.21 and 25). ” In the 2005 annual report, it said: “Survey and assessments conducted by both national and international organizations confirm that corruption remains a serious and widespread problem in BiH. Corruption affects almost all aspects and levels of the society (European Commission, 2005, final, p.18).” 

Macedonia had made a rapid progress within the EU’s arrangement. In the 2004 annual report, the EU gave such general evaluations: a number of measures have been taken which indicate a wish to accelerate the EU oriented reforms within the SAP. These measures include better coordination in the implementation of obligations deriving from the contractual relationship between Macedonia and the EU (Commission of the European Communities, 2004, final). The two ethnic groups had not so severe antagonism and both of them realized that the accession benefits were more than the compliance costs. Within the Ohrid Framework Agreement, Macedonia implemented the conditionality relatively effectively. The Albanian and Macedonian ethnic groups in this country can accommodate very peacefully after the antimony and intolerance was alleviated greatly. In the 2006 progress report, the EC said: ‘all relevant parties agree on establishing a market based economy.’ ‘A broad political consensus on the fundamentals of economic policy has been maintained (Commission of the European Communities, , 2006b, final, p.18).’ About the state building, the functional state constructions proceeded smoothly. 

Just make some comparisons on the accession developments between those three countries, you can find out different accession paces clearly (See the following table).

Different Accession Paces of Three Western Balkan Countries (by the end of March 2010)

Phases of SAP  Consultative Task Force  Feasibility Study  SAA Negotiation Process  SAA signed  SAA Implementation ProcessCandidate Country Status

Macedonia         Jan. 1998     Jun. 1999     Jan. 2000  Apr. 2001  2001-2004  Dec. 2005

BiH                    1998     Nov.2003     Nov. 2005  June 2008   ongoing

Serbia and Montenegro 2001-02 EPD 2003-04    Apri.2005     Oct. 2005

From the above truth, you can see that, the success of conditionality-compliance pattern depends on the different cost-benefit calculations from ethnic groups in different countries.  The EU should take full account of the most important variable—the degree of seriousness of the ethnic antagonism with which different countries had different situations and adjust its conditionality accordingly. Gergana Noutcheva expounded in her doctoral dissertation on the Balkans research that, the EU political and economic conditions varied in different countries (Noutcheva, 2006, p.8).

Comparing with the positive and negative conditionality, this pattern is more flexible and predicable. It takes more considerations about the applicant countries’ incentives. However, on many occasions, the EU could find out the countries’ incentives, but could not change them in the short time or easily. For example, in Serbia and Montenegro, and BiH, the EU was really aware of the seriously weak statehood, but the conditionality could not easily change the current situations. So, it is necessary to choose the long-term instruments and have enough patience for the EU.

Pattern of Technical Conditionality

The pattern of technical conditionality is from the hypothesis of functionalism in the European integration theory, i.e. ‘Form follows functions’ (Rosamond, 2000, p.34). The technical nature of the EU conditionality is mainly in reference to the obligations embedded in the adoption of the acquis communautaire. The EU emphasizes the objectivity of conditionality which should be applied equally to all candidates all the times. The European Commission which is often regarded as the technical bureaucracy, is moreover entrusted with the task of implementing conditionality by abiding by the ‘objective’ and ‘non-political’ standards. For conditionality is to be taken seriously by the recipient parties, it requires an aura of technicality and objectivity. This allows for the specification of clear and measurable benchmarks, the effective monitoring of compliance, the detached appraisal of performance and the ‘objective’ decisions to proceed with the successive steps in the accession process (Tocci, 2007, preface). 

The EU exerted definite and immediate influence on the western Balkan countries based on the technical conditionality, which could assure the transparency of the EU’s policies, and   could make the conditionality understandable and operational without any ambiguities. This was consistent with the EU’s regulatory nature (Eising and Kohler-Koch, 1999, p.6). Regulations emphasized that the decree and rules should be specific and obvious, abide by the law, and have its technical nature. 

However, as the introduction of more and more technical conditionality, EU’s justification and objectivity were also challenged due to different considerations from different EU members. For example, Greece, Austria and France just had their different views and strategic considerations about the western Balkan countries’ accession. Greece once came into conflicts with Macedonia. In order to solve the disputes, the Greek government supported the accession of Macedonia. In 2003, when Greece held the rotating EU presidency, it initiated the accession negotiations with Macedonia. Because of the close trade links between Austria and Croatia, when acting as the rotating presidency in 2006, Austria also accelerated the accession negotiations with Croatia. Italy, concerning its adjacence to the western Balkans, spared no efforts to support the stability in this region, and insisted on the EU’s enlargement to the western Balkans. On the contrary, as the accelerator of the EU integration, France objected to the fast enlargement to this region which would strike the agriculture and employment in France. The Great Britain, taking account of the budget, was reluctant to give more assistance to the ‘poor countries’ in the western Balkans. Due to different interests and considerations from the EU member states, the western Balkan countries didn’t receive the same conditionality all the time. 

The EU politics is also a factor to influence the conditionality. The French and Netherland’s veto to the EU draft constitution in 2005 slowed down the pace of the Balkan countries’ accession. The EU summit in 2006 increased and enhanced the accession conditionality which was really different from the previous statements. In previous enlargements, taking on the EU rules and regulations, the acquis had been considered to be more or less sufficient. However, in the process of enlarging to the East, the EU had moved from the acquis toward a wider set of reform and transformation targets, defined first in the well known Copenhagen criteria from 1993. The EU gradually increased the scope of conditions. As a result, there were so numerous criteria added that it could even be said that a new enlargement method had been developed. A separate ‘enlargement acquis’ had emerged including requirements for constitutional reforms, regional cooperation, ethnic minorities’ rights, the war criminals and etc in further enlargement to the western Balkans. The added standards increased the subjectivity of conditionality. Currently, the downturn of world economy has compelled the EU member states to concentrate more on their own pressing domestic difficulties, meanwhile, the EU elites and publics have been forced to revisit whether they can afford the costs of both the EU enlargement and a more centralized and activist union (Cohen, p.128). All those facts make the EU tend to attach other conditions in the western Balkan countries.

In essence, technical conditionality is the outcome of politicization. Although the EU insists on the objectivity of the conditionality, it is still a manner of EU’s pursuit for some ‘normative value’ objectives, such as peace, democracy and human rights. For example, as the basic and top standard, the Copenhagen criteria are just political conditionality. The Acquis Communautaire which has the strong technical nature, was often neglected during the accession negotiations. On the contrary, the Copenhagen criteria were upgraded to the’ objective standards’. Just as Smith noted, the EU did not provide any data to substantiate its conditions so conclusion could only be impressionistic (Smith, 1998, p.266). This led to the confusions between the technical and political criteria. 

From the experience and history of the EU’s enlargement, you can see that the technical conditionality was neither ‘technical’ nor ‘objective’. The EU’s assessments to the applicant were filled with ‘discriminations’. Both the Luxembourg Resolution of European Council in 1997 (which the EU only launched the accession negotiation with six advanced Central Eastern European countries and didn’t negotiate with other five follow-up countries based on one standard) and the Helsinki Resolution of European Council in 2000 (the EU began to negotiate with the Southeastern European countries over the accession, but this action aroused the dissatisfactions from the five follow-up Central Eastern European countries. Under the pressure of the Central Eastern European countries, the EU committed to negotiating with them. However, the process just kicked off, the EU heard the complaints from the six advanced Central Eastern European Countries) had showed that the conditionality was neither unanimous nor objective (Friis and Murphy, 2001, pp.4-5; Andrews, 2000, p.62).

Comments and Analysis on Three Patterns

From the above case studies, it can be found out that there are the following characteristics among the three patterns of conditionality.

(1) The main paradigm is rational choice. By giving the applicant candidate status and some kinds of assistance, the EU let the western Balkan countries step on the accession track, made these countries understand and choose benefits and costs by cost-benefit calculations. The advantage of rational choice paradigm is to provide with an opportunity to mutual complementarities among those three patterns. Actually, those patterns cooperated most often with each other because they were all built on the rational choice mechanism.. For example, in Serbia and Montenegro, by endowing it with the candidate status, the EU imposed the positive and negative conditionality, and at the same time, the pattern of conditionality-compliance was also applied to let the two ethnic groups make cost-benefit calculations. In the process of   implementation, technical conditionality was also imposed on the State Union.

Although this l paradigm has very strong power of explanation, the shortcomings are also obvious. In order to establish the conditions for better conducting the rational choice, the EU emphasized the closeness, fairness and objectivity of conditionality. When there are some troubles in one tache, its ability to self-remedy is relatively low. For example, the first pattern lacked the coordination mechanism between the negative conditionality and positive conditionality within different pillars, which led to the failure of the EU’s state-building policy in Serbia and Montenegro. The second pattern didn’t take full account of the most important variable—the degree of seriousness of the ethnic antagonism in different countries. Because of the different outcomes of calculation, some countries carried out the EU’s conditionality, but the others didn’t. The third pattern is that as technical conditionality is attached more and more exceptions, the justification disappeared. The conditionality was also failed. 

In sum, the EU’s conditionality policies in the western Balkans testified the shortcomings of rational choice paradigm. It is not scientific and reasonable if it is just based on the cost-benefit calculations. In order to explain the motivations of political behaviors, it is not sufficient if only to depict the facts objectively and explain the observed tactical behaviors with rational reflections on the situations (Wendt, 1992). The researchers should pay further attentions to the identity and norm, for example, social learning (through exchange and consultation) also plays an important role in increasing the understanding to the facts. The real political interaction is not just based on the rational cost-benefit calculation coming from the rational person’s hypothesis, which is an ideal model but not the political reality. Both short-term rational choice and long-term social construction/communication are needed.

(2) All those three patterns of conditionality have the ‘top-down’ and coercive characteristics. In practice this Europeanization simply from the EU was widely applied to the applicant (Richardson, 2005, p.59). More and more scholars doubted and challenged the manners, and called on the EU to pay more attention to the ‘bottom-up’ methods, especially the adequate interactions between the EU institutions and the applicant (Borzel, 2002, pp.193-214).

Due to the vertical and hierarchical nature, the conditionality also showed strong coercive characteristic — i.e. if comply then give benefits, and if not, then stop or withdraw benefits. Because of the coercive nature, it increasingly aroused the doubts about the legitimacy of the EU conditionality, especially as to the interference in the applicant interior affairs. In the western Balkan countries, the EU utterly let the countries change their constitutions, governmental institutional structures, the legal foundations and etc. If the EU wanted to implement those measures fluently, it should win the identity from the applicant countries. Actually, more and more countries were increasingly unpleasant with the EU’s arrogance and finger-pointing. 

(3) The conditionality is also underlying the ‘regatta principle’, which is to reward the front-runner and publish the laggard. However, the western Balkans is not only a region where was abounded with failed states, but also a failed region in which most countries had similar troubles and challenges. What’s more, all of the troubles and challenges were interdependent and interacted. In order to solve the regional conflicts, the EU must push the regional cooperation. But the conditionality had fewer functions to achieve this.

Then, how to overcome the shortcomings? Making the three patterns complementary is a good choice, but the final and best choice is to solve them institutionally.

Concerning the first pattern, the EU should establish a single conflict resolution framework, rather than let the two pillars share the responsibility. It is fortunate that, the EU began to deal with this matter and the 2005 constitution draft provided a new framework, i.e. under the framework of the Union’s External Action, the EU integrated the relevant instruments and institutions between the two pillars, to establish a united conflict resolution mechanism (Gourlay and Helly, etc, 2006, p.11). Although the constitution was vetoed by France and Netherland, as the simplified Lisbon Treaty has been passed in 2010, this question is being further pushed.

Concerning the second pattern, besides the cost-benefit calculations mechanism, the EU should broaden the normative instruments, introduce the social learning process and enhance the mutual exchanges and understandings between decision-makers and policy-absorber. The coercive and top-down methods would damage the ownership of western Balkan countries’ governance, so the EU must change them. It is fortunate that, in BiH, the power of the High Representative is more and more small and its main objective is to enhance the ownership of this country. From Carl Bildt (1995-97), Carlos Westendorp (1997-99), Wolfgang Petritsch (1999-2002), Paddy Ashdown (2002-05) to Christian Schwarz-Schilling (2006-07), it is characteristic from the resolute and more interventionist use of special powers (for example Bonn Powers) to a more proactive reform-pushing approach, and from conditionality- compliance relationship to partnership. If the EU wants to a lasting peace in the western Balkans, it finally depends on the self-sustainability of these countries and more endogenous motivations from local governments.

About the third pattern, as to objectivity, the technical conditionality must be consulted between offers and receivers which was just the same as the above mentioned. Offers have the responsibility to let receivers know the real incentives behind the conditionality policies. Receivers should let offers know that which standards they can use and which not. If receivers don’t have a say in the making of the conditionality, the policy makers of the EU could not make sure the objectivity of conditions.  In sum, the EU should improve the growing-up of the civil society, foster the democratic spirit, focus mainly on the economic development, and respect the real situations of the locality. 

Conclusion

From the comparative analysis of the three patterns of conditionality used in western Balkan countries, this paper concludes that: Firstly, only rational choice methods could not solve the complicated inner conflicts in those countries. The EU should take more long-term, positive, normative and social interactions measures to supplement its shortcomings because the transformations and reforms of those countries in this region would be long-term and gradual; Secondly, the sui generis institutions of the EU’s conflict resolution policies, the unsustainability and inequity of the conditionality impacted the effectiveness of the conditions. The EU should try to establish a unified conflict resolution mechanism. Meanwhile, it should assure the sustainability and equity of the conditionality. And lastly, the EU should also find out the different degrees of inner conflicts among those countries and adopt corresponding conflict resolution policies based on different influential variables. It should change the conditionality policies from coercive conditionality-compliance model to partnership.

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