May we assess whether a state has “successfully” integrated in the EU?

https://doi.org/10.63189/MQTX3064

After years of limited attention, the topic of EU enlargement has returned to prominence. At the end of March 2024, as one of its latest strategic initiatives before the EU elections, the “former” Commission published its communication on pre-enlargement reforms and policy reviews (Communication 2024),^[i] stressing that enlargement is “in the Union’s own strategic interest”. Enlargement cannot nonetheless be regarded as a goal in itself. If enlarging the EU is really to be in its own interest, the “new” members need to get integrated with the “old” EU. The same applies vice versa to the “new” members, which need to get integrated with the “old”.

But what are the criteria according to which we may assess the “success” of an integration? I put forward that in this regard, we need to address four issues: (1) how much is the economy of a particular state aligned with the EU and the Internal Market (economic alignment); (2) how much is the legal order of a particular state aligned with the EU legal order (economic alignment); (3) to what extent is the EU membership endorsed by the population of a Member State (internal acceptance); and (4) to what extent is a Member State “accepted” by the other Member States (external acceptance).

To some extent, these indicators correspond with the accession criteria. The criteria that the candidates need to comply with stem from Article 49 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU). Essentially, there are two conditions: a geographical one (any European state) and a value-based one (a state which respects the values referred to in Article 2 TFEU), i. e. respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These were specified in particular in the Copenhagen Criteria.^[ii]They include the (1) political ones, i.e. stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities (corresponding with internal acceptance); (2) economic ones, i.e. a functioning market economy and the capacity to cope with competition and market forces in the EU (corresponding with economic alignment); and (3) acquis, i.e. the ability to take on the obligations of membership (legal alignment).^[iii] External acceptance is not included in this list, it nonetheless stems from the fact that there is no right to become a member of the EU – the EU Member States need to agree with the enlargement.

Economic alignment will not be discussed in this post, which shall be limited to the matters of law. Similarly, it will not go into details of political science, which is arguably the primary method to address the issues of internal and external acceptance. Instead, I will introduce an easily quantifiable proxy for the non-economic criteria, on the basis of which to answer the question whether the integration of some of the countries entering the EU in 2004 can be regarded as successful. I will concentrate on 4 countries of Central Europe (EU-4): Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

Legal alignment

The pre-accession negotiations arguably devote most of the time to screening and evaluating the approximation of law of the candidate country to the EU. When entering the EU, the legislation of the new Member State should be fully in line with the EU law. It is however not necessarily so. Also, the level of alignment may deteriorate in time.

To address this problem, the infringement procedure was included in the architecture of EU legal order (Article 258 et seq. TFEU). Put very simply, the more infringement proceedings are opened with a given state, the more problems of alignment with its legal order there are. The infringement procedure goes through several phases;^[iv] in case the infringement is serious and is not remedied by the state in question, the final decision is nonetheless taken by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

In order to measure the severity of the infringements of EU law in the EU-4 countries, I calculated the number of judgments (i.e. not orders),^[v] issued in court proceedings initiated in a given year. I compared these results with the number of judgments, addressed to other Member States (EU-21).

Taking into account the absolute number of judgments, the number of infringements seems to be slightly dropping in the EU-4, as is apparent from Graph 1.

Graph 1. Source: CJEU database

It is nonetheless self-evident that the number of judgments concerning EU-21 would be always bigger. Graph 2 therefore shows the number of infringement judgments averaged per state. In this case, the numbers of the EU-4 countries stabilised on levels fully comparable with the EU-21 ones.

Graph 2. Source: CJEU database

Admittedly, this is only a very crude method to calculate the level of legal alignment. With this reservation, it is nonetheless possible to conclude that integration of the EU-4 countries as fair as their legal orders are concerned was in principle successful.

“Internal” Acceptance

A simple and quantifiable proxy for “internal” acceptance, i.e. how much the people of a given country feel as a part of the EU, may be the answer to the question, how much to they trust the EU institutions. Since 2008, this question is included in the Standard Eurobarometer Survey. Below is a graph I have compiled from these surveys covering the years 2008 – 2024.

Graph 3. Source: Standard Eurobarometer Survey

The EU-4 countries exhibit very high level of trust in the EU institutions. The level of acceptance has dropped from the original hights during the financial crisis, it nonetheless remained relatively high and has since been growing. Remarkably, with the exception of Czechia (since 2016) and Slovakia (2022), these levels are always above the average of EU-27. Even more remarkable, the level of trust to the EU institutions in these states is always above the level of trust to their national governments. Czechia is the country trusting the EU the least; still, it is significantly above the level of trust to the Czech government, as is apparent from the following graph.

Graph 4. Source: Standard Eurobarometer Survey

The same applies to Poland, the country that tends to trust the EU institutions the most.

Graph 5. Source: Standard Eurobarometer Survey

On the basis of this simplified data, we may conclude that with regard to “internal” acceptance, the integration of these four counties was successful, as they demonstrate a significant (and growing) trust to EU institutions.

“External” acceptance

It is difficult to quantify the answer to the fourth criterion. There are no surveys systematically covering attitudes of one Member State to another. Above, I measured the internal acceptance with reference to trust in EU institutions. With some simplification, the trust in a candidate country may be measured by a number of conditions set as a prerequisite to becoming an EU member.

The requirements are clearly growing. Whereas during the “Northern” enlargement (Denmark, Great Britain, Ireland), the only condition was the adoption of acquis (legal alignment), the “Southern” one (Greece, Spain, Portugal) was also concerned with the issues of economics and values, as these countries had only recently abandoned undemocratic regimes and their economic situation was significantly worse.^[vi] This was even more the case with the “Eastern” enlargement (10 new members in 2004), where the conditions were formally set for the first time (see above) and where the pre-accession monitoring was really thorough. And finally, in case of the “Balkan” enlargement (Bulgaria, Romania), the monitoring continued even after the accession.^[vii]

The fact that the pre-accession negotiations are more and more complex and therefore taking more and more time is evident from the graph below, which shows the length of accession negotiations since a county was given a candidate status till it actually joined the EU.^[viii]

Graph 6. Source: author’s calculations

With the exemption of the enlargement in 1995 (Austria, Finland, Sweden), comprising of countries dad did not have any specific political problems and whose economies have already been integrated with the common market, the numbers are clearly growing. This arguably reflects not only the fact that it is more and more difficult for these states to align themselves with the EU, but also that the trust of the members to the new ones is decreasing.

Conclusions

In my opinion, there are no principal objections on the basis of which the integration of the states joining the EU in 2004 could be regarded as unsuccessful. It is arguably a trend across the years. This shows that the integration process, even though getting more and more complex, has so far worked correctly. From this perspective, the future EU enlargement, if there ever is some, does not need any complete change in strategy. What has worked in the past is still good enough to work in the future.

^[i] Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, The European Council and the Council on pre-enlargement reforms and policy reviews. 20 March 2024, COM(2024) 146 final.

^[ii] Presidency Conclusions of the Copenhagen European Council of 21/22 June 1993, point 7.

^[iii] Kellernbauer, Klamert and Tomkin (2020), p. 391.

^[iv] In detail, see e.g. Harlow and Rawlings (2006).

^[v] If the proceedings are concluded by an order, it is mostly due to procedural reasons, e.g. withdrawal of the action.

^[vi] Schramm (2025).

^[vii] Nikolova (2006).

^[viii] In case different lengths of negotiations apply to different states in the same „wave“, an average value is given.

References

Harlow, C., Rawlings, R. (2006), ‘Accountability and law Enforcement: The Centralized EU Infringement Procedure’, European Law Review, 31 (4), pp. 447-475.

Kellernbauer, M., Klamert, M. and Tomkin, J. (2020), The EU Treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. A Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nikolova P. (2006), ‘Negotiating for EU Membership? The case of Bulgaria and Romania’, Croatian Yearbook of European Law and Policy, 2 (1), pp. 393-412.

Schramm, L. (2025), ‘Navigating widening and deepening: the European council, geopolitical motives, and Union enlargement’, Journal of European Integration, published online 31 January 2025: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07036337.2025.2457007.