EU Foreign Policy in a Globalized

World

Written by leading experts in the field, this volume identifies European collect-
ive preferences and analyses to what extent these preferences inform and shape
EU foreign policy and are shared by other actors in the international system.
While studies of the European Union’s foreign policy are not new, this book
takes a very different tack from previous research. Specifically it leaves aside the
institutional and bureaucratic dimensions of the EU’s behaviour as an inter-
national actor in order to concentrate on the meanings and outcomes of its
foreign policy taken in the broadest sense. Two outcomes are possible:

• either Europe succeeds in imposing a norms-based international system and

thus, in this case, its soft power capacity will not only have been demonstra-
ted but will be enhanced;
• or, on the contrary, it does not succeed and the global system will become
one where realpolitik reigns; especially once China, India and Russia attain
a preponderant influence on the international scene.

EU Foreign Policy in a Globalized World will be of interest to students and

scholars of European Union politics, foreign policy and politics and inter-
national relations in general.

Zaki Laïdi is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre d’études européennes of

Sciences Po, Paris, France. He is also Professor at Sciences Po, Paris and
Collège de Bruges, Belgium.
Routledge/GARNET series: Europe in the World
Edited by Mary Farrell and Karoline Postel-Vinay
Centre for International Studies and Research (CERI), France

Editorial Board: Dr. Mary Farrell, Sciences Po, Paris; Dr. Karoline Postel-
Vinay, CERI, France; Professor Richard Higgott, University of Warwick, UK;
Dr. Christian Lequesne, CERI, France and Professor Thomas Risse, Free Uni-
versity Berlin, Germany.

International Advisory Committee: Dr. Salma Bava, Jawaharlal Nehru Univer-

sity, New Delhi, India; Dr. Knud Erik Jørgensen, University of Aarhus,
Denmark; Professor Sunil Khilnani, SAIS, John Hopkins University, USA; Dr.
Anne-Marie Legloannec, CERI, France; Dr. Xiaobo Lu, SIPA, Columbia Uni-
versity; Professor James Mittelman, University of Washington, USA; Dr. Karen
Smith, London School of Economics, United Kingdom; Professor Elzbieta Stadt-
muller, University of Wroclaw, Poland.

The Routledge/GARNET series, Europe in the World, provides a forum for

innovative research and current debates emanating from the research community
within the GARNET Network of Excellence. GARNET is a Europe-wide
network of 43 research institutions and scholars working collectively on ques-
tions around the theme of ‘Global Governance, Regionalisation and Regulation:
The Role of the EU’, and funded by the European Commission under the 6th
Framework Programme for Research.

1 EU Foreign Policy in a Globalized World

Normative power and social preferences
Edited by Zaki Laïdi
EU Foreign Policy in a
Globalized World
Normative power and social
preferences

Edited by Zaki Laïdi

First published 2008
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

© 2008 Selection and editorial matter Zaki Laïdi; individual chapters, the
contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
EU foreign policy in a globalized world: normative power and social
preferences/edited by Zaki Laïdi.
p. cm. – (Europe in the world; v. 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. European Union countries–Foreign relations. 2.
Democratization–Europe. 3. Europe–Social policy. 4. European Union.
I. Laïdi, Zaki.
JZ1570.A5E86 2008
341.2422–dc22
2007046238

ISBN 0-203-92740-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-43363-0 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0-203-92740-0 (ebk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-43363-1 (hbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-203-92740-3 (ebk)
Contents

List of illustrations vii

Notes on contributors viii

1 European preferences and their reception 1

ZAKI LAÏDI

PART I
Norms and preferences: history and principles 21

2 The normative power of the European Union in a globalised

world 23
IAN MANNERS

3 The historicity of European normative power 38

KAROLINE POSTEL-VINAY

PART II
The reception of democracy 49

4 Democratization by extension: seeking reinsurance 51

ANNE-MARIE LE GLOANNEC AND JACQUES RUPNIK

5 The EU’s promotion of democracy in the Balkans 68

DAVID CHANDLER

6 A missed opportunity? The EU and the reform of the UN

human rights architecture 83
FRANZISKA BRANTNER AND RICHARD GOWAN
vi Contents
7 The reception of EU neighbourhood policy 103
FLORENT PARMENTIER

8 European Union’s exportation of democratic norms:

the case of North Africa 118
LUIS MARTINEZ

9 The uncertainties of democratic promotion in Afghanistan 134

JEAN-NOËL FERRIÉ

10 The European Union, China and human rights 143

RICHARD BALME

Bibliography 174
Index 193
Illustrations

Figures
6.1 Number of EU splits in General Assembly, 1997–2007 86
6.2 Voting coincidence in General Assembly, in cases of EU
consensus, 1997–2007 87
6.3 EU splits on General Assembly human rights votes, and voting
coincidence with EU consensus positions, 1997–2007 88
6.4 Voting coincidence with China, EU, India, Russia and US on
human rights votes in General Assembly, 1997–2007 88
6.5 Support for country-specific rights resolutions in General
Assembly, 1997–2007 89

Tables
6.1 Distribution of seats on CHR and HRC 91
6.2 Score voting coincidence 101
Contributors

Richard Balme is Professor at Sciences Po, Paris and Visiting Professor at the
School of Government, Peking University, since September 2006. He is
Director of the Programme Sciences Po in China. He recently edited (with
Brian Bridges) Europe-Asia Relations: Building Multilateralisms? (Palgrave
2008).
Franziska Brantner is Research Associate at the European Studies Center,
Oxford University.
David Chandler is Professor of International Relations, the Centre for the Study
of Democracy, University of Westminster. His most recent books include
Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-Building (2006); From Kosovo to
Kabul and Beyond (new ed., 2006); (ed.) Peace without Politics? Ten Years
of International State-Building in Bosnia (2006); Constructing Global Civil
Society: Morality and Power in International Relations (2005).
Jean-Noël Ferrié is Research Director at CNRS Grenoble. He is the author of
numerous works on Egypt and Islam, such as Le régime de la civilité. Public
et réislamisation en Egypte (CNRS 2004) and La religion de la vie quotidi-
enne chez des Marocains musulmans (Karthala 2004).
Richard Gowan is Research Associate at the Center on International Coopera-
tion, New York University. Mr Gowan works on peacekeeping and multilat-
eral security arrangements.
Zaki Laïdi is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre d’études européennes of
Sciences Po, Professor at Sciences Po, Paris and Collège de Bruges. He is the
author of numerous books including, among others, A World without
Meaning (Routledge 1998), The Great Disruption (Polity Press 2007) and
Norm over Force. The Enigma of European Power (Palgrave 2008).
Anne-Marie Le Gloannec is Senior Research Fellow at Sciences Po, Paris. She
has written extensively on Germany: her recent publications include Non-
State Actors in International Relations. The Case of Germany (Manchester
University Press 2007, AMLG ed.) She is currently working on a book on
European Foreign Policy.
 Contributors ix
Ian Manners is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International
Studies. His publications include, with Sonia Lucarelli (eds) Values and Prin-
ciples in European Union Foreign Policy (Routledge 2006); with Richard
Whitman (eds) The Foreign Policies of European Union Member States
(Manchester University Press 2000); and Substance and Symbolism: an
Anatomy of Cooperation in the New Europe (Ashgate 2000).
Luis Martinez is Research Director at Sciences Po in Paris. He was Associate
Professor at SIPA – Columbia University and visiting fellow at Cérium –
Montréal University. He has published numerous articles and essays on North
Africa, including The Civil War in Algeria (Hurst 2000) and The Libyan
Paradox (Hurst, 2007).
Florent Parmentier is a PhD candidate and teaching assistant at Sciences-
Po/CERI. His main publications include La Moldavie à la croisée des
chemins (Editoo 2003) and L’empire au miroir. Stratégies de puissance aux
Etats-Unis et en Russie (Droz 2007).
Karoline Postel-Vinay is Research Director at Sciences Po in Paris. She is the
author of several articles and books on Japan, such as L’Occident et sa bonne
parole (Flammarion 2005), Corée, au Coeur de la nouvelle Asie (Flammarion
2002) and La revolution silencieuse au Japon (Calmann-Lévy 1994). She is
also the editor of the Routledge/GARNET series ‘Europe in the World’.
Jacques Rupnik is Research Director at Sciences Po, Paris. Among his recent
positions, Jacques Rupnik was adviser to Czech President Vaclav Havel,
1990–1992, Executive Director of the International Commission for the
Balkans at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1995–1996 and
member of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo,
1999–2000. His forthcoming book is entitled Les Banlieues de l’Europe,
l’UE et ses voisinages (The Suburbs of Europe: the EU and its Neighbour-
hoods), and some of his recent work include L’Europe des Vingt-Cinq. 25
cartes pour un jeu complexe (with Christian Lequesne), Balkan Diary and
articles such as: ‘America’s best friends in Europe: East-Central European
perceptions and policies towards the US’ in T. Judt and D. Lacorne (eds)
With US or Against US, Studies in Global Anti-Americanism.
1 European preferences and their
reception
Zaki Laïdi

An ever less European world

Since 1957, Europe has lived in the oblivion of the rest of the world. This was
possible because its security was ensured by the United States while its economy
was protected by the partial closure of its markets. Today, this Eurocentrism has
been eroded by the opening of markets and the emergence of new, non-Western,
powers (Aussilloux and Bourcieu 2005).1 Therefore, Europe is now surrounded
by an ever less familiar world with which it must come to terms.
To illustrate this new reality, if, in a globalised economy, what we call core
labour standards are not respected, Europe, which enjoys very high labour stand-
ards, will suffer from a possible race to the bottom.2 If, within this same global
economy, environmental standards are weaker than European ones, Europe will
face an inevitable comparative disadvantage and therefore be forced to promote
their harmonisation at the global level. Moreover, if European standards are not
shared by others, European production may be relocated to low-wage countries.
The only alternative would be to set up a tax mechanism for products from areas
having low environmental norms (Ismer and Neuhoff 2004). Those simple
examples make it easy to understand why, in a less and less European world,
Europe needs to act in defence of its own social preferences. One of the
hypotheses of this book is that a good way to defend Europe’s preferences in the
world would be to expand the scope of European normativity in a world that is
not necessarily inclined to accept such a perspective. Indeed, the concept of
European norms is ambiguous: does it express a sort of European virtue claim-
ing universal validity or is it a weapon in the hands of Europe to promote its
own interests? In order to answer this question, this collection of essays will try
to investigate the norms Europe stands for and the way European norms are
received by the other actors of the international system. Europe is also given
meaning by non-Europeans. That dimension has not been investigated by the
literature, and yet it needs to be explored seriously.
It should first be remembered that European policies have historically been
shaped either to deal with homogeneous situations or with situations in which
Europe benefited from highly asymmetrical power. For example, the enlarge-
ment policies conducted by Europe from 1957 to 1991 applied to states more or
2 Z. Laïdi
less similar to those of the founding group in terms of living standards and polit-
ical system. In 1973, the three new member states had a per capita GDP that
neared 80 per cent of the average of the first six. In 2007, this figure fell to 15
per cent for the last 12 applicants (Moravcsik and Vachudova 2003: 46).
Beyond the borders of what was not yet called European Union, the situation
was not so different. The main instrument of external policy in the hands of the
European Community was its trade policy. This last one was limited to policies
of dismantling tariff barriers with the United States or Japan, which were in any
case societies with a comparable standard of living and sharing the same liberal
vision of the world. Therefore trade negotiations were very different from the
ones we are used to today because they undermined neither European public
policies (especially the CAP) nor social or monetary policies. Broadly speaking,
European preferences were sheltered both at the European and national level.
Obviously, Europe’s relationship with developing countries was very different.
But those countries needed European aid more than Europe needed them. There
was such an asymmetry in their relationship that they hardly influenced Euro-
pean choices. Moreover, preferential access to European markets was compati-
ble with a high degree agricultural protectionism. It is this configuration that is
dramatically changing today.
The first change took place in the ‘first circle’, which regroups the present
members of the EU. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, integration no longer
involves countries sharing the same history since 1945, having similar standards of
living and benefiting from firmly rooted institutions. Since 1989, integration per-
tains to countries that for 50 years have been isolated from the rest of the world,
which had weak or chaotic democracies and very poor living conditions. This het-
erogeneity is ever increasing with the opening of accession talks with the Balkan
countries. In this book, Anne-Marie Le-Gloannec and Jacques Rupnik explain to
what extent the European involvement in the Balkans has modified the meaning
and the content of its policy vis-à-vis, for example, democracy. Bringing demo-
cracy in societies where the demos is so weak gives the EU an enormous respons-
ibility as a nation-building entrepreneur. In the same vein, David Chandler
mentions the difficulties and illusions of bringing democracy from above.
In the ‘second circle’, which refers to Western developed countries, the issues
at stake have changed. Today, Europe and the United States are more or less
equivalent economic powers. Between them, the problem is less to reduce trade
protection than to harmonise their respective models of economic, financial and
environmental governance in a globalised economy: accounting and financial
rules, environmental norms, protection of personal data in the context of the
fight against terrorism, etc.
But it is in the ‘third circle’, by which is meant the developing world, that
heterogeneity is the most salient. The postcolonial space of the Africa,
Caribbean, Pacific group of states (ACP), which Europe used as its backyard, is
dislocated, both because of the erosion of their trade preferences in Europe and
because Europe does not need this space for economic purposes as it once did
(Bouët et al. 2005). Moreover, it is becoming more and more difficult to keep
 European preferences and their reception 3
this area at bay through the traditional aid policy. The asymmetrical relation
between Europe and the ACP has created imbalances that have direct con-
sequences on European security, especially through migratory pressure. There-
fore Europe tries to export its security norms through a set of carrots and sticks
in order to avoid the import of insecurity (Wallace 2003). That is why European
cooperation and aid policies are becoming more and more concerned with secur-
ity issues and political conditionality (European Commission 2006).
Europe is then facing a combination of security threats from poorer countries
and economic challenges due to the rising competitiveness of emerging markets.
The latter, too, are making Europe more vulnerable, either because they are
seeking access to Europe’s protected agricultural markets (Brazil and Thailand)
or because they remind Europe of its own economic dependence in certain stra-
tegic sectors, such as energy (Russia). That is why Europe needs to develop a
new discourse, define a new strategy, devise new instruments and envisage new
practices vis-à-vis all these new actors. Europe is therefore forced to rethink
deeply its relationship with the rest of the world, not out of strategic ambition or
a thirst for power but under the constraints of a globalised world. Introversion is
no longer an option for Europe, unless it is prepared to accept its own decline.

European preference for norms

In order to understand the impact of these new challenges, it is important to first
identify European preferences. They will then be analysed in light of how they
are received by the actors according to whether they share, challenge or accept
them by necessity. Reasoning in terms of preferences means first sharing a
liberal vision of international relations, which implies that states’ choices are not
historical or cultural invariants, but are complex games of interests and identities
played by individuals and groups to force public actors to take decisions accord-
ing to their preferences (Moravcsik 2002; Gerstlé 2003; Feho and Fischbacher
2002).3 In Europe, this reality is favoured by the structure of European gover-
nance itself: multilevel governance where the member states, the European
Commission and the European Parliament interact, not to forget, of course, all
the social actors that try to influence the decisions of the different institutions
(Majone 1996).
Reasoning in terms of preferences also means understanding that each polit-
ical community tries to unveil its preferences under constraint of other actors’
preferences (Moravcsik 1997: 51). This is exactly what is at stake with globali-
sation. The variety of ways in which European norms are received is linked to
the degree of Europe’s engagement in promoting them, itself linked to the
coherence of European preferences and the challenges that Europe faces. This
chapter will thus focus on three issues:

• the norms Europe stands for;

• the perception of normative Europe by non-Europeans;
• the limits of norms in a geopolitical context.
4 Z. Laïdi
The norms Europe stands for
There is a strong homothetic relation between the way Europe is constructed and
the way in which it sees the world. This is an obvious but fundamental starting
point. It helps to understand why the preference for international norms is at the
same time the product of a specific history and the ideal-type through which
Europe represents itself to the world. In the European vision, the peculiarity of
its model and its universal character necessarily go together, since one always
sees the world through the lenses of one’s own history. Over the years, the
normative character of European construction has grown considerably simply
because Europe has penetrated very deeply within each European nation state
(Quermonne 2002). It has grown both quantitatively and qualitatively, making
recourse to norms more and more constraining and affecting sensitive fields for
the member states. But what is meant by norms?
Norms are standards aiming at codifying the behaviour of actors sharing
common principles and this in order to generate collective disciplines and to
forbid certain conducts in the different fields of public policies (Finnemore and
Sikkink 1998).
Europe spontaneously tends to extend to the rest of the world the governance
through norms that it experiences within its own borders. Implicitly, Europe
makes the assumption that global governance goes through an increase of norms
and that such governance through norms is the most suitable political model for
an interdependent world, since it constitutes a factor of equalisation of power
(Laïdi and Lamy 2002). This is for example the gist of Pascal Lamy’s speech
made when he was European Commissioner, with regard to developing coun-
tries that wanted to be included in the WTO game (Lamy 2002). Europe thus
wants to exert its power through norms and at the same time it wants to make
world powers acting accordingly (Laïdi 2005; Triscritti 2007).4 Yet, a normative
power is not only a norm-making power. It is an actor that struggles to convert
its standards into international rules that are acceptable for those who receive
them (norm-takers), because they find a tangible and immediate reward (such as
European Union membership or access to its markets), because they see norms
as a way of adopting a discipline that cannot for whatever reason impose on
themselves, or because, in adhering to those norms, norm-takers will also take
part in their implementation.
Europe is structurally inclined to impose norms on the world system in order
to counter two difficulties. The first is to prevent global norms from being less
exacting than European ones so as not to place Europe at a comparative disad-
vantage. The second is its lack of power – in the sense of hard power – to
impose norms on reluctant actors. Europe needs the support of the international
system to advance its own interests. This last point is fundamental. Actually,
when Europe discusses global issues (the environment, human rights, core
labour standards, property rights) with the main world actors, it can hardly
engage in the usual political bargaining. Europe has almost no tools to pressure
the United States and convince them to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, except to
 European preferences and their reception 5
attempt to sway world public opinion and American actors willing to bring the
US out of its isolation on this issue. Europe can hardly reduce its pressure on
China regarding human rights issues in exchange for China’s commitments on
Taiwan. This induces serious limitations to the European power vis-à-vis China,
as Richard Balme explains it in Chapter 10 of this book. The European political
structure does not permit such a trade-off, since the EU is not a state. For non-
European actors, Europe is a power without any coercive force. But this estima-
tion should be qualified. Europe has considerable economic and commercial
leverage. It is through this that Europe managed to convince Moscow to sign the
Kyoto Protocol in exchange for Russia’s joining the WTO. But Europe’s power
does not go any further, except, of course, when there is at stake the possibility
of joining the EU (Andreosso-O’Callaghan and Nicolas 2007: 32).5 But
Europe’s power cannot extend to the fields of strategic or military affairs. It is
also very limited when it comes to promoting democracy in countries that are
not slated to join the EU in the near future. Europe cannot extract trade conces-
sions from India in exchange for concessions on nuclear energy, for instance.
Europe cannot behave as a superpower that would arbitrate among the various
components of its strategy. It is forced to impose its norms on the world system
on a fragmentary basis and to mollify power politics through norms. That is why
Europe is much more effective on issues pertaining to global public goods, such
as the environment, international justice and sustainable development, than on
security or diplomatic issues.
How is this European preference for norms expressed in practical terms? First
of all, Europe expresses its preference for norms by strong support to the norm-
ative basis of global governance, which could be defined as the body of inter-
national texts and treaties that rules the international system. Europe is the
global power that has signed most of the 40 documents that constitute the basis
of global governance: European member states have signed 34 of those treaties
and texts, compared to 11 for the US, 16 for China and 15 for India (Laïdi 2004:
115). The most emblematic among those texts is the Kyoto Protocol on climate
change. Despite opposition from the Bush Administration, the European Union
has managed to keep the two essential mechanisms of the Protocol on the world
agenda: binding quantitative reduction targets coupled with a carbon quotas
market. The European endeavour was reaffirmed at the G-8 Summit at Heiligen-
dam in 2007, where Germany convinced the other countries to approve the prin-
ciple of a 50 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a
commitment already made by the EU (European Council 9 March 2007: 12).
Second, the European preference for norms is expressed by its commitment
to multilateral institutions within which it seeks to enhance normative standards
in order to protect its own norms. This is clear in Europe’s strategy at the WTO,
where it attempts to defend the ‘Singapore issues’, core labour standards and the
respect of environmental standards in trade relations. The Singapore issues
involve defining the rules of competition, investments, transparency in govern-
ment procurement and the trade facilitation, a code name for corruption. Europe
has managed to put those issues on the WTO agenda since 1996 (Leary 1997).
6 Z. Laïdi
Nevertheless, due to lack of US support and the hostility of most developing
countries, which perceive Europe’s attitude either as political interference or as a
secondary issue, Europe has had to curb its ambitions. At the 2004 WTO Con-
ference in Cancun, which was brutally disrupted, the European Union for the
first time discovered the political reality of the G-20 countries, which for differ-
ent reasons disputed the Euro-American leadership of commercial negotiations
(Narlikar and Tussie 2004). Some political analysts consider that the difficulties
Europe faces in imposing its regulatory, and therefore normative, agenda at the
WTO explain its growing interest for bilateral commercial agreements (Evenett
2007). The lifting of the moratorium on signing new free-trade agreements –
agreements that Pascal Lamy has always viewed with a certain distrust – would
indicate a European political ambition to rapidly conquer new Asian markets
with the aim of boosting economic growth and creating new job opportunities
(Evenett 2007). But this European interest for bilateral agreements may not
necessarily fit the interests of its potential partners. Some experts have argued
that, in the present conditions, a Euro-Indian free-trade agreement would not be
favourable to India, except if it could obtain in exchange the opening of the
European labour market to its qualified workers. But this is something Europe is
not ready for.6
Another example is the environmental issue: Europe is clearly trying to trans-
form the overall question of sustainable development into an instrument of inter-
national influence, even through the leverage of its trade policy.7 In 1996,
Europe raised the question of the link between trade and the environment,
relying on the Rio Declaration of 1992 on sustainable development (Lightfoot
and Burchell 2005). Europe’s objective was to obtain a revision of WTO article
XX so that it is more favourable to the environment. The European Union has
tried hard to get a revision of the WTO norms in order to prevent a possible
change in WTO rules over these issues, and because it felt encouraged by certain
WTO panel decisions in the 1990s. At the launching of the Doha Round, in
2001, Europe extracted from its partners a victory over the opening of an exami-
nation of the relationship between MEA (multilateral trade agreement) and
WTO rules. But the success was purely symbolic, since the Doha Declaration
limits the examination to the link between the MEA, signed by WTO members,
and WTO agreements, thereby excluding the examination of some crucial
MEAs that have not been ratified by some WTO members, such as the Kyoto
Protocol.8 It is however important to remark that Europe’s preference for the
environment is not purely abstract: although it reflects undeniable social prefer-
ences, it also expresses interests that lead the European Union to adopt a more
ambivalent position on some occasions than its official stand may suggest. For
instance, Europe has successfully claimed for the acknowledgement of the pre-
caution principle in the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, especially in order to
limit the consumption of GMOs. But when certain developing countries asked
for expanded international controls on the subject, they come up against the
European opposition eager to regulate the use of GMO in agriculture but not in
pharmaceutical industry, a distinction that seems extremely problematic but
 European preferences and their reception 7
which is driven by the need to protect specific European trade interests (Falkner
2006: 8).
The third example concerns core labour standards. What is at stake for
Europe is, as explained earlier, to avoid a social race to the bottom, to support
WTO legitimacy through the capacity to deal with social issues and strengthen
the social image of the European Union on the world scene. In 1996, at the
WTO Conference of Singapore, the principle of respecting core labour standards
was accepted on condition that those norms would not be used against compara-
tive advantages of developing countries (Tapiola 2002). In 2001, at the Doha
Conference, the Europeans were left isolated when they brought up this sensitive
issue again.9 They met with opposition from developing countries such as India,
which threatened to walk out if the issue was raised once again in the final dec-
laration. The question of core labour standards is highly controversial for devel-
oping countries. They see in it the remnant of a neo-colonial ideology (Chenoy
and Chenoy). Actually, considerable doubt exists as to the effectiveness of core
labour standards, even if European public opinion and trade unions attach great
importance to them. Indeed, if the defence of labour standards is perfectly in line
with a rationale of protecting human rights, it is never been proven that violating
them has constituted a comparative advantage or sparked a ‘race to the bottom’.
Without trade unions, Chinese wages have quadrupled in 30 years, whereas with
powerful trade unions, Brazilian wages have stagnated (Galbraith 2007).
In any event, Europe did not achieve significant results on the multilateral
level. Europe’s call to create a joint organisation combining the ILO and WTO
has not been followed by any concrete action. After the failure of Seattle confer-
ence of the WTO in 1999, the US shifted toward bilateral arrangements to
impose core labour standards (Polaski 2004). As a result, developing countries
stigmatise more strongly the Europeans than the Americans, since they are the
ones who appear to be more demanding on the achievement of multilateral
norms on environment and social rights (Disdier et al. 2007).10 We should also
bear in mind that the strong European commitment on those issues relates to the
fact that Europe continues to have an industrial base that is threatened by emerg-
ing countries. Europe’s specialised industry is not flexible enough. Its industrial
structure is characterised by static positions, the search for sources of income
and the exploitation of existing areas of specialisation. This is what distinguishes
Europe from the US, which is more flexible, especially in the sectors of techno-
logy and services (Fontagné 2007: 23).
As a consequence, Europe is obliged to revise its goals downward and fall
back on a bilateral strategy, at least as regards core labour standards, the defence
of which is now integrated into the broader framework of the fight for ‘decent
work’. Europe prides itself in having sanctioned Belarus and Myanmar for their
non-respect of basic social clauses. But these are isolated and largely disquali-
fied regimes that do not constitute a threat to European interests. Europe thus
gives the impression of levying sanctions only on states that can do it no harm,
and the same time when it is very indulgent with fairly unsavoury regimes in
economically highly attractive countries, such as Algeria or Libya (Mandelson
8 Z. Laïdi
2006).11 This point is much documented in Chapter 8 of this volume by Luis
Martinez who concentrates on the relationship between the EU and the
Maghreb. Normative power rarely resists profitable economic arrangements.
Europe’s capacity to establish and export norms should not be underesti-
mated. On the contrary, with the expansion of the European common market,
Europe has adopted even stricter norms that pertain not only to its member states
but also to all the economic agents that want to get into the EU market.
The EU’s economic partners are forced to adapt to those norms, since the
European market is one of the largest and since norms concerning environment,
health and sustainable development are becoming more and more compelling. In
those fields, European norms are becoming the highest in the world and there-
fore Europe is the norm-setter at the global level (Selin and Vandeveer 2006). A
country exporting agricultural products will be very careful in introducing
massive use of GMOs if it knows that Europeans will not tolerate them.
This role of norm-setter was long fulfilled by the United States. Today,
Europe has taken over (Selin and Vandeveer 2006). Two factors account for
this: Europe is the most integrated market in the world and it is the one with the
highest norms. To demonstrate this, I will provide three examples. They concern
what is known as e-waste (WEEE – Waste Electrical and Electronic Equip-
ment), restrictions on the use of hazardous substances (RoHS) in electrical and
electronic equipment and finally the regulation, registration, evaluation and
authorisation of chemicals (REACH). WEEE is designed to increase recovery
and recycling of electrical and electronic equipment by extending producer
responsibilities, since consumers can return free of charge all regulated equip-
ment for reprocessing and recycling in exchange for incentives to produce envi-
ronmentally friendly equipment. Under REACH legislation, chemical products
will undergo a registration procedure followed by a safety evaluation (Selin and
Vandeveer 2006).
The WEEE, RoHS and REACH programmes are already influencing other
actors. RoHS for example is regarded by the US as the biggest change in elec-
tronics in the past 50 years (Selin and Vandeveer 2006). REACH also consti-
tutes a source of enormous change for US firms, which now must comply with
European regulations. But at the same time, REACH is extremely influential in
the sense that it has forced the United States Congress to work on national legis-
lation on those issues drawn from the European experience. In the United States,
the influence of the EU is visible in the action of the various states of the Union,
as it is for the Kyoto Protocol. Many states, influenced by European laws, have
adopted more compelling legislation than what federal laws require on the issue
of the e-waste. Nevertheless, this has not prevented the American government
from using diplomatic means to combat the realisation of REACH. They fear
that such legislation constitutes an obstacle to free trade. Actually, the American
position mirrors that of American business, which does not want to adapt to
European constraints (Ackerman et al. 2006). The European common market is
a considerable source of normative influence provided that Europe has a homo-
geneous rule system and an attractive market. This passive and almost mechani-
 European preferences and their reception 9
cal influence does not exclude the development of a more active policy of norms
exportation.
For a long time, such a policy has been limited to the integration of the
acquis communautaire by the candidate countries. But today the means of action
have grown considerably, due to the diversification of the forms of interdepen-
dency (Gstöhl 2007). Among those means of influence are:

• Association agreements signed with developed countries which are not

members of the EU but who are very integrated in its economy (for
example, Switzerland).
• Bilateral commercial agreements with less developed partners that, as we
have seen, allow Europe to impose its own norms in a more efficient way
than through multilateral arrangements.
• Dialogues on the issue of regulation engaged with developed countries
where the interest in the mutual opening of markets is substantial and
significant, or dialogues with those developing countries with which the
agreements on free trade are blocked for agricultural issues.
• Finally, encouragement to develop regional integration agreements on the
model of Europe.

The perception of European soft power

As a tool of international regulation able to circumvent bilateral meetings
between states, the preference for norms almost automatically leads to rejecting
the rules of realpolitik, based on a Schmittian interpretation of politics. Accord-
ing to Carl Schmitt:

The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can
be reduced is that between friend and enemy. . . . A world in which the pos-
sibility of war is utterly eliminated, a completely pacified globe, would be a
world without the distinction of friend and enemy and hence a world
without politics.
(Schmitt 1996: 26, 35)

This is exactly the vision of the world that Europe refuses. In the Solana report,
which purported to set out Europe’s strategic doctrine following the US invasion
of Iraq, the term of ‘enemy’ is totally absent (Solana 2003). The same report
talks about non-identified global threats to a particular state (terrorism, nuclear
proliferation, regional conflicts, defective states and organised crimes). The
defence of a state’s territory from the enemy is at the core of Schmitt’s theory,
which has always argued that the political order is first of all a spatial order,
before being a normative one. Schmitt does not deny the relevance of norms, but
he subordinates it to the defence of territoriality. He favours topia, the taking of
the land, to utopia. On this point, Europe is undeniably Kantian and anti-
Schmittian.
10 Z. Laïdi
Kant, in his project for ‘Perpetual Peace’ – which is meant to lead to a
cosmopolitan order – gives priority to values over territoriality. For Kant, two
elements are essential: the pacific nature of the republics and the civilising
power of trade. The Solana report takes up these two elements almost word for
word. The reports states that ‘the quality of international society depends on the
quality of governments: the best protection for our security is a world of well-
governed democratic states’, adding that ‘trade and development policies can be
powerful tools for promoting reforms’ (Solana 2003). Even more significant is
the last report of the European Defence Agency on Europe and its strategic
environment (EDA 2006). What is striking in it is the importance given to public
opinion and to its perception of every military operation (‘the political outcome
will be determined not just by the achievement of military objectives but by the
manner in which operations are conducted or are perceived to be conducted’
(EDA 2006)). It is possible to understand it as a reference to the Kantian concept
of public sphere as having a critical and disciplinary function in order to build
‘Perpetual Peace’ (Kant 1939). Nevertheless, what is even more striking in this
document is the refusal to conceive of military intervention in terms of a zero-
sum game between friend and enemy. The political leaders of the European
Commission talk about partners, not allies. And even if they talk about ‘friends’,
they never mention enemies but non-cooperative states (Portela 2007). In a
significant way, the EDA report states that: ‘The objective is not “victory” as
traditionally understood, but moderation, balance of interests and peaceful reso-
lution of conflicts’ (EDA 2006: 13). The European Union’s military strategy
remains based on peacekeeping with very restrictive rules of engagement, privi-
leging the contact with civilian populations and reducing recourse to force as
much as possible (Wallace 2005). From the point of view of the Europeans, mil-
itary force is clearly not an instrument of hard power. It is mainly intended to be
used as a tool to reconcile, to pacify and not to punish.
This refusal to pinpoint an enemy or to see oneself in ultimate relationship
with him is naturally linked to the historical conditions of European construc-
tion. This is equally explained by the fact that the European Union is a structure
of nation states that have their own, sometimes more classical, military strat-
egies; however, the fact that Europeans are not the final guarantors of their own
security is even more important in this respect. Therefore, the assumptions one
might make about Europe’s military power or its conversion to hard power are
meaningless if they do not integrate this basic postulate (Laïdi 2005).
In the eyes of others, this fact is essential. However, its consequences are
ambiguous. Because Europe is not a hard power, this makes it more tolerable,
less dangerous and therefore more acceptable from the viewpoint of the rest of
the world. There are not many demonstrations all over the world against Europe
as such. An opinion survey conducted in 18 non-European countries shows that
in nearly all of them the European Union is perceived in a positive light. But
certain details of the survey warrant a closer look. In Latin America, where pro-
European sentiment is yet generally symmetrical to anti-American sentiment,
there is one notable exception: Brazil, where European agricultural protection-
 European preferences and their reception 11
ism is obviously perceived as a hindrance to its power. In Asia, pro-European
sentiment stands out, but what dominates in a country like India or the Philip-
pines is indifference toward Europe, reflected in the high rate of no-answers
(World Public Opinion 2005). From indifference it is easy to slide toward a
certain disdain, either because ‘norms over force’ hardly seems a credible
stance, or because it is perceived as ‘a second-rank player’ the strategic choices
being made by its protectors – in this case the United States – or, finally,
because Europe is only seen through its member states, each having specific
interests and practices far removed from the principles defended by Europe. The
more one touches on questions of strategy and security, the more crucial this
dimension would appear.
A country such as India, for instance, has considerable trouble picturing the
EU as an international actor, to such an extent that European Commissioner
Mandelson has publicly expressed concerned about it: ‘Just as Europe should
take India seriously, I want India to take Europe seriously . . . I read recently in a
report that Indians do not think very much about the European Union. This is a
shame if it is true’ (Mandelson 2005). This statement implicitly addresses a key
issue: state sovereignty. India, like China, Russia and Brazil, without mentioning
the United States, seem to identify power with its national expression. An Indian
forecasting report drafted in 2005 imagines in 2035 a tripolar world made up of
the United States, India and China. He arrives at this conclusion via a fairly
simple methodology taking into account population, GDP and per capita GDP
(Virmani 2005). According to Joschka Fischer, this is precisely the scenario the
Americans are working from.12 What is interesting in the Indian report is to see
the treatment reserved for Europe. The first is based on the abandon of half the
sovereignty of European states to the benefit of the European Union and to the
detriment of its member states. In this case, Europe would become the fourth
pillar of the world system. The second imagines a much more moderate abandon
of member state sovereignty (one-quarter). In this case, the power of the Euro-
pean Union in 2035 would represent 25 per cent of the American power, as
opposed to 50 per cent in the first scenario (Virmani 2005). Notwithstanding any
reservations one might have with regard to a quantitative approach to power, it
is interesting to see that the Indians stick to an extremely classic vision of sover-
eignty and power, and with regard to Europe its entire dynamic is seen from the
angle of a zero-sum game between member states and the Union.
The question of sovereignty in fact rebounds on all aspects of Euro-Indian rela-
tions in that the Indians cannot help but be wary of a European project that seeks
to erode the sovereignty of its members – and thus its partners – whereas India is
striving by all possible means to enhance it its power as a nation.13 For the Indians,
for instance, the notion of ‘shared sovereignty’ is simply synonymous with ‘inter-
governmental cooperation’.14 This explains the patent misunderstanding about the
shared European and Indian attachment to multilateralism. For the European
Union, multilateralism constitutes a regulatory instrument aiming to advance ‘the
common good’, whereas for the Indians, it primarily represents a resource for it to
gain recognition as a full-fledged major power by the United States.
12 Z. Laïdi
Normative preference and political asymmetry
For 15 years now, Europe has been facing the realities of a multifarious world
that it could not simply ignore. Its normative ambition is thus now more than
ever subject to the reality principle. This is because the more norms are applied
to situations remote from the context in which they were conceived, the more
they run the risk of non-compliance. Europe thus has three choices: it can either
be proactively more demanding as regards respect for the norms it propagates,
take liberties with the norms that it formally prescribes, or enter into a more or
less muffled clash with its partners.
The first possibility would involve spelling out, clarifying or toughening
norms that it exports whenever it meets situations in which the dissemination of
norms can no longer be taken for granted.15 This is the scenario that prevailed
during enlargement towards the Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC)
after the end of the Cold War. In 1993, at the Copenhagen Summit, the Euro-
pean Union agreed to CEEC membership in principle. But it attached the start of
membership talks to an unprecedented formalisation of the accession criteria for
joining the European Union. These accession criteria are those well-known con-
ditions that were to become the Copenhagen Criteria, laid down as follows
(European Council in Copenhagen 1993):

• Membership requires that the candidate country has achieved stability of

institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of the law, human rights and
respect for and protection of minorities.
• Membership requires the existence of a functioning market economy to
cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union.
• Membership presupposes the candidate ability to take on the obligations of
membership including adherence to the aims of political economy and mon-
etary Union.

But in addition to these three formal conditions, there is an additional, more

informal condition which states that ‘The Union capacity to absorb new
members while maintaining the momentum of European integration is also an
important consideration in the general interest of both the Union and the can-
didate countries’ (Emerson et al. 2006). At the time, this criterion was not per-
ceived as such and most conditionality studies do not recognise it as a criterion
in and of itself. But with the opening of accession talks with Turkey, it was
clearly ‘reactivated’, particularly by those member states hostile to Turkey’s
membership (Emerson et al. 2006). This latter criterion is interesting in the
perspective examined here, because it shows to what extent a conditionality
that is also a norm can give rise to extensive uses that are at odds with the
European discourse claiming that norms are a codification of relations
between equals. Accession talks with Turkey are no longer even a case of con-
ditionality in which the norm-maker imposes its norm on the norm-taker.
Rather, the European Union is in a rationale in which it alone estimates its
 European preferences and their reception 13
capacity to welcome a new member state, a decision that is not open to
dispute.
Europe has thus embarked on a totally different logic in that it leaves itself a
discretionary margin of appreciation that is totally disconnected with the
partner’s performances. The criterion relative to its absorption capacity thus
boils down to saying that, even assuming the applicant country fulfils all the
accession criteria, membership could still be denied.
The first three Copenhagen Criteria do not go that far. For even if many
dispute the clarity and precision of these criteria, which are also too vague not
to be open to interpretations of pure political contingency, they nevertheless fit
within a contractual normative framework. If an applicant country fulfils its
obligations, it is qualified to join the Union. For all that, the relative clarity in
which this conditionality is exercised should not make us lose sight of its pro-
foundly asymmetrical nature. To become a member, a country must satisfy the
Copenhagen Criteria and adopt the 80,000 pages of the acquis communautaire
in its entirety. This is a take-it-or-leave-it condition. What is commonly
referred to as ‘talks’ is actually a process by which the European Union veri-
fies that the applicants have indeed incorporated the acquis communautaire
into their domestic legislation, chapter by chapter, page by page (Moravcsik
and Vachudova 2003) In practice, the reality has turned out to be more
complex. In fact, the broader and more massive the conditionalities, the more
they leave room for arbitration between the various priorities, thereby creating
a degree of leeway for the applicants (Hugues et al. 2004). However, neither
the rigour of European conditionality nor, on the other hand, the interstices left
open to the local actors by such conditionality suffice to explain the success of
European enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe. It has to do with the fact
that right from the start the perspective of membership exerted a considerable
power of attraction over societies in which the system they were leaving –
communism – had not only failed, but what’s more, restricted state sover-
eignty. So even before European conditionality was exercised, the elites had
interiorised it, so to speak, as soon as they were assured locally of a consensus
to join the European Union (Pridham 2006: 386). Thus, through electoral
competition, the political forces in favour of membership won the game on the
domestic checkerboard even before the opportunity to engage in accession
talks was put to debate.
This was thus a far cry from the zero-sum game in which an external actor
attempts to impose a norm on an actor that wants nothing to do with it. This still
didn’t make it a game between equals, because the conditionality was defined by
the norm-maker. The context was instead one in which asymmetry was interi-
orised due to the tangible rewards involved in complying with it.16 When we
analyse the reception of European norms, we have to distinguish between differ-
ent dimensions as it is suggested in this book by Florent Parmentier (Chapter 7).
He suggests very cogently to make a distinction between discourse, procedures
and substance in order to understand how norms are reinterpreted, incorporated
and implemented.
14 Z. Laïdi
Norms in the service of geopolitics
Reproducing this pattern becomes problematic when Europe can no longer
commit to offering a reward as substantial as accession. Its entire neighbourhood
policy, the famous European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), is designed to solve
this problem, which can be summarised as follows: Europe is no longer able to
or no longer wants to offer membership as a perspective to its neighbours, while
leading them to believe that this fundamental change will not make a big dif-
ference to them. But the distinction makes a big difference. It first makes a dif-
ference for Europe, which can no longer use the perspective of membership as a
disciplinary mechanism first to discipline itself in both the bureaucratic and
political monitoring of a strategy that has no specific aim. It also makes a big
difference for its partners, for which the cost of compliance with European
standards from both an economic and political standpoint is not apparently
offset by decisive advantages. Now if membership policies have succeeded
despite the initially asymmetrical nature of the relations between the Union and
its candidates, it is because the trade-off in terms of costs and benefits was estab-
lished from the start.17 European normativity is then confronted by new geopolit-
ical constrains as Karoline Postel-Vinay argues in Chapter 3.
From the standpoint of perceptions, we must first take into account states that
refuse from the start to accept the ENP framework as an overall contractual
framework for their relations with Europe. This is the case of Russia, which was
initially part of the system and later withdrew from the framework due to
Russian refusal. Then must be considered those who do not accept this frame-
work but have no choice to, for lack of anything better. This is the case of
Ukraine, for which the only serious political perspective with Europe is mem-
bership, and which the sees the ENP as a mechanism to delay its accession.18
Also must be taken into account the case of countries that have no problem for-
merly entering this framework, but don’t seem for all that to have made up their
mind to accept all the modalities, especially if they contain new obligations.
This is the case, for instance, of a country like Algeria which, because it consti-
tutes a precious source of energy supply for Europe, knows perfectly well that
Europe will not risk imposing on it political conditionalities or economic
reforms it does not want to implement. The only potential interest Algeria has in
the ENP framework is the free circulation of people. But it knows that Europe is
not prepared to grant this.19 That leaves the others – countries for which there is
no chance of joining the European Union in the next ten or 15 years and for
which the principle advantage is to attract European resources in attempt to
build viable states. The remainder is a particular set of countries that have spe-
cific expectations with regard to Europe and for which the formal framework
governing relations with Europe is of little importance or even signification. All
this makes it legitimate to wonder whether ENP is not mainly a political–institu-
tional system that holds meaning first and foremost for the Union itself.
Indeed, the ENP was fundamentally designed as a policy of non-membership,
even if it was bureaucratically conceived by those who are responsible for
 European preferences and their reception 15
enlargement (Kelley 2006: 30). Initially entitled Wider Europe in 2003, it was
pared down to the European Neighbourhood Policy the following year, precisely
to underscore the fact that being a European neighbour in no way implies being
a member of Europe.20 In this perspective, the major political fact resides in the
discarding of any political right to joining European Union even for states whose
Europeanity is not disputed.21 Like any policy, it rests on explicits and implicits.
What has been made explicit is that Europe has an interest in being surrounded
by a ‘ring of friends’ that have the characteristic of being economically prosper-
ous, politically stable and well-governed. What has been left unsaid is a desire to
avoid unintentionally importing security risks into the Union from unstable or
little-developed countries in the form of uncontrolled migration, Mafia-like
conduct or terrorist action. This point is the most fundamental one, because deep
down it is the only characteristic shared by countries as different as Moldavia,
Lebanon and Tunisia. The ENP actually constitutes a very classic semi-
periphery control policy that aims to set up a virtuous circle encompassing
development, democracy and good governance so as not to jeopardise Europe’s
security and stability. It is the very example of a milieu goal policy.22 Europe
thus does geopolitics with norms.
Europe does not claim to be creating this circle. But it hopes to encourage it
while believing that it has neither the power nor the will to impose its own
norms.23 The question should then be posed in the following terms: what can the
partners find that is new or attractive enough to embark on the path offered by
Europe through its ENP? The answer is probably ‘not much’, except if for some
of them, the ENP is a necessary step on the road to accession. On the economic
and trade level for instance, the ENP offers ‘deep trade and economic integra-
tion with the EU’ that one imagines might take the route of what is again called
‘deep and comprehensive free trade agreements’ (European Strategy Paper
2004: 4). But what is really meant by ‘deep and comprehensive free trade agree-
ments’? The Commission’s answer is the following: ‘a deep and comprehensive
FTA should cover substantially all trade in goods and services between the EU
and ENP partners including those products of particular importance for our part-
ners and should include strong legally-binding provisions on trade and regula-
tory issues’ (European Strategy Paper 2004: 4, author’s emphasis). In exchange
for greater access to its market, Europe demands that its partners comply with its
constraints in terms of technical norms and standards, industrial policy, intellec-
tual property, rules of origin, taxation, public procurement etc. In other words,
Europe is striving to wrest bilateral recognition for norms that it is unable to
impose on a global scale: ‘adopt our norms and in exchange, we’ll open our
markets’. But this apparently fair deal is actually deeply imbalanced and not
always attractive. Imbalanced because the concessions made by the two parties
are not equal in nature. When Europe, through a bilateral treaty, offers a country
greater access to its market, it is apparently granting a favour with respect to
other partners. But this preference is fragile. On one hand, because nothing pre-
vents Europe from granting it to another country B in competition with country
A. In addition, because nothing proves that in the event of a multilateral
16 Z. Laïdi
agreement, the preferences granted to A and B won’t eventually diminish, or
even disappear. What’s more, the existence of a free-trade agreement does not
prohibit maintaining limitations on sensitive agricultural or industrial products,
not to mention the movement of people (Woolcock 2007).
On the other hand, Europe will have nothing to lose. On the contrary. For in
exchange for granting tenuous and relative preferences, it will have wrested
from its partners lasting concessions in the regulatory areas that interest it, as we
have seen, to the utmost.24 Indeed, the fact of believing that the ultimate objec-
tive of Europe is to ‘share a common regulatory basis and similar degree of
market access’ confirms the potential imbalance of such agreements. Moreover,
there is no evidence to show that a free-trade agreement presents truly new
opportunities in terms of access to the European market. Europe’s partners are
usually fettered in their export policy to Europe either by internal difficulties
preventing them from increasing their exports, or by drastic EU regulatory obs-
tacles that Europe forces them to accept precisely in the framework of free-trade
agreements or preferential accords. Certainly, Europe’s partners are not required
to adopt the full spectrum of the acquis communautaire. But this freedom has a
price: not being allowed to fully integrate the single market, thus making the
idea of access to ‘everything but the institutions’ entirely theoretical. Inciden-
tally, this offer is ambiguous. For although, for Europe, it means ‘don’t get dis-
couraged, because finally you can have almost everything’, this may well be
interpreted by its partners as ‘even if we do everything the way they do, they’ll
never accept us’. Misunderstandings notwithstanding, this approach poses a real
political problem: ‘everything but the institutions’ means that these countries
will never be able to take part in defining the European policies that they will
have nevertheless adopted. They are thus bound to remain forever norm-takers.
From that standpoint, the ENP constitutes a mechanism aimed at normalising the
asymmetry between Europe and its non-community partners. Actually, in many
cases, already fairly extensive and usually underutilised access to the European
market is much less valuable than some form of regional integration, for
instance. The ENP is built on a foundation that exacerbates bilateralism. It natu-
rally claims to foster development of regional integration. But in actual fact, it
does not give itself the means to, especially when obstacles to this integration
are highly political in nature. We know, for instance, that regional integration in
the Maghreb is hindered by the Algeria–Morocco rivalry and that the European
Union obviously does not have the means to settle it. In fact, the ENP has given
rise to no new trade initiative moving toward ‘deep integration’. The Balkans
are covered by the famous Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA), the
Mediterranean countries by the Euro-Med agreements. The only two free-trade
agreements offered have been to countries that aren’t covered by the ENP: South
Korea and India. Talks with Ukraine in view of an ‘enhanced agreement’ are
underway. But this is primarily a formula aimed to mollify the Ukrainians who
seem disappointed by the lack of a membership calendar.
These difficulties are multiplied when shifting from the economic sphere to
more sensitive areas such as those pertaining to good governance or human
 European preferences and their reception 17
rights. In theory, the ENP is meant as a comprehensive policy in the sense that it
intends to tie in the various dimensions of its cooperation with its neighbours.
But in practice, this ambition is seriously belittled as soon as political questions
are touched on. For the same question arises once again: what benefits do
authoritarian political regimes derive from complying with the rules of good
governance and democracy if the incentives to change are weak? Incentives can
be understood either as the possible sanctions the European Union would apply
to recalcitrant countries, or on the contrary the rewards it would offer in
exchange for compliance with these norms. In view of the results obtained so
far, ENP achievements are modest.
To realise this, it is methodologically interesting to compare three European
instruments: the 2004 Strategy Paper, the Country Reports and the ENP Actions
Plans. The Strategy Paper defines a general framework of the ENP, the Country
Reports its specific application, the Action Plans their implementation by both
parties.25 In these three documents, the common policy reference point is that of
shared values. The 2004 Strategy Paper claims to link the level of ambition of
relations with its neighbours ‘to the extent to which those values are effectively
shared’ (European Strategy Paper 2004: 3). But this principle is ignored in prac-
tice since the ENP does not constitute a new legal instrument able to enforce
commitments taken in a framework of partnership or association agreements.
Moreover, the Commission seems to interpret article 2 (pertaining to respect for
human rights) of these agreements in the Euro-Mediterranean framework in a
very minimalist sense (Pace 2006). Lastly, the financial instruments Europe has
available with respect to the Mediterranean countries, such as the MEDA pro-
gramme, make very little reference to respect for human rights (Emerson and
Noutcheva 2005: 6).
One first notes that no Country Report or Action Plan has been drafted for four
countries integrated into the ENP. These countries are Belarus, Algeria, Libya and
Syria. Although the absence of Belarus can be explained by this country’s very
slim political achievements, explicitly acknowledged by the EU, the other three
cases are different. These are sensitive countries with which the EU and its
member states have important political or economic relations but with respect to
which it hesitates to take a confrontational position, particularly as regards demo-
cracy and human rights. The lack of an Action Plan with these countries thus
reflects either the European preference for stability of these three regimes, where
Islamism represents a threat, or the lack of a basis for agreement between the
Union and these countries, or possibly both. Even in countries that have managed
to reach an agreement with the Union about Action Plans, there is a total lack of
EU discussion with local NGOs dealing with human rights issues.26
Structurally, the ENP seems extremely poorly equipped to come to the aid of
civil society NGOs (Raik 2006). Although it may deny this, Europe actually
practices a very classic double standard. In human rights matters, the EU is
much more intrusive with European countries such as Moldavia or Ukraine, that
are likely to join someday in the future, than with Arab countries (Bosse 2007:
49).27 Moreover, even when critiques are directed at the same Arab countries in
18 Z. Laïdi
the Country Reports, which engage the EU alone, they tend to disappear in the
Action Plans drafted in conjunction with the local governments. The Action Plan
with Egypt for instance states that the two parties pledge to ‘strengthen the
culture of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in Egypt and the
EU’. This is a very vague commitment, but it has a powerful political meaning,
for the Egyptians in any case. The commitment to strengthen ‘the culture of
respect for human rights’ is perfectly acceptable, for who could claim that it has
no improvements to be made in this regard? It is all the more acceptable since it
is followed by the phrase ‘in Egypt and in the EU’, which for the Egyptians
means that even the Europeans could improve their human rights record.
As we can see, the normative nature of the European power raises many more
questions than one might have thought. And if these issues are worth examining
in order to understand Europe in the world, such analysis, in order to make
sense, must now make reference to questions of reception. The next step is an
in-depth reflection on the theory of reception in international relations which,
applied to Europe, would enable us to consider it as a living, complex and
contradictory actor, and not as an idealised actor whose preference for norms is
seen as a guarantee of its good faith and disinterestedness.

Notes
1 The volume of intra-European exchanges has passed from 30 per cent to 20 per cent
of the world exchanges in less than ten years. The exportations of the EU towards
Switzerland are still more important than the exportations towards China.
2 It is estimated that for the year 2030, one and a half billion more people will be on the
global job market (European Commission July 2006b). The differential between
Chinese and European salary is one to 30, even if this gap must be revised by the pro-
ductivity differential.
3 According to liberal theory of international relations, it is not possible to understand
international collective action without understanding societal foundations of state
actors.
4 His successor, Peter Mandelson, does not seem to have the same concern. His vision
of world economic relationships is based on a very realist vision that privileges the
expansion of European economic interests despite of the interests of the emerging
countries.
5 At the economic level, the EU has several instruments of coercion such as the recog-
nition of the status of market economy, which it refuses to give to China, for instance,
in order to be able to use anti-dumping measures against her. The EU also disposes of
a power of extra-territoriality concerning the fusion of big firms when in dominant
positions.
6 There are two negative effects for India: a ‘terms of the exchange’ effect which
derives from the fact that when the opening concerns a country more protected than
its partner, it is the partner that takes advantage from it. A ‘diversion effect’ which
derives from the fact that exchanges with Europe would generate disadvantages for
other regions (interview with a Brussels-based economist).
7 ‘The EU will use its considerable influence to bring more nations behind an ambitious
sustainable development agenda. It will also use its own instruments such as trade and
cooperation agreements to drive change’ (Commission of the EU).
8 This is a negative result for the EU since it is in retreat according to the WTO legisla-
 European preferences and their reception 19
tion, which takes into account all the environmental agreements and not only the ones
ratified by the member states of the WTO.
9 Interview with a member of EU delegation.
10 It would seem that the regulatory obstacles to European commercial exchanges have a
worst impact over developing countries than over the other OECD countries.
11 The EU attitude is ambiguous, since it gives as examples of sanctioned countries
Belarus and Myanmar and at the same time it declares that EU ‘refuses the idea of
negative sanctions’.
12 ‘The United States are defining a crucial change of strategy for the XXIst century,
which articulates on a trio composed by United States, China and India’ (Le Figaro
31 May 2007).
13 Significantly, the Indian report drafted in response to the EU document ‘An EU-India
strategic partnership’ writes that this partnership expresses ‘a level of relationship
higher than that maintained by either side with non strategic partners, and immune
from the vicissitudes of either side’s relationship with a third party’. The meaning of
the message is clear: we are not a partner like all the others.
14 I refer to the oral interventions of the Indian colleagues at the conference ‘Are Euro-
pean Preferences Shared by Others?’, Paris, CERI/Centre d’études européennes de
Sciences Po, June 2006.
15 It is for instance revealing to note that the Netherlands, in discussions about a simpli-
fied treaty, have requested that the Copenhagen Criteria be incorporated into the
treaties.
16 ‘The rewards of membership were so substantial that eventually all plausible candid-
ates in the region come around to electing a pro-EU government and get to work on
fulfilling the membership requirements’ (Vachudova 2001).
17 ‘A state adopts EU rules if the benefits of EU rewards exceed the domestic adoption
costs’ (Schimmellfennig and Sedelmeier 2004: 664).
18 ‘We do not accept any substitute for European policy like the one proposed by the
concept of Europe Neighbourhood Policy’, Ukrainian ambassador’s statement before
the Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, 15 February 2007
19 Cf. the Algerian ambassador’s remarks to the EU: ‘The most important market liberty
for Algeria, the free circulation of people, has been withdrawn from the EU’s offer
and cannot be found in the Action Plan’ in The Greening of the European Neighbour-
hood Policy. Online, available at: assets.panda.org/downloads/enpandtheenviron-
ment.pdf.
20 The 13 March 2003 document was entitled Wider Europe: Neighbourhood: A New
Framework for Relations with Our Eastern and Southern Neighbours. A year later,
Wider Europe vanished behind the European Neighbourhood Policy in the Strategy
Paper. The Strategy Paper talks about offering a different perspective from member-
ship, whereas the 2003 edition confines itself to saying this new policy ‘would not in
the mid term include a perspective of membership’, p. 5.
21 ‘For European ENP partners, the ENP does not in any way prejudge the possible
future development of their relationship with the EU’, Strategy Paper. European
Neighbourhood Policy. 2004, p. 13. Online, available at: ec.europa.eu/world/
enp/pdf/com06_726_en.pdf.
22 Arnold Wolfers contrasts milieu goals and possession goals:
Milieu goals are out not to defend or increase possessions they hold to the exclu-
sion of others, but aim instead at shaping conditions beyond their national bound-
aries . . . It is one thing to be in good physical of financial condition within an
orderly and prosperous community, but quite another thing to be privileged by the
wealth of one’s possessions in surroundings of misery, ill health, lack of public
order and widespread resentment.
(Wolfers 1962)
20 Z. Laïdi
23 European Neighbourhood Policy, Strategy Paper, op. cit.
24 Often European discourse on reciprocity is belied by European practices. For
instance, certain agreements mention mutual recognition of rules and standards but in
practice the European Union expects its partners to conform to European standards
(Woolcock 2007: 8).
25 But the essential point is that the Country Reports come out of the Commission alone,
whereas the Action Plans express an agreement between the Commission and the
partner countries. Pinpointing the differences between the two documents is thus a
means of measuring the gaps between European expectations and what the Union can
really wrest from the countries involved in the ENP.
26 ‘It is unfortunate that the actions plans agreed between the EU are negotiated behind
closed doors without consultation of NGO’s, especially those involved in the question
of human rights’, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network. Available at:
ec.europe.eu/world/enp/pdf/com06_726_en.pdf.
27 This hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that the Action Plans for countries like
Ukraine are, from the standpoint of political conditionality, very close to the Acces-
sion Partnerships signed with the applicant countries (Baracani 2006). The Commis-
sion has already admitted as much in a document put out in 2006 on the ENP, that
indicates ‘Moldova and Ukraine have already undertaken more substantial commit-
ments in the human rights and governance field than have other ENP partners’ (Com-
mission Staff Working Document. Accompanying the Communication from the
Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on Strengthening the ENP
2006: 2).
Part I

Norms and preferences

History and principles
2 The normative power of the
European Union in a globalised
world
Ian Manners

EU partnership and dialogue with third countries will promote common values
of: respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms, peace, democracy, good
governance, gender equality, the rule of law, solidarity and justice. The EU is
strongly committed to effective multilateralism whereby all the world’s nations
share responsibility for development.
(European Consensus on Development 1996)

To what extent is the European Union (EU) a normative power with the ability to
define what passes for ‘normal’ in a globalised world? As the statement from the
European Consensus on Development illustrates, in the post-Cold War era the
EU has increasingly claimed that its relations with the rest of the world are
informed by the normative principles of peace, freedom, democracy, human
rights, rule of law, equality, social solidarity, sustainable development and good
governance (see also the Treaty of Lisbon 2007: articles 1a and 10a). Assessing
the extent to which the EU is willing and able to act as a normative power in just
one chapter is an almost impossible task because of its polycentric polity and
policy breadth, as well as the increasingly transnational nature of the globalised
world in which the EU is trying to act. In order to overcome these problems and
address the volume’s aim of analysing the EU’s social preferences and normative
power, the chapter will look at just three areas of social preferences, each with a
case study in the practice of normative power. Hence the cases of EU develop-
ment aid, EU promotion of core labour standards (CLS), and EU crisis manage-
ment will be the focus of this chapter. In each case study I shall first engage with
secondary scholarship that seeks to analyse the chosen policy field in relation to
EU normative power. Second, I shall try to assess from a more empirical
perspective the extent to which the EU is acting as a normative power in each
case study. The empirical aspect is particularly difficult because of the mixture of
normative ethics that shape the EU’s relations with the globalised world, includ-
ing virtue, deontological and consequentialist normative ethics.
The chapter looks first at European preferences for economic solidarity
through an examination of the EU’s normative principle of solidarity in develop-
ment policy. Second, the chapter turns to European preferences for social
24 I. Manners
solidarity by analysing the EU’s normative principle of equality in the promo-
tion of core labour standards. Third, European preferences for sustainable peace
and the role of the EU crisis management operations will be looked at. Finally,
the chapter will briefly conclude by arguing that a norms-based international
system will only be achieved through normative power that persuades others of
the universality of such norms.

European economic preferences – economic solidarity

European economic preferences are often characterised by a belief in a social
market economy typified by income redistribution, government intervention and
stakeholder capitalism (Stjernø 2005). On the basis of empirical observation,
European economic preferences are for more economic solidarity in comparison
to most of the world. As previous comparisons have illustrated, over the past
three decades average levels of EU inequality have remained significantly lower
than most of the world, in particular China, Russia and the US. Clearly there are
divergences within Europe for this preference, with relatively higher inequality
found in the UK and Italy compared to Denmark, Sweden, the Czech Republic
and Slovakia. In comparison to most of the world, European preferences for eco-
nomic equality are broadly shared with developed countries such as Japan and
Canada, as well as developing countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh. A
number of economists have recently pointed out that this discrepancy between
Europe and Japan compared to the US and China is largely due to the income
growth of the super-rich – the top 1 per cent (Piketty and Saez 2006; The Econo-
mist 2006). For example, Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon argue that US
median real wage and salary income has barely grown at all since 1966 (Dew-
Becker and Gordon 2005). Such comparative data on inequality and relative
poverty indicates that EU members share a relative preference for economic
solidarity, particularly in comparison to China, the US and Russia.

The normative principle of solidarity in development policy

The normative principle of solidarity is based on a commitment to promote a
more social economy, social partnership and social justice within the EU, and in
relations with the developing world. Alongside the principles of democracy, rule
of law and respect for human rights, social solidarity has been emphasised in the
1973 Copenhagen Declaration, 1986 Foreign Ministers Declaration, 1991
Council Resolution, 2000 Charter of Fundamental Rights of the Union, and the
Treaty of Lisbon. The Charter of Fundamental Rights makes these principles
explicit with its Title IV on solidarity, including workers’ rights, family, health
and social security rights.
The particular EU interpretation of this normative principle is solidarity. The
extensive understanding of solidarity became clear as the objectives of article 2
of the Treaty of Lisbon referred to ‘balanced economic growth, [and] a social
market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress’, combating
 The normative power of the EU 25
‘social exclusion’, as well as promoting ‘social justice and protection’, inter-
generational solidarity, and social solidarity among (and between) member
states. The principle of solidarity goes beyond inner-EU relations to inform and
shape EU development and trade policies as article 2 also illustrates when it
refers to the Union’s contribution to ‘solidarity and mutual respect among
peoples, free and fair trade, eradication of poverty’.
But to what extent do these economic preferences and normative principles
within the EU translate into relations and policies with the developing world? As
suggested at the beginning of the chapter, this is extremely difficult to evaluate
as EU development policy largely consists of 15 EU members and the EC Com-
mission working through the OECD DAC (Organisation for Economic Coopera-
tion and Development – Development Assistance Committee). Similarly, the EU
is not the only actor in the field of development assistance, with a wide variety
of state, international and non-governmental organisations active. Finally, there
is the highly charged question of whether trade (i.e. freer market access), aid
(i.e. greater financial aid), or good governance (i.e. better instruments of govern-
ment) is the best way to promote development.
A number of scholars have examined EU development policy in relation to
EU normative power, including issues such as the Economic Partnership
Agreements (EPA) in the 2000 Cotonou Agreement; the 2001 ‘Everything but
Arms’ (EBA) initiative; the 2002 Monterrey process; and the European Com-
mission’s idea of a development ‘policy of solidarity’. In a critical review of
EU development policy, Andy Storey makes the point that ‘there may be some
reality in the idea that Normative Power Europe is in action in the EPA negotia-
tions’, but that the EU promotion of good governance is too narrowly focused
on liberal democracy and market economies which ‘may not correspond to the
developmental needs of African economies’ (Storey 2006: 343). In other
words, Storey suggests that the EU is a normative power, but that in develop-
ment policy it has a preference for promoting norms of freedom and good gov-
ernance at the expense of social solidarity. Peter Hilpold has argued the
importance of the principle of good governance in the Cotonou Agreement for
promoting human rights and democracy through a preference for positive meas-
ures and a recoupling of developmental assistance with its normative founda-
tions (Hilpold 2002: 66–7, 71).
In his studies of the EBA initiative and the Monterrey process, Jan Orbie
argues that ‘EU trade policy discourse . . . shows a normative bias towards the
achievement of [goals such as] sustainable development and global rules’ (Orbie
2004: 4). He suggests that EBA trade policy ‘may well be an important EU
instrument for achieving the . . . goal of development of the South’ (ibid.). Orbie
discusses the way in which EU self-perceptions ‘as a leading and benevolent
actor played a role in the EU decisions towards Monterrey [including] a remark-
able shift towards more integration in European development policy’ (Orbie
2003: 1). Orbie shares Storey’s concerns for the (neo)liberal promotion of multi-
lateralism and the extent to which the EU is unable or unwilling to resist US
hegemony (Orbie 2003: 26; 2004: 415).
26 I. Manners
The movement from the Lomé Convention’s emphasis on privileged partner-
ship to the Cotonou Agreement’s focus on conditionality, differentiation and
regionalisation has been criticised by Storey, Orbie and others. The Lomé and
the ACP relationship prior to 2000 was motivated by the desire to promote
social solidarity and discourse ethics through unconditional and undifferentiated
aid and dialogue while being selective in excluding developing societies in the
rest of the world. In the post-Cold War world such ‘paternalistic, neo-colonial
attitudes undermined the principle of equality’ (Lethinen 1997 in Bonaglia et al.
2006: 172) and were criticised for ‘the poor results of EU development coopera-
tion’ (Arts and Dickson 2004: 2). Since 1990, the EU’s development policy has
increasingly moved in a less privileging but more holistic direction, placing an
emphasis on conditional and differentiated aid encouraging regionalisation,
together with greater overall funding. This changed direction is motivated by the
aim of promoting more holistic normative principles (such as good governance,
human rights, democracy and rule of law) reflecting a greater emphasis on the
results-orientated consequentialist ethics increasingly witnessed in the Millen-
nium Development Goals (MDGs) which question the centrality of the Commis-
sion’s policy of solidarity.

Empirical perspectives on development aid

It is difficult to confirm or deny conclusively the normative practices and con-
sequences of rapidly evolving EU development aid for the reasons discussed in
the introduction. However, it is possible to provide a few empirical perspectives
on the EU’s development aid policies. It is unquestionably the case that the
majority of the world’s poor have seen their quality of life improve dramatically
over the past 30 years, largely because of the rising levels of development in
China and India (UN HDR 2006), but little of this is due to the development aid
policies of the OECD DAC members. While the world’s least developed coun-
tries of Africa have also seen some improvements over the past 30 years, a
significant number (Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo,
Zambia, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Lesotho) have seen decreases in
human development in the same period (UN HDR 2006: 290–1).
In comparison, average EU development assistance has recently (2005)
returned to 1990 levels of about 0.4 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI),
just over half the UN target of 0.7 per cent GNI but amongst the highest in the
world (UN HDR 2006: 343; OECD 2006). There are concerns within the OECD
that such exceptional development aid during 2005–6 is the result of one-off
debt cancellation by the Paris Club, in particular for Iraq and Nigeria (OECD
2006: 15). Bilateral aid, excluding exceptional debt cancellation, has also risen
over the past few years, although largely accounted for by large increases to Iraq
and Afghanistan (ibid.). The 1996 IMF/World Bank Heavily Indebted Poor
Countries (HIPC) initiative and the 2005 G-8 Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative
(MDRI) appear to have helped those countries that have reached completion
point criteria, although this is still uneven. However, it is more the case that pre-
 The normative power of the EU 27
viously high-debt countries such as Nigeria, Mexico, Brazil, Russia and Indone-
sia have managed to reduce their foreign debt through a combination of high
commodity prices (in particular oil) and debt forgiveness. Within the EU there
appears to be a division between those countries that count debt relief as devel-
opment aid led by the UK, with other G-8 members making dubious claims, and
those that have publicly argued against the practice such as the Netherlands and
non-EU Norway.
Similarly, the large increases in EU member state bilateral aid to Iraq and
Afghanistan appears to be driven by security concerns rather than the needs of
developmental assistance. Ngaire Woods, Jörg Faust and Dirk Messner, amongst
others, have raised concerns about allowing security issues to drive development
policies in the EU (Woods 2005; Faust and Messner 2005). Interestingly, the
EuropeAid Annual Report 2005 illustrates the way in which normative concerns
within the European Commission still place human security at the centre of
development aid, as Benito Ferrero-Waldner argues, ‘promoting human security
is central to our approach. We must respond to the full range of threats afflicting
the most vulnerable in societies across the world – hunger, deadly diseases,
environmental degradation and physical insecurity’ (European Commission
2005a). However, the OECD Development Cooperation Report 2006 suggests
that while debt forgiveness and bilateral aid to Iraq and Afghanistan have made
up most of the jump in development aid since 2003, there is a slight rise in
underlying official development assistance (ODA) (OECD 2006: 15).
In conclusion it is suggested that the changing foci of EU development aid,
away from old patterns towards the agenda of debt relief and goal-driven
poverty reduction have provoked concerned responses from interested stake-
holders. It has also been suggested that the now dense multilateral agenda of EU
development aid, including the Millennium Development Goals, the Rio and
Johannesburg sustainable development goals, the post-11 September security
concerns, the Doha development agenda, the Monterrey Consensus and the Paris
Declaration on Aid Effectiveness increasingly makes polycentric development
policy difficult, if not impossible (Manners 2007). On the positive side, if EU
aid donors live up to the pledges made by the G-8 in Gleneagles in 2005 to
increase aid by C38 billion by 2010, then the EU would be well on its way to
hitting the UN’s 0.7 per cent GNI target. OECD estimates based on 2005
pledges indicate EU commitments to moving from the 0.4 per cent GNI of 2005
to 0.6 per cent GNI by 2010 (OECD 2006). In addition, the increasing participa-
tion and contribution of emerging donors such as Spain, Ireland, Greece and
Portugal, as well as nine new EU members, might increase EU-donated develop-
ment aid from C42 billion in 2005 to possibly C63 billion by 2010 (which
would represent 64 per cent of all OECD DAC aid).
On the negative side, most commentators suggest that it would be extremely
difficult for EU member states to double their aid contributions in just five years
and so far no concrete plans for doing so have been announced. The reality is
increasingly that three differing degrees of commitment to the normative prin-
ciple of solidarity in development aid appear to have emerged within the EU.
28 I. Manners
First, there is the group of DAC members who have hit the UN target of giving
more than 0.7 per cent GNI and do not claim large debt cancellations as aid –
Sweden, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Denmark. There is a second group
of DAC members who are above the EU average of 0.4 per cent GNI but some
of which appear to claim debt cancellations as aid – Belgium, Austria, France,
the UK, Finland and Ireland. Finally, there is a third group of DAC members
who are below the EU average of 0.4 per cent GNI, including Germany, Italy
and emerging donors Spain, Portugal and Greece, as well as Japan and the US.
In addition, there is the potential problem of industrialising states such as China
using Western-style strategic loans and FDI to secure oil and raw materials in
developing countries, particularly if these same target states have just experi-
enced debt relief.
Despite these positive and negative aspects, even the average levels of 0.4 per
cent GNI for DAC EU donors compare favourably with the OECD average of
0.33 per cent GNI, as well as with the Japanese and US levels below 0.3 per cent
GNI. Second, while there are clearly differences between groups of EU
members, the best practices of the leading group, together with the role of
Brussels-based NGOs (such as the 51 NGOs in Eurodad, the European Network
on Debt and Development) and activist movements such as Jubilee 2000 Drop
the Debt, Make Poverty History, DATA One campaign and Product Red, can
and do shape policy in the EU, albeit slowly. At the nexus of the EU member
states, NGOs and activists is the European Commission which appears more
responsive to concerns such as commitment to the MDGs, the aid effectiveness
agenda, and trying to promote policy coherence between the 15 DAC members
and among the EU’s multitude of policies (Eurodad Briefing 2007; European
Commission 2007b).

Normative social preferences – ‘social solidarity’

European social preferences are regularly characterised by a belief in a social
model encompassing social legislation, social welfare and social infrastructure
investment (Michalski 2006; Manners 2006a: 23–4). At the international level a
question arises as to the extent to which other parts of the world share such
normative preferences for a more socially sustainable model than extreme neo-
liberalism seems to support. Looking at comparative empirical data, European
social preferences are for more social solidarity in comparison to most of the
world. As previous comparisons illustrate, public social expenditure data from
1990 and 2001 give an indication of much stronger European preferences for
social welfare in contrast to other parts of the world. EU governments have the
largest social support systems in the developed (OECD) world, alongside
Switzerland, Norway and Iceland. There are obvious divergences within Europe
on this preference, with relatively low public social expenditure in Ireland and
Slovakia compared to Sweden and Denmark. In comparison to the OECD world,
average EU social expenditure is not really shared with other countries, with
New Zealand, Australia and Canada the closest on social welfare. What is
 The normative power of the EU 29
equally interesting is the extent to which average public social expenditure has
increased in the EU during the 1990s, alongside Switzerland, Turkey and Japan.
These figures appear to give some indication of the inroads which neo-liberalism
has made in societies such as the Netherlands and New Zealand. Comparative
data on social, education, and health expenditure indicates that EU members
share a relative preference for social solidarity, particularly in comparison to the
non-European world (Manners 2006a: 23–4).

The normative principle of equality in core labour standards

The normative principle of equality is based on a commitment to the legal prohi-
bition of discrimination together with proactive policies to promote equality,
both within the EU and in relations with the rest of the world. Within the EU
equality has become one of the most promoted constitutive principles discussed
here, moving from a relatively narrow focus on preventing discrimination based
on nationality to the far broader and prominent value of equality in article 1a of
the Treaty of Lisbon. In the 1990s, the focus of equality expanded beyond
nationality to include equality between men and women (TEC article 2), protec-
tion of minorities (Copenhagen Criteria), and ‘action to combat discrimination
based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual
orientation’ (TEC article 13).
The particular EU interpretation of this normative principle is a more inclu-
sive, open-ended and uninhibited understanding of which groups are particularly
subject to discrimination. Hence, the Treaty of Lisbon included references to the
prohibition of discrimination ‘based on any ground such as sex, race, colour,
ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or
any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability,
age or sexual orientation’ in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the Union
(emphasis added). One weakness with the implementation of this principle is the
extent to which discrimination based on nationality is still widespread in a
majority of member states. This is particularly true of employment practices in
consensual societies that promote homosociality.
Of particular interest here is the question of whether these social preferences
and normative principles within the EU are promoted in international institutions
to deal with issues such as human rights, as well as discrimination against
indigenous and minority groups. Given the competition between trade, develop-
ment and human rights promotion within the EU, as well as the resistant agendas
of other states and international organisations, this is an extremely difficult ques-
tion to answer. In the case of core labour standards (CLS), the EU has no treaty-
based competence to promote these, nor can it easily do so as a member of the
World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Very few scholars have looked at the EU’s promotion of core labour stand-
ards, although these are closely associated with the EU’s normative power.
Most writers argue that while CLS are higher in the EU than, for example, the
US, it lacks the legal competence in this area due to continued application of
30 I. Manners
subsidiarity by its member states (Block et al. 2003: 464; Novitz 2003: 170).
Some have gone further to argue that CLS should not be internationalised or
brought under the WTO, particularly as most developing countries see them as
a form of protectionism (Rollo and Winters 2000: 562; Novitz 2003: 167;
Bretherton and Vogler 2006: 86). In contrast to this body of work is the argu-
ment by Jan Orbie, that while ‘the rise of the normative power Europe [NPE]
argument with academics and policy-makers should at least be considered an
important political and social fact . . . The NPE hypothesis cannot be confirmed’
(Orbie 2006: 3 and 26).
Certainly EU member states can be criticised for not allowing CLS compe-
tence to be developed within the EU, despite leading the world in setting CLS –
‘there does seem to be a consensus within the Union that the right to strike is a
“core labour standard” and a “fundamental right” . . . In this sense, the EU acts as
an external enforcer of labour standards, even if it refuses to legislate on these
internally’ (Novitz 2003: 149). Marise Cremona argues that ‘the most distinctive
contribution made by the EU is . . . in promoting “just processes of governance at
all levels” which are informed by the principles of inclusiveness, transparency
and participation’ (Cremona 2004: 557–8). Sophie Meunier and Kalypso Nico-
laïdis suggest that partly by design, partly by necessity, the EU entertains a very
different relationship to power [seeing] itself as . . . a normative power, apt at
using non-military tools to achieve its goals in the rest of the world . . . Increas-
ingly, it uses market access as a bargaining power to obtain changes in the
domestic arena of its trading partners, from labour standards to development
policies’ (Meunier and Nicolaïdis 2005: 248 and 266). Bretherton and Vogler
see the promotion of CLS ‘as a counterpart to these liberalising moves [‘Singa-
pore issues’], EU policy at the WTO has also reflected a concern with labour
standards and the links between trade and environmental degradation’ (Brether-
ton and Vogler 2006: 85–6). In making clear his argument that the EU promotes
‘regulatory capitalism’, Adrian van den Hoven states that ‘the EU market is far
more “regulated” than “liberal”, in the classic sense of non-intervention. This
spillover of EU regulatory approach to capitalism on to the multi-lateral trading
system could fundamentally alter its functioning’ (van den Hoven 2006: 187–8).
Ultimately, as Novitz reasons, ‘the EC seems to have taken matters into its own
hands . . . constituting an exception under the GATT’ introducing social condi-
tionality, and ‘acting unilaterally to protect core labour standards, including
freedom of association’ (Novitz 2003: 168).

Empirical perspectives on core labour standards

The normative practices and consequences of very recent EU attempts to
promote core labour standards are particularly difficult to confirm or deny con-
clusively because of the extremely short timescale. However, while the ‘GSP+’
scheme for the promotion of CLS was only announced in June 2005, there is
some empirical evidence of previous activity by the EU going back ten years
earlier. As mentioned in the introduction, it is a little difficult to disaggregate the
 The normative power of the EU 31
extent to which implementation of CLS are the result of ILO, EU or the activism
of other national or transnational actors.
However, recent work by the ILO, Tonia Novitz, Ailish Johnson, and in
particular Lisa Tortell and Jan Orbie, provides some empirical verification of the
EU’s activism in promoting CLS. Tortell and Orbie suggest that there has been
some congruence of ILO standards and EU CLS promotion over the past ten
years. In particular they analyse the GSP+ additional tariff reductions granted by
the EU to Sri Lanka and Moldova in 2003, and to Bolivia, Colombia, Costa
Rica, Ecuador, Georgia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Panama,
Peru, El Salvador and Venezuela in 2005 (see Council of Ministers 2005a and
European Commission 2005b). They identify the way in which the ILO and the
EU have become more consistent in applying EU GSP sanctions and instigating
ILO Commissions of Inquiry in only two cases since 1990 – Burma and Belarus.
By comparing the cases of Burma 1996–7 with Belarus 2003–7, Tortell and
Orbie suggest that ILO concerns have become increasingly important in EU
practices and policy-making, with recent evidence of cooperation, conditioned
by some inconsistencies.
Empirical evidence seems to suggest that the EU GSP+ incentives scheme
has played a role in encouraging Bolivia (ILO 29), Colombia (ILO 182), Costa
Rica (ILO 182), Mongolia (ILO 29 and 105), El Salvador (ILO 87 and 98) and
Venezuela (ILO 182) to ratify the CLS in 2005 and 2006 (ILOLEX 2006; Euro-
pean Parliament 2006). A number of critics, including Tortell and Orbie, have
suggested that the question of effective implementation of ILO conventions is
often overlooked by the EU, as in the case of El Salvador (European Parliament
2006). Similar concerns have been raised about the GSP+ preferences and their
beneficiaries, particularly by the WTO. As discussed in the previous section, it is
undoubtedly the case that the EU is isolated on the promotion of CLS in the
WTO and its Doha agenda, but in contrast it is increasingly working in coopera-
tion with the ILO (Council of Ministers 2003; Lamy 2003; Mandelson 2006;
ILO 2006).
In conclusion it can be suggested that since the 1995 Copenhagen World
Summit for Social Development and the 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental
Principles and Rights at Work, the EU has increasingly promoted the ILO’s
‘decent work’ agenda through membership, accession, the European Neighbour-
hood Policy and the GSP+ scheme (see European Commission 1994, 1995,
2000).

Normative conflict preferences – ‘sustainable peace’

European preferences for resolving conflict can be described as a commitment to
a more ‘sustainable peace’ – resolving both the structural causes and violent
symptoms of conflict. As discussed above, the above-average levels of OECD
DAC development assistance disbursed by EU member states is just one part of
addressing the structural causes of conflict. It is worth noting that preferences
for sustainable peace reach beyond development assistance and peacekeeping to
32 I. Manners
include global institution-building in areas such as human security and the right
to protect (R2P); landmine, small arms and conflict diamonds conventions, and
the International Criminal Court. This chapter will focus on just one of these
many examples of sustainable peace – the role of the EU in crisis management.

The normative principle of sustainable peace in crisis management

The prime EU normative principle of sustainable peace is to be found through-
out the history of European integration. Robert Schuman’s opening words on 9
May 1950 provided the historical raison d’être for European integration;
‘world peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts
proportionate to the dangers which threaten it’. Reiterated again in the pream-
bles of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the Treaty establish-
ing the European Community (TEC), and the Treaty on European Union,
article 2 of the Treaty of Lisbon was to establish peace as the EU’s primary
objective: ‘1. The Union’s aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-
being of its peoples’.
As discussed above, the particular EU interpretation of this normative prin-
ciple is sustainable peace (see Manners 2006b). As discussed under EU con-
flict preferences above, the EU approach to conflict prevention emphasises
addressing the roots or causes of conflict, mirroring the European experience
of ensuring that war ‘becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially imposs-
ible’. The EU policy emphasis is placed on development aid, trade, interre-
gional cooperation, political dialogue and enlargement as part of a more
holistic approach to conflict prevention. However, the EU’s growing civil and
military operational capacity also has a sustainable peace mission with its
focus on ‘peace-keeping, conflict prevention and strengthening international
security in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter’
(article 10a, Treaty of Lisbon).
The question arises over where the balance of emphasis is to be found
between addressing the causes of conflict in a peaceful way, and the ability to
use force in peacekeeping and genocidal situations. Similarly, there is the asso-
ciated question of whether this is best done through international cooperation,
regional peacekeeping operations, or a UN-authorised force. In addressing these
questions of the balance between conflict prevention and conflict management, a
number of scholars have looked at the EU in the context of the exercise of norm-
ative power. Annika Björkdahl and Ana Juncos have both emphasised the norm-
ative power of the EU in southeastern Europe, where there is an ‘asymmetrical
relationship between the EU as a norm-maker and Macedonia as a potential
norm-taker’ and arguing that ‘a parallel process has taken place in the last
decade facilitating the (re)integration of [Bosnia] in the European mainstream
and the (re)invention of the EU as a regional normative power’ (Björkdahl 2005:
277–8; Juncos 2005: 89). Sonia Lucarelli and Roberto Menotti suggest that such
normative power currently excludes certain forms of coercive actions, such as
punishment and ‘pre-emption’, but must be seen as part of a distinctive political
 The normative power of the EU 33
dynamic that is leading towards a greater acceptance of a wider notion of inter-
vention in the EU (Lucarelli and Menotti 2006: 162–3). As Diez et al. illustrate
in the case of border conflicts, the EU is able to exercise normative power
through membership and association negotiations, which in some cases has led
to ‘a long-term socialisation of policymakers into European normative dis-
courses’ (Diez et al. 2006: 572–3 and 586–7).
The notion of the EU’s Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) representing a
cosmopolitan military force willing to promote human security is a common
representation of normative power (Terriff 2004; Matlary 2006; Liotta and Owen
2006). For the European Commission, human security means a concern for indi-
viduals, not states, and encompasses both freedom from fear (for example conflict
and human rights abuses) and freedom from want (for example poverty and
disease) (European Commission 2005a: 2; Ferrero-Waldner 2006: 103–7). Inter-
estingly, the origins of the 2003 European Security Strategy are informed by this
understanding of human security, in particular with its references to the ‘complex
causes’ of terrorism including ‘the pressures of modernisation, cultural, social and
political crises’ (Council of Ministers 2003: 3; Glasius and Kaldor 2004; Liotta
and Owen 2006: 97). Marlies Glasius and Mary Kaldor argue that:

there are different versions of the ‘peace project’ including the notion of
Europe as a new type of cosmopolitan polity, a ‘civil space’ or a ‘normative
power’. . . . What this means is that [member states] exercise their sover-
eignty through the multilateral institutions and they agree to constraints on
the use of force. . . . A human security strategy derives from this conception
of Europe.
(Glasius and Kaldor 2005: 79)

Empirical perspectives on crisis management

As discussed in the two previous case studies, the normative practices and con-
sequences of EU crisis management are difficult to confirm or deny, particularly
as such attempts may have considerable merit even if they fail. Following the
agreement at the June 1999 European Council meeting in Cologne, the EU has
been increasingly involved in crisis management and peacekeeping operations.
Since March 2003 the EU has launched 21 crisis management operations with
an emphasis on southeastern Europe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and
Palestine. In addition, and largely unnoticed, since May 2001 the EU supported
52 civilian crisis management operations using the Rapid Reaction Mechanism
(now Stability Instrument). The RRM supported missions have tended to be
much more widely spread, covering southeastern Europe, central and south
Asia, the Middle East, as well as west, central and east Africa. On top of the 21
crisis management operations under the Council’s ESDP and the 52 civilian
crisis management operations under the Commission’s RRM, are the hundreds
of humanitarian operations led by the Commission’s DG for Humanitarian Aid
(ECHO) since its creation in 1992.
34 I. Manners
It is this combination of ESDP, RRM and ECHO operations that is often
missed in attempts to empirically assess the EU’s crisis management activities.
To provide an empirical perspective on EU crisis management I will briefly look
at three examples of how ESDP, RRM and ECHO are involved in crisis man-
agement in three complex conflict situations – Aceh, Palestine and Darfur. EU
crisis management in Aceh began with the RRM being used by the Commission
in support of the agreement on cessation of hostilities between the Free Aceh
Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian Government in December 2002 (Euro-
pean Commission 2002). The Indian Ocean tsunami on the 26 December 2004
killed an estimated 170,000 people in Aceh and brought back together the GAM
separatists and the Indonesian Government. ECHO operations in Aceh involved
C3.5 million in December 2004 and C123 million by the second tsunami in
March 2005, with an emphasis on linking relief, rehabilitation and development
(ECHO 2005: 17; 2006: 8). The launching of three RRM activities during March
and April 2005 helped post-tsunami recovery in Aceh and sowed the seeds for
peace negotiations (European Commission 2005c, d, e). The signing of a memo-
randum of understanding in Helsinki between the GAM and the Indonesian
government in August 2005 led to the Commission’s RRM action on demobili-
sation and the Council’s joint action launching an Aceh Monitoring Mission
(AMM) in September 2005 (European Commission 2005f; Council of Ministers
2005b). The EU’s crisis management involvement in Aceh ended with the
deployment of a EU Election Observation Mission and the successful first-ever
direct local elections on 11 December 2006 (EU Election Observation Mission
2007a; International Crisis Group 2007a).
In contrast to the relatively straightforward success of the EU in Aceh, crisis
management in Palestine is part of a much longer-term commitment to addressing
one of the most difficult conflicts in the world (Soetendorp 2002; Aoun 2003). EU
crisis management in Palestine accelerated following the beginning of the al-Aqsa
Intifada in September 2000 and the launching of ECHO funding to address the
ensuing humanitarian crises (European Commission 2001: 26–7). By 2001 the EU
was providing C30 million to Palestinians to address the consequences of the
uprising, in particular healthcare, water supplies, food and shelter (ECHO 2002:
17). The March 2002 operation by the Israeli army in the West Bank targeted the
headquarters of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Jenin refugee camps,
prompting an expansion of ECHO annual humanitarian aid to C35 million to
provide for basic health and medical support for Palestinians in Jenin and Ramal-
lah, as well as a RRM to help rebuild the PA infrastructure in June 2002 (ECHO
2003: 16–17; European Commission 2002b). The continued consequences of con-
flict in Palestine worsened throughout 2003, exasperated by the building of an
illegal concrete barrier dividing communities, with an annual ECHO humanitarian
funding of C35 million (ECHO 2004: 17 and 26–7). The dire state of the Pales-
tinians and the complete collapse of the peace process led the EU to use the RRM
to support local civil society initiatives in October 2003 and March 2004, by
which time annual ECHO humanitarian aid was C37 million (European Commis-
sion 2003a,; 2004a; ECHO 2005: 18). Between the Israeli reoccupation of Gaza
 The normative power of the EU 35
and the West Bank in March 2002–August 2005 and the July–September 2006
Israeli–Lebanon conflict, the EU launched two ESDP civilian missions in Novem-
ber 2005 – an EU police mission to train Palestinian police (EUPOL COPPS) and
an EU border policing mission at Rafah (Council of Ministers 2005c, d). The com-
bined effects of the second Intifada, the Israeli military campaigns in Gaza, the
West Bank and Lebanon, and finally the election of a Hamas government in
January 2006 have considerably challenged EU crisis management. The February
2007 Mecca agreement between Fatah and Hamas to share power in Palestinian
government may provide the basis for more sustainable EU support for the PA, as
well as Israeli engagement, particularly as the EU is the largest provider of finance
for the PA and humanitarian support for Palestinian people.
In contrast to the direct involvement of the EU in crisis management in Aceh
and Palestine, the third example of Darfur illustrates how the EU can work
without direct contact. EU crisis management in Sudan from 1993 to 2003 had
largely taken place through an average of C20 million in annual ECHO support
for humanitarian operations such as ECHO Flights, the UN’s Operation Lifeline
Sudan and World Food Programme. However, all of the EU and UN operations
have been constantly compromised by insecurity caused by the long-running
second civil war between the Sudanese government in the north and the Sudan
People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the south which began in 1983
(ECHO 2000: 28; 2001: 19; 2002: 19; 2003: 19; International Crisis Group
2004). The Sudanese crisis worsened from February 2003 when conflict in
Darfur led to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis involving almost two million
displaced persons with EU humanitarian resources increased to C91 million
(ECHO 2004: 17). An African Union-brokered peace agreement between the
government and rebel forces in April 2004 was accompanied by the European
Commission’s use of the RRM to provide support for the peace process, includ-
ing C1.5 million support for the peace secretariat and the verification and moni-
toring team (European Commission 2004b). Despite the peace process, the more
complex conflict in Darfur worsened, leading the African Union to create the
African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) with AU and EU ceasefire monitors
deployed in July 2004 (ECHO 2005: 16). Throughout 2004 and 2005 the situ-
ation in Darfur led to international disputes over the extent to which the actions
of the government-backed ‘Janjaweed’ militia could be described as genocide,
while the UN tried unsuccessfully to deploy a major force of international
peacekeepers to support the smaller AU force (International Crisis Group 2006).
EU support for peacekeeping initiatives in Sudan and Darfur included a Council
joint action enabling an ESDP civilian mission (EU support for AMIS II) and
the appointment of special representative Pekka Haavisto in July 2005, as well
as using its 2004 Africa Peace Facility (APF) to fund these activities (Council of
Ministers 2005e; International Crisis Group 2005). A longer-lasting EU
approach to Darfur may be found in the November 2006 decisions to strengthen
support for AU crisis management capabilities through much closer cooperation
and more sustainable funding through the APF, as well as the 2007 Joint
EU–Africa Strategy (Council of Ministers 2006; ECDPM 2007).
36 I. Manners
In conclusion these three brief empirical examples of crisis management say
something interesting about the EU’s normative conflict preference for sustain-
able peace. First, it is noticeable that the EU is often engaging in crisis manage-
ment operations through ECHO and the RRM long before the headline-grabbing
conflicts break out. Second, the EU seems committed to attempting some sort of
crisis management even under difficult local and international conditions, as the
insecure situations and UN Security Council deadlocks in Palestine and Darfur
illustrate. Third, the EU institutions themselves seem to be learning rapidly from
their own experiences and trying to change their structures and practices to best
match need, despite the reluctance of member states and treaty reform to achieve
more practical means.

Conclusion: normative power and social preferences in a

globalised world
Throughout this chapter I have examined the extent to which the EU has norm-
ative power to define what passes for normal in a globalised world. As I stated at
the outset, assessing the normative power in terms of its normative principles,
actions and impact is an almost impossible task within such narrow confines.
However, I made a first attempt by briefly considering the secondary literature
and empirical evidence in three tentative case studies. In each case I looked at
EU normative power by considering the way in which social preferences shaped
empirical policies. It should be noted that this two-step approach to social pref-
erences and normative power is an interesting means of examining the EU, but it
tends to overlook and undervalue the most important element of normative
power – the question of the EU’s normative principles or what the EU is, rather
than does. I still consider this the greatest normative power of ‘contagion dif-
fusion’ or ‘living by example’, but have not addressed this here (Manners
2006c: 76–7).
As the chapter has explored, there is variation in social preferences for solid-
arity, core labour standards and crisis management which informs EU external
promotion. The mix of neutral, interventionist and more passive crisis manage-
ment preferences in the EU currently leads to greater divergence than the other
cases, as was seen in Aceh, Palestine and Darfur. The EU’s competence in all
the cases is low, with member states retaining control of most of development
aid, the internal enforcement of labour standards, control of crisis forces and the
signing of international treaties. For the EU, sustainable development and inter-
national rule of law are currently major normative principles and are promoted
accordingly. While social solidarity and equality unfortunately remain minor
normative principles, the strategies to promote them are changing rapidly and
may yet emerge as major principles. Understandably, the emerging area of crisis
management is still promoted in a minor way, largely because of the fairly
recent development of competence and need for greater commitment from
member states in order to overcome divergences. Finally, all three case studies
illustrated the difficulties the EU faces in trying to promote these normative
 The normative power of the EU 37
principles. In the cases of development policy and CLS, the EU and its member
states face resistance from partner countries who feel discriminated against and
are hostile to principles such as good governance, equality, human and social
rights. In the case of sustainable peace and crisis management the relatively new
emergence of competence, together with uncertainty over the merits of crisis and
peacekeeping missions, are some of the greatest problems, although the extent to
which the EU is the largest international funder of humanitarian and peace
efforts in Aceh, Palestine and Darfur is often overlooked.
In conclusion, the divergences of social preferences, discrepancies over com-
petence, and questions of promotion and implementation in all three case studies
suggest that the EU is a committed yet troubled normative power in the glob-
alised world. As repeated in numerous policy documents such as ‘The European
Consensus on Development’ or ‘The European Union and the United Nations:
The Choice of Multilateralism’ (European Commission 2003b) illustrate, the EU
appears committed to becoming and exercising normative power:

The EU should adopt a determined ‘front-runner’ approach to the negotia-

tion and implementation of important UN initiatives in the field of sustain-
able development, poverty reduction and international security, taking a
more proactive approach to the development of international instruments
and specific EU implementing actions.
(European Commission 2003b: 9)

Despite such commitments, as the case studies illustrate, the EU appears trou-
bled in achieving such ambitious goals of becoming a ‘front-runner’. Four
factors are at work in restricting the EU’s promotion of such goals. Most import-
ant is the question of time – in most cases it is simply too early to assess the
EU’s normative power. The diffusion of ideas in a normatively sustainable way
works like water on stone, not like napalm in the morning. Second is the
changed international climate of the Bush/Bin Laden world which makes the EU
promotion of a normatively acceptable norms-based international system
particularly difficult. Third is the increasing resistance of the ‘axis of ego’ to the
sharing of sovereignty in international law. By the ‘axis of ego’, I mean the
permanent members of the UN Security Council (here the US, Russia and
China) who consider themselves exceptional or superpowers, and above inter-
national norms and law (Manners 2007). Finally there is the argument that a
norms-based international system will only be achieved through normative
power that persuades others of the universality of such norms. It is only through
understanding and coming to terms with these four factors that an alignment of
social preferences, normative power and EU foreign policy will contribute in a
meaningful way to planetary politics.
3 The historicity of European
normative power
Karoline Postel-Vinay

It is generally acknowledged that, since the spring of 2005, the European Union
(EU) has entered a form of crisis. The nature and scope of it still need to be
defined. One could argue, at the very least, that the French and Dutch rejection
of the European constitutional treaty, closely followed by the failure of the June
2005 EU budget talks, signalled a return of Euro-pessimism. This trend will
probably redefine the landscape of EU studies – echoing the quake that struck
the integration theory field in the 1970s (Haas 1975) – even though the Euro-
pean integration process itself will go on. From the more general point of view
of International Relations (IR) analysis, this yet to-be-defined crisis highlights
the problem of defining Europe’s international identity as well as its actual
impact on world politics. From François Duchêne’s characterization of Europe
as a civilian power (Duchêne 1972) to Ian Manners’ concept of normative power
Europe (Manners 2002), there has been a growing consensus around the idea of
both the singularity and the novelty of Europe’s presence on the international
scene. The why and how of this presence have, however, constituted an object of
debate among EU scholars (Howse and Nicolaidis 2002; Diez 2005; Smith
2005; Telo 2005; Sjursen 2006). But as Thomas Diez has pointed out (Diez
2005), the discussion around the notion of normative power in itself, which
defines for the time being Europe’s special presence in world affairs, has been so
closely associated with the EU’s political trajectory that it tends to loose sight of
the larger, i.e. larger than Europe, meaning of this notion.
The notion of normative power as it has been defined within the framework
of the normative power Europe idea is indeed a coherent one – although not a
closed one, as the ontological debate around it illustrates – but this coherence
does appear intrinsically bounded by the contours of the European experience.
How does this normative power work in the larger world, and what is the
significance of the specific European legacy in this regard? What is the relation
between normative power Europe and normative power as it can be understood
through the IR literature, including, but not limited to, that on international
norms? Can we consider, as Emanuel Adler and Beverly Crawford do from the
perspective of regional security issues, that the normative power (Europe) idea
constitutes a model for the regulation of international relations (Adler and Craw-
ford 2004), or should we instead look at this idea as the product of a unique
 The historicity of European normative power 39
political system, as defined by Simon Hix (Hix 1999), which makes its global-
ization essentially problematic?
The purpose of this chapter is to approach this set of questions by underlining
the historicity of normative power in general and of Europe’s normative power
in particular. The relation between norms and power, as well as the constitution
of international normative power, are situated in time and space. Norms might
have a universal significance – such as the will to eradicate violence or the
respect for the environment – but that does not mean they are universally formu-
lated. Mankind shares the same yearning for political freedom, but it was in a
specific space – the Western world – at a specific time – the later part of the
twentieth century – that liberal democracy was elaborated as an international
norm. That specific space and time defined a transformation of the international
scene, which has been analysed as the expansion of international society (Bull
and Watson 1984), and which also corresponded to the climax of European
colonialism. Ultimately, the shape of the EU’s normative power, as much as
other forms of norm-conferring power, depend on the spatiotemporal configura-
tion of the world order. As this chapter sets out to demonstrate, the spatiotempo-
ral condition of the production of international norms has had a paradoxical
consequence for the European continent. This paradox appears in the ambiguous
identity relation between Europe and the EU. Pre-1945 Europe, as an aggrega-
tion of individual powers, was clearly a global norm-setter that created the first
worldwide international organizations and promoted and/or imposed norms
through those institutions as well as through the processes that established them.
European integration, and therefore the European Union, although defining itself
as a normative power rather than a power per se, has had a much more geopoliti-
cally limited influence in that regard. This has been due both to the post-1945
rise of American power, notably through the establishment of new international
organizations, and more recently to the emergence of non-Western counter-
powers in Asia and South America. Since the end of the Second World War,
Europe’s international influence has been de facto decentred and provincialized.
The EU, however, still tends to define its international identity in reference to an
a-temporal and a-territorial European being, a sort of Europe as such, which
indeed would be taken for granted under the pre-1945 world order, but is now
becoming increasingly less sustainable as a vehicle for normative power.

Time, space and normative power

The normative power debate in the field of EU studies usually refers, implicitly
or explicitly, to the notion of norm as defined by the IR literature on norms that
emerged in the 1990s (Nadelman 1990; Klotz 1995; Katzenstein 1996; Checkel
1997; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). The empirical discussion of both literatures
evolves around the core principle of justice, whether it is ethical, political or
social justice. Although there is still an open debate about the formation, consti-
tution and functioning of international norms, there is also, as Martha Finnemore
and Kathryn Sikkink remarked, a consensus on the definition of norm as ‘a
40 K. Postel-Vinay
standard of appropriate behaviour for actors with a given identity’ (Finnemore
and Sikkink 1998: 891). This appropriateness of behaviour is not a fixed given:
it evolves, according to the same authors, along with political change, producing
a norm cycle (ibid.). Indeed, what was deemed acceptable at a certain time, e.g.
slavery, is no longer so today. One could add that norm life cycle is also deter-
mined by place. International norms have overwhelmingly been produced within
a space that is self-defined as the West. The reason for that has of course less to
do with some improbable superior quality of Western values as such, than with
straightforward power politics.
International norms, as well as the normative power that convey them, are
neither a-temporal nor a-spatial. The early twentieth-century transformation of
the United States into an international actor that had both the power and the
ambition to produce and promote (sometimes impose) global norms happened
within a particular time–space framework. The emergence of American norm-
ative power in the global scene is usually equated with America’s falling into the
world (Stephanson 1995) at the outbreak of the Great War. In other words, the
US made its first appearance as a political actor of worldwide importance –
moving beyond the limits of the Monroe Doctrine-defined continental sphere – in
the shape of a normative power. Woodrow Wilson’s famous pledge of April 1917
to enter the conflict in order not to satisfy any territorial greed, in sharp contrast
with the European imperial powers of the time, but to make the world safe for
democracy, inaugurated a US foreign policy tradition of promulgating and insti-
tutionalizing American values at the global level. This tradition, it should be
noted, does not by itself represent the United States international identity but does
constitute one major dimension of what Walter Russell Mead described as the
kaleidoscope of American foreign policy (Mead 2001). That dimension, com-
monly called Wilsonianism, is time-defined because of the specific historical
moment it is rooted in, but it is also time–space-defined because it developed
alongside the production of a particular geopolitical narrative, i.e. a representa-
tion of the international stage and the drama unfolding on it (Postel-Vinay 2005).
Wilsonian normative power cannot be dissociated from the fundamental idea of
the fight of Good vs. Evil, whether it is Freedom vs. Tyranny, or Democracy vs.
Totalitarianism. This idea is sustained by the missionary vision of America’s role
in the world: an international projection of its national manifest destiny (Stephan-
son 1995). It furthermore implies that the conflict is not only dichotomous,
leaving no room for neutrality, but it is also literally global: it is supposed to
involve all nations on earth, compelling each of them to take sides.
One could speculatively argue that the particular form of norms-conferring
power to which the normative power Europe’s idea refers, is also bound up with
a specific time–space framework. The geopolitical narrative that underlies Euro-
pean normative power is one that combines globalism and regionalism, produc-
ing the representation of a world that is no longer shaped by a dichotomous
conflict but a globalized world in which regional entities are the main actors on
the international scene. Both the normative power debate within EU studies and
the ideational turn of the IR literature (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998) started in
 The historicity of European normative power 41
the 1990s, during the post-Cold War period. This is not entirely surprising since
the end of the bipolar world order paved the way to make global governance
possible, which itself allowed room to reflect on globally shared norms.
Incidentally, this does not mean that normative power per se could not be
exercised during the Cold War. American normative power, as mentioned
above, is precisely linked to the notion of world conflict, and as Knutsen has
argued, this power constituted one of the US’s major assets over the Soviet
Union (Knutsen 1999). European normative power was also exercised during
that period, as the official establishment of the notion of acquis communautaire
in 1972 illustrated. The first enlargement discussion – concerning the entry of
Denmark, Ireland, Norway and the United Kingdom – indeed led to the defini-
tion of a normative commitment to the Community requiring respect of both the
spirit and the letter of European legal arrangements, i.e. the treaties themselves
as well as their political aims and corollary norms.
Coming back to the post-Cold War period, and more precisely the 1990s, it is
significant that both EU and IR scholars, although tackling the same object –
international norms – approached the normative debate through different paths
that never actually crossed. That can be explained, at least in part, by a certain
lack in both cases of geopolitical contextualization, leading to mutually exclus-
ive discussions. IR debate on international norms does take into account the his-
toricity of norms themselves, as does the sociological one in the same sub-field
(Boli and Thomas 1999), but somehow de-contextualizes normative power. By
taking a bird’s eye view of the process of norm-production and empowerment, it
mostly leaves aside the problematic issue of where and when, and within which
geopolitical configuration, normative power is actually exercised. All cultures at
any time in history produce norms: how come some become global and others
not? How come most of what we call international norms are in fact genealogi-
cally constituted Western norms, and therefore global normative power is
intrinsically linked to Western power? This problem is absent from EU studies
discussion on normative power for the obvious reason that its starting point is
explicitly located in Europe, either post-Cold War Europe or post-Second World
War Europe. It has been argued that the EU was sui generis (Rosamond 2005),
putting it out of the realm of comparison, let alone that of reproducibility. But
alongside this somewhat self-introspecting trend, the discussion on the EU’s
international identity usually implied, again from Duchêne to Manners, that its
purpose was universal in essence. This paradox underscores an ambiguity about
the geopolitical framework within which the European normative power is sup-
posed to take place. It actually precedes the emergence of the normative power
idea, and can be sought in the historically, and geographically, ambivalent rela-
tionship between Europe and the European Union.

Europe, the European Union and normative power

Europe is not the European Union, and vice versa. How much does this appar-
ently very simple statement help us to define the scope of European normative
42 K. Postel-Vinay
power? And from a more general perspective, what does it tell us about the EU’s
international identity, whether it is or not defined by normative power? Those
questions point out to what the simple statement, almost a truism, above does not
say rather than what it does say. The Europe/European Union distinction refers to
the obvious fact that pre-1945 Europe was an ensemble of sovereign entities, func-
tioning at times as an effective concert of nations with an extremely strong influ-
ence on the shaping of world affairs, whereas the European Union is clearly not
that. The question of whether this supranational entity that is the EU can be called
an international actor or not has been the object of some debate. Ian Manners has
argued that this debate is not entirely helpful if one wants to understand the EU’s
actual impact on world affairs (Manners 2002): one should instead consider the
EU’s international influence as a tangible fact and shift the focus of one’s analysis
on the modus operandi of that influence. Focusing on the concrete manifestations
of the European Union’s power, i.e. how the EU exercises its power is indeed
useful for defining the EU’s international identity and therefore emphasizing its
singular civilian dimension. But this approach tends to elude the very question of
power; it does not explain the reason for the existence of this power and, more
specifically, whether the EU’s international power has anything to do with Europe.
Zaki Laïdi has shown how the de-linking of the concept of power from the
idea of European normative power reflects in fact an avoidance altogether of the
practical notions of power and leadership (Laïdi 2005). This reflection also helps
to explain the de-linking of the EU studies debate on normative power from the
IR debate on international norms or, in the field of political theory, from discus-
sions such as Steven Lukes’ on ideological power (Lukes 1974), which put
forward, if not used as a starting point, power-related notions such as promi-
nence, leadership and hegemony. From a constructivist perspective, Thomas
Diez has argued that the political discourse on normative power is actually an
essential dimension of the EU’s strategy to assert its power on the international
scene (Diez 2005). This strategy leads to a specific identity-building process,
defining both the EU’s self and its relation with others. Although the
inclusion/exclusion pattern described by Thomas Diez does refer to a plurality
of others, it does not offer a very detailed characterization of that plurality. The
history of European enlargement reveals at least one major distinction between
what could be called, in reference to the old imperial Russian terminology, the
Near Other and the Far Other. Would-be members or would-be partners of the
EU, such as Ukraine, Turkey or North African countries, in fact have a very dif-
ferent understanding of European normative power than countries such as Brazil
or China, whose relations with the EU are defined by more global parameters.
This distinction points not only to an identity issue but also to questions of inter-
national power and influence. From a European point of view, the problem of
enlargement is expressed in mostly normative terms, evolving around the
us/them nexus. Seen from the non-European side, this problem is either as
much, or more, about interests than it is about values and identity. The Ukrain-
ian and Turkish internal debates about EU membership, or even conflict in the
case of Ukraine, have provided one illustration of that.
 The historicity of European normative power 43
When bringing to the fore the issue of power in his discussion of European
normative power, Zaki Laïdi logically puts forward a non-European perspective
more concerned with the reality of that power than with its qualitative singular-
ity (Laïdi 2005). Following that logic, one could ask what, from a non-European
point of view, makes the EU’s power convincing. Is it because it is normative or
because it is powerful? Of course, as Jeffrey Checkel has demonstrated, there is
no absolute divide between rationalism and constructivism, nor is there one
between interests and values (Checkel 1997). But the case of Japan shows that
the need to refocus the European normative power debate on power is still rele-
vant. On a number of international norms issues, such as democracy and human
rights, Japan’s position is closer to the United States than it is to the EU’s; but
on other issues, such as the environment and social welfare, and on implementa-
tion, the preference for diplomacy over force, Japan is actually closer to the EU.
Yet Japan’s political alliance with the US is far more important than the one it
has with the EU. The reason for that is power politics: the decades-old exclusive
US–Japan security treaty is vital for the maintenance of Japan’s interests in its
region. That would still be the case even if Tokyo were to renounce its unique
civilian power status and change its pacifist constitution. The fact that both the
US and Japan are liberal democracies represents a fundamental dimension of
their alliance but it is not, however, the only one. The interests/values balance of
that alliance is, in a sense, inversely proportional to that of the early twentieth-
century Anglo-Japanese agreement in effect from January 1902 to August 1923.
Japan was the first non-Western country to sign a treaty, on supposedly equal
footing, with a Western one, Great Britain, which was then the major world
power. Realpolitik played a decisive role in the establishment of the treaty
(Great Britain effectively allowed Japan to annex Korea), but normative consid-
erations were nonetheless present in the process. Europe, for Japan, was at the
time not only the centre of international power but a model of political moder-
nity that inspired it to be the first Asian nation, in 1889, to promulgate a consti-
tution, institute limited suffrage (in 1890), and later, in 1925, universal male
suffrage.
The case of Japan’s historical experiment with normative power also high-
lights some problematic aspects of the geopolitical narrative that underlies the
present EU’s avoidance of power as such. As argued above, the idea of the EU
as a normative power is linked to a representation of the world that is shaped by
both globalism and regionalism. Obviously, this representation could only be
formed after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when globalization became a reality on
the ground and globalism a dominant worldview. However, the vision of the
EU’s specific international identity, i.e. the continuum from civilian to norm-
ative power, rests on a narrative that is formulated in yet different terms. The
general notion of the EU’s singular presence in world affairs refers to a story
that starts in 1945 and whose main plot is the search for a viable peace. Until
1989, the location of that story was a continental space the borders of which
were prosaically defined by the Atlantic Ocean on the one side, and the Cold
War order on the other. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the matter of borders
44 K. Postel-Vinay
became more problematic and the enlargement discussion became likewise
complex. The complexity of the ongoing debate about EU enlargement under-
scores in retrospect the overly simplified spatial dimension of the European
project’s geopolitical narrative. That narrative was indeed based on the assump-
tion that there was an entity called Europe whose self-evidence put it beyond the
need of territorial definition. The post-Cold War controversy among EU coun-
tries over Turkey’s application for membership has revealed how much the a-
critical notion of Europe is in fact powerfully normative.
The political idea expressed by such phrases as the ‘uniting of Europe’ (Haas
1958) is much older than the actual European integration process as we know it.
When Winston Churchill, in September 1946, called for the building of a kind of
United States of Europe, he was reopening one of the major public debates that
were taking place in Europe during the interwar years (Pegg 1993). From the
point of view of the history of ideas, the notion of a somehow united Europe
goes back to the eighteenth century (Pegg 1993, Zorgbibe 1993). This idea as it
was discussed in the interwar years and re-emerged after 1945, is linked to the
axiomatic perception that the European continent or European civilization pro-
vides the natural framework for defining the modes of a specific regulation
process, if not for building an actual polity. As Lewis and Wigen have
demonstrated (Lewis and Wigen 1997), the very concepts of continent and civil-
ization are socio-historically defined and located in the European geographical
repertoire (which includes the European-produced notions of America, Asia,
Africa), thereby making the notion of European continent or civilization prob-
lematic. The reference to that notion has been implicitly present in the geopoliti-
cal narrative underlying the European integration project, whether it was
supposed to be civilian or normative.

From global to provincial norm-setter

For all the distinctions that can undoubtedly be made between pre-Second
World War Europe and the EU of today, there is however, one major, and intrin-
sic, feature that these entities share: the belief in the existence of a European
civilization/continent whose historical and geographical definition remains
elusive. This assumption is in itself normative, and has impacted the way Euro-
pean countries have exercised their influence before and after 1945. The
common characterization of the EU’s international identity as non-military or
European normative (i.e. normative both in its means and ends), rarely takes into
account this element, or at least not from a critical perspective. Yet the assump-
tion about Europe as such, precisely because it is a-temporal and only loosely
territorially defined, does not have the same effectiveness in today’s inter-
national context as it had, in particular, at the turn of last century. As Furio
Cerutti has suggested, the crisis that the EU has entered since mid-2005 can be
characterized as a political identity crisis (Cerutti 2005). From the viewpoint of
the promoters of the European constitutional project, the May 2005 referenda
fiasco is a case of failed narrative. Even if this failure can probably be explained
 The historicity of European normative power 45
in immediate strategic terms, one should also look at its deeper roots. In other
words, one should take into consideration the evolution of the idea of Europe,
and more specifically examine the political relevance of Europe as such, an
assumption that is still being conveyed by the EU-promoting rhetoric.
Although there is no specific literature on Europe’s pre-1945 normative
power, a general description of how this power was shaped and exercised can be
drawn from a number of works, in particular those of the English School of
International Relations on international society (Bull and Watson 1984; Keene
2002). Hedley Bull and Adam Watson’s analysis of the expansion process of
international society is also an account of the globalization of European norms
between the late nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth (Bull and
Watson 1984). Gerrit Gong has more precisely described the standard of civil-
ization (Gong 1984) that the European imperial powers produced and imposed
as an essential instrument for the regulation of international relations on a global
scale. The implementation of that standard of civilization had far-reaching con-
sequences as it implied a complete reform of the would-be members of the
expanding international society, countries such as Ottoman Turkey, China,
Japan or Siam, that were neither Western nor fully colonized. Indeed, the adop-
tion of the new standard of civilization not only meant, as the Japanese case
mentioned above showed, a change of those countries’ foreign policy apparatus,
but structural domestic reforms as well, including transformations that were
novel even for the European societies of the time, such as the institutionalization
of public education or public healthcare (Gluck 1985; Postel-Vinay 2005). The
notion of civilized and civilizing Europe, as expressed by the French idea of
mission civilisatrice, was of course absolutely non-reflexive, and so was the
belief in the existence of a Europe as such.
The confusion between what was called European civilization and universal-
ism was part and parcel of the dynamics of Europe’s normative power at the turn
of the twentieth century. Since 1945, alongside decolonization, any notion resem-
bling ‘the white man’s burden’ and hence the ‘standard of civilization’ have
become internationally unacceptable. Such notions are precisely not what the IR
literature would define as international norms. But although the Europe of the EU
does not purport to have a civilizing mission anything like America’s inter-
national manifest destiny, the EU’s discourse on its global role and purpose
remains ambiguously linked to an essentialist definition of European identity. The
boundary between the implicit reference to a Europe as such and the EU’s univer-
sal ambition is still not clear. The ontological argument of the ‘normative power
Europe’ concept – ‘the EU is not what it does or what it says, but what it is’
(Manners 2002: 252) – does clarify its historical situation but is problematically
evasive as to its geographical one. The trauma of the Second World War is com-
monly evoked to explain the advent of the European Community project, but the
discussion about what are or should be the territorial limits of that project appears
to be slippery ground, both academically and politically. Charles Maier has
argued that the EU should reinvent itself as a non-geographically referenced and
a-territorial entity (Maier 2002), eluding altogether the European enlargement
46 K. Postel-Vinay
quagmire. Since the autumn of 2005, the European Commission has been using
the rather un-normative concept of ‘absorption capacity’ as an argument to
explain the slowdown in the enlargement process. This avoidance of a head-on
discussion of the European project’s geographical limits also reflects a reluctance
to look at what actually is not sui generis about the EU and what could be called
the European legacy of the new entity.
In the early days of European integration, the global significance of Europe’s
raison d’être was still taken for granted. The introductory sentence of the May
1950 Schuman Declaration stressed that the grand vision behind its call for
small concrete achievements, was the safeguarding of world peace. Europe was
a core being which needed to be pacified for the benefit of the whole planet. As
Charles Zorgbibe explained: ‘For a long time, the idea of Europe has been con-
fused with that of the organization of the world: Europe was equated with, if not
the known world, at least the “useful” world’ (Zorgbibe 1993: 1). Such a
representation would not be politically viable today. But the present EU uneasi-
ness with border and membership issues can be seen as a legacy of that
representation, as a nostalgia for the a-territoriality and a-historicity of Europe as
such. During the Cold War, the European governmental elite, and more gener-
ally the European integration entrepreneurs and promoters, had to come to terms
with the fact that their geopolitical stage was no longer the defining centre of
world order. That fact became inescapably evident after 1989. But it has proven
difficult to translate into a new international identity discourse.
One of the well-known claims of the postcolonial literature is the need for a
social science that provincializes Europe: Dipesh Chakrabarty’s concern here is
not with power politics but the global intellectual repertoire through which
social transformation is interpreted and analysed (Chakrabarty 2000). Yet, this
and other postcolonial claims would not have taken shape without the actual
decentring of Europe in world politics. In other words, the revisiting of the
European legacy in the widest definition of this term – from aesthetics to politics
– became conceivable with the relative decrease of Europe’s international power
and, concomitantly, the re-centring of world influence in the United States, and
now the emergence of non-Western international powers. This does not mean
that postcolonialism is solely a reflection of the transformation of the inter-
national balance of power. The postcolonial project is in effect still relevant as
Europe, as Chakrabarty and others define it (i.e. a specific intellectual repertoire
with a claim to universality), continues to dominate the global architecture of
social sciences, even in America where the progress of multiculturalism has con-
siderably transformed the conceptual hardware with which societies and rela-
tions between societies are being understood. It is rather the de facto
permanence of this legacy that confirms EU promoters in their vision of an a-
historical and a-territorial European entity, a sort of free-floating political given
that ultimately justifies and legitimizes the long-term community-building
process. Although European integration, as both a project and an evolving
reality, is very different from, almost the opposite of, the pre-1945 political
assemblage constituted by the European powers, the EU’s identity, or rather the
 The historicity of European normative power 47
EU’s search for an international identity, is still embedded in the latter’s concep-
tion of a political given (Europe) described in civilization/continent terms and
whose universality exempts it from defining its spatial and temporal borders.
Neither the normative power argument, which lacks spatial precision – what
exactly is European about European normative power? – nor the absorption
capacity, of which the seemingly physical logic makes it hardly an argument at
all, can fully address the identity problem that lies at the heart of the ongoing EU
crisis. The EU still needs to confront the reality of Europe’s provincialization in
world politics and to admit in articulated terms that it constitutes a bordered
international site. The EU’s avoidance of the debate on power, as revealed by
the Europe as normative power argument, is linked to an avoidance of the reflec-
tion on borders, as the absorption capacity argument all too clearly illustrates.
This double avoidance constitutes two sides of the same problem. Europe was a
global norm-setter that became a provincial norm-setter after engendering the
European Community: it has not yet adjusted itself to this historical change
of scale.
Part II

The reception of democracy

4 Democratization by extension
Seeking reinsurance
Anne-Marie Le Gloannec and Jacques Rupnik

The European Union, unlike the United States, does not have an explicit, elabor-
ate doctrine of ‘democracy promotion’ let alone a ‘democratic mission’. Yet it
may be considered over the last decade as possibly the most successful demo-
cracy promoter of an entire array of international actors involved. The EU’s
most successful democracy promotion programme is otherwise known as the EU
‘enlargement process’. Between 2004 and 2007 most of post-communist East-
Central Europe joined the Union, a success for which it has received little credit
from the citizens of old member states or from the political elites of the new
members who are the main beneficiaries of the process. It therefore raises
several related questions about the nature of the EU’s contribution to democrat-
ization. How has the EU’s democratic conditionality developed and what are the
costs and benefits for the Union as well as for its prospective members? How
effective is conditionality in the post-accession phase? And can an approach that
has worked successfully in Central Europe be replicated in the Balkans or else-
where? Can democracy promotion via enlargement be pursued in the future in
spite of reluctant public opinions in the older member states and even in a new
candidate country such as Turkey? Is the EU’s role as an external democratizer
designed merely for its immediate periphery and can it work without the
perspective of EU accession? In trying to address these questions, we shall dis-
tinguish between two main approaches to the ‘Europeanization’ of what used to
be known as post-communist Eastern Europe: the transformative power associ-
ated with the consolidation of democracy in the Central European process of EU
accession; the democratization in post-conflict Balkans under the conditions of
weak states or ‘Europeanized’ protectorates. We shall conclude with some
reflections about the limits of conditionality and the impact of democratization
of the periphery on the EU itself.

The costs and benefits of democratization through

enlargement
Democratization involves costs and benefits which are obviously related to
those of the EU enlargement process itself (Moravcsik and Vachudova 2003).
It involves economic, political and social costs to the countries where
52 A.-M. Le Gloannec and J. Rupnik
democratization is taking place: reforms have to be carried out, the country
may suffer from temporary disruptions, cards are reshuffled between winners
and losers – and if democratization fails or suffers setbacks, the overall losses
can be severe and lasting. Democratization may also entail costs for those coun-
tries which foster a democratization process from the outside (economic to some
extent and certainly political), whether they trigger it or whether they support an
indigenous democratization process – if one adopts here the distinction Laurence
Whitehead made between democratization by control and democratization by
consent (Whitehead 2001: 8) or again democratization by export or democrat-
ization by extension. Both may result in success or failure and even successful
cases entail costs. While the United States has more often than not a history of
imposing democracy by control – though it has also supported and still supports,
mainly through its NGOs, the attempts of civil societies to further democracy
and human rights from the inside – the European Union has mostly fostered
democracy through extension. To be sure, it has not entirely abstained from
exporting democracy, as the case of Western Balkans suggests. Together with
other actors, mainly the United States, the United Nations and other inter-
national organizations including NGOs, it has been involved in ‘democracy by
control’ in former Yugoslavia. Still, the European Community/European Union
has on the whole chosen to employ another method of promoting democracy
abroad: ever since it offered membership to the new democracies in Central and
Eastern Europe, it has promoted democracy in neighbouring countries by
extending its area of peace and stability, of prosperity and well-being – and
since the peace was settled in the former Yugoslavia in the late 1990s, it has
been pursuing a similar path of supporting democracy there by devising for the
successor states a future in the EU, the benefits and costs of which are very dif-
ferent from those entailed by a democratization process through exportation.
Enlargement has proven to be one of the most powerful instruments in the
hands of the European Union: this tool has influenced the internal dynamics of
the fledgling democracies that wanted to join the European Community/Union, it
has helped reshape the European continent and changed its geopolitical dynam-
ics. Last but not least, enlargement has altered the Union itself. It has certainly
turned out to be the most effective foreign policy the European Union has ever
pursued. Yet at the same time, it has been extremely intrusive both in fostering
democracy in countries at its margins and by promoting it through the enlarge-
ment process which in turn is changing its own make-up. It has been extremely
intrusive in democratizing countries in so far as it has imposed a number of con-
ditions for them to join the European Union while it has changed its own make-
up by opening its market and its decision-making organization to the newcomers,
once the conditions were met. Both elements are linked by a kind of quid pro
quo: the higher the price – opening up the European Union for full membership –
the more stringent the conditions – the so-called policy of conditionality known
as the ‘Copenhagen Criteria’. This is indeed a very peculiar form of democracy
promotion, entailing very high benefits as well as high costs.
The benefits of democratization via enlargement lie in both the support and
 Democratization by extension 53
the guarantee that the EC/EU offers to the newcomers. As a number of analysts
have underlined, the main contribution of European institutions to the nascent
democracies of Southern and Central Europe has been to underwrite democracy,
to guarantee it, both by offering for the short and medium term ‘an elaborate
structure of economic and social incentives for changes in group and national
behaviour that are beneficial to the prospects for democracy and, in the mid- and
long-term, by setting a European framework which would permanently entrench
democratic institutions’ (Whitehead 2001: 316, 338). In other words, joining the
Common Market and taking part in the decision-making process of the EC/EU
was the long-term prize while financial and technical assistance helped the new
democracies to meet the costs of the transition period. Both short-term rewards
and long-term guarantees matter. Rewards are necessary to enhance the legiti-
macy of the democratization process through efficiency: the EU thus influences
the redistribution pattern, allowing broader groups of the population to reap
benefits and to support the democratization process. The guarantee of access to
both common market and institutions meanwhile stresses the durability of the
transformation process.
This high price may account for what is now being called ‘enlargement
fatigue’, which in a sense runs parallel to the ‘democratization fatigue’ that has
come over the United States in the wake of the Iraq war. However, just as
democratization by extension is very different from democratization by export,
enlargement fatigue entails a dimension absent from democratization fatigue –
though both may be summed up by the same word: overreach. While the EU has
often chosen to intervene fairly late in the democratization process of neighbour-
ing countries, in the case of Central Europe, it seems to be intervening increas-
ingly earlier on, such as in the South-Eastern Europe; it is now refraining from
intervening early on in Eastern Europe. An early intervention threatens indeed to
destabilize the very basis on which the quid pro quo of the enlargement policy is
based on, i.e. the exchange of mutual guarantees: while the newcomers vow to
stick to a certain number of principles – or conditions – the EU extends its
permanent guarantee as a framework for these new democracies. As democrat-
ization seems to intervene earlier on in increasingly unstable areas, the prospect
for democratization on the part of would-be newcomers to the EU appears more
elusive and the EU less eager to extend a commitment to inclusion. Both parties
are seeking reinsurance.1
This very innovative policy has been over the years extended to various parts
of the continent, from Portugal to Poland. It was not only gradually applied but
it was also gradually designed. Though the aim and to some extent the instru-
ments that were applied to the second and fourth generations of newcomers
(South and East) were the same, some other instruments were invented for the
latter for whom rather strict conditions were set, the so-called Copenhagen Cri-
teria. In the latest wave of enlargement, the EU leverage relied on the close con-
nection between the unfinished agenda of the post-1989 transition and the
prospective agenda of EU integration: the shaping of democratic governance of
would-be member states through the promotion of EU norms and institutions
54 A.-M. Le Gloannec and J. Rupnik
capable of implementing them. In this the process involves key institutions of
the state such as the judiciary, public administration and decentralization
through the building of regional institutions as key recipients of EU structural
funds.

Europeanization and democratization in Central and

Eastern Europe
The whole process relies on acceptance and assimilation by the candidate
country of the terms that are set by the EU. This is asymmetrical integration by
any other name. The main motive rests on the promise of membership. The ulti-
mate threat is not invasion but the threat of non-inclusion. The crucial cases to
assess its effectiveness were less the Czechs than the Slovaks (Rupnik and
Zielonka 2003), less Hungary than Romania, less Slovenia than Croatia. The
process has worked on the ‘illiberal democracies’ of the 1990s (Slovakia,
Romania and Bulgaria) with delayed democratic consolidation and half-hearted
economic reform. Vladimir Meciar, Ion Iliescu, the Bulgarian Socialists or the
Croatian HDZ after Tudjman have discovered that the economic and political
costs of their failure to meet the EU enlargement criteria can alter the domestic
balance of power and help create conditions for democratic change. Slovakia
will remain the classic example where the EU factor helped to tip the balance on
two occasions (Harris 2004; Fischer 2006): first in the formation of the ‘pro-
European’/anti-Meciar coalition in the aftermath of Slovakia’s exclusion of the
first circle of enlargement in July 1997; second, in the political sequence leading
from the general election at the end of September 2002 to the Prague Summit on
NATO enlargement in November followed by the EU enlargement Copenhagen
Summit in December of the same year: rarely has domestic electoral choice been
so explicitly influenced by external actors. Thus the real test of the EU’s trans-
formative power is precisely this second circle of hybrid regimes with, on the
one hand, pressure on powerful illiberal elites and, on the other hand, help for
opposition forces to overcome their collective action handicap.
Such a general assessment of the interaction between ‘Europeanization’ and
democratization begs several caveats and the post-transition and post-accession
fatigue is obviously not unrelated to costs entailed in both processes (transition
and EU accession). By this we do not only mean the necessary transformation
that the new democracies as well as certain economic sectors or social groups
have undergone. Certainly, these conditions may be welcomed by the ruling
elites, at least some of them in so far as they help to underwrite the trans-
formation process in the new democracy. Some of these economic, social and
political costs may be quantifiable in terms economic performance or electoral
results. Other kinds of costs, however, lie in the misunderstandings that the very
notion and nature of the Copenhagen Criteria creates. Three sources of such
misunderstandings deserve to be mentioned here. First, the European Council
Summit in Copenhagen in June 1993 was an attempt to define criteria for mem-
bership that amounted to a belated exercise in self-definition.2 Not only did the
 Democratization by extension 55
Copenhagen Criteria heavily borrow from international evolutions – from the
paradigm set by the CSCE process in the 1970s and later, from the policy of
conditionality that the Carter and the Reagan Administrations in particular
pursued, from the policy of conditionality that the international financial organi-
zations such as the IMF and the World Bank devised, or again from the policy
which the EC itself started to further in Africa after the Ugandan disaster. These
criteria were also further elaborated after the 1993 Copenhagen Summit: the
political conditions in particular were developed by a European Commission
avis of 1997 and later in the reports which were drawn up on each individual
candidate country (Pridham 2002; Dimitrova and Pridham 2004).
Second, as a number of analysts have pointed out, these criteria are vague
and, on the whole, difficult to translate into practice (Lippert 2005: 123;
Cremona 2005: 30; Pridham 2002). This elusiveness has led to some confusion:
the criteria were, and are, neither entirely technical nor entirely political. In
particular, the signals that were sent to those countries which made up the fifth –
or ‘fourth and a half’ – enlargement, Romania and Bulgaria, were political
indeed: though not all economic conditions were fulfilled, the Commission rec-
ommended the opening of negotiations for political reasons, in the wake of the
war in Kosovo (Cremona 2005: 16). It certainly did not depend only on who was
deciding, the Council or the Commission – the Council decides the broad
agenda, yet the Commission may to some extent stray away from its main lines.
No less importantly, as Barbara Lippert points out, both the Commission and
some of the main countries devised a policy which was later sold under the guise
of small, technical packages.3 Hence both history and nature of the criteria lead
the candidate countries to believe that membership in the EU is a moving target,
a remark that Central European or Turkish authorities have made: the apparent
technicality of the Copenhagen Criteria is contradicted by political decisions,
some of them perfectly legitimate while others may be less so. In any case, this
is misleading in many ways, stirring confusion and even frustration in the candi-
date countries.
Last but not least, the so-called Copenhagen Criteria are not playing into the
hands of those who devised them either. Compliance is not guaranteed for a
number of reasons: it is the internal dynamics and power relations in the democ-
ratizing country that determine the issue while the EU has only a relatively
limited number of tools at its disposal. Studying the impact of conditionality on
Latvia, Slovakia and Turkey, Frank Schimmelfennig stresses that ‘its efficacy
depends on the candidate governments’ domestic political costs of compliance’
(Engert et al. 2003). It was the Slovak population who voted Meciar out of
office, knowing well the costs his government entailed in terms of possible
exclusion from the EU accession process. Meciar himself did not gracefully bow
out. In other words, the efficiency of conditionality depends on internal dynam-
ics and on a balance of forces that the EC/EU cannot stricto sensu control. It can
at the utmost promise durable rewards to those political and social forces that
will meet its requirements but it is not in its power to steer the political process.
Of course, governments may be enticed, cajoled and persuaded but compliance
56 A.-M. Le Gloannec and J. Rupnik
eventually lies in their hands – and in those of their electorates who may vote
them out.
EU leverage only works with those political elites who want to make or
cannot avoid making access to the benefits of EU membership a priority. Milo-
sevic in Serbia or Lukasenko in Belarus remained perfectly immune to such
lure. EU conditionality works best with relatively small and weak states: it
would be much more difficult with countries such as Turkey or Ukraine. This
process establishes a hierarchy of compliance with international/EU require-
ments the legitimacy of which depends on cognitive and behavioural change:
adopting institutions or norms without a change in the political culture and
behaviour would eventually undermine the EU from within. Recent develop-
ments among the new member states reveal an interesting contrast: contrary to
what some observers had predicted, their inclusion, despite the failure of the
constitutional reform, did not obstruct the modus operandi of EU institutions
(Dehousse et al. 2006). However, there is concern about the way some of them
implement democratic norms internally. The post-enlargement nationalist and
populist backlash in Central Europe thrives on the challenge to the pro-European
consensus of the elites that dominated the transition politics of the past decade
and the institutions associated with constitutionalism and the rule of law
(Rupnik 2006; Kolarska-Bobinska 2007). According to Adam Michnik, the
former dissident intellectual and director of Poland’s main daily, Gazeta Wybor-
cza, the Poland of the Kaczynski twins is:

a peculiar mix of the conservative rhetoric of George W. Bush and the

authoritarian political practice of Vladimir Putin. In their attack on the
independent press, curtailment of civil society, centralization power, and
exaggeration of external dangers, the political styles of today’s leaders of
Poland and Russia are very similar.
(Michnik 2007)

From this perspective it could be argued that Poland would under such circum-
stances have some difficulty getting into the EU.
In other words, once a candidate country has been given the green light to
join the EU, democratic conditionality is watered down and there are few incen-
tives to spur its government to further reforms. Negotiations have rarely been
suspended – as in the case of Turkey. Suspension is considered in a way as the
ultimate weapon, difficult to handle, but the start of negotiations has been
delayed in a number of cases. Once they have been completed, the EU so far has
refrained from suspension or sanctions. The policy of conditionality which is at
the very basis of European democracy promotion is tied with a time limit
beyond which it loses its efficiency. The Commission has at times tried to
extend the time limit within which the policy of conditionality is effective. Thus
it declared that Bulgaria and Romania would join the European Union with a
year delay if their governments did not fight firmly enough against corruption.
Yet there was not actually much uncertainty about the two countries joining the
 Democratization by extension 57
EU and though the Romanian government for instance stepped up its fight
against corruption before accession on 1 January 2007, since then it seems to
have abandoned not only efforts and but even a pretence to do so.
The latest Eastward enlargements of the EU thus raise a more general
problem: the EU leverage as an external democratizer loses its effectiveness
after the country’s inclusion in the Union. Austria in 2000 was the test case of
EU post-accession power. When Haider’s xenophobic extreme right party won
the election and joined in a coalition Schüssel’s Christian-Democrats (OVP) the
EU first put Austria under quarantine, then appointed a committee of wise men
to assess the state of Austrian democracy and finally gave up on ‘democratic
interference’ in a member state. Haider eventually committed political suicide,
thus vindicating Schüssel’s approach: mainstream conservatives can handle
nationalist populists. EU ostracism showed its limits and absorption proved
more effective. The implicit lesson for the new East European members was that
nationalist populism is a trans-European phenomenon that can erode or even dis-
solve thanks to a soft EU constraint. This is possible because the populist
Eurosceptics have a dubious practice of democracy, but do not advocate an
alternative to it. They also know that the popularity of anti-elite discourse cannot
be considered as tantamount to an anti-European one in a population which still
sees the EU as a constraint on its elites and derives great benefits from its new
membership. Indeed the most striking thing about the Polish electorate (with
similar if milder versions in other Central European countries) is that the major-
ity of its citizens consider EU institutions as honest and efficient while only 7
per cent consider that state institutions in Poland care for the interests of ordin-
ary citizens and 83 per cent (down from 89 per cent in 2003) consider they ‘care
first of all for the interests of those in power’ (www.cbos.pl). The populists
thrive on identity politics and sovereignty discourse, but have no support in their
electorates for challenging their country’s membership in the EU.

The pitfalls of democratization from above

After democracy induced through the promise of inclusion, over the last decade
the EU has been involved in democracy introduced and supported through the
protectorates in the Balkans. The explicit goal of the international protectorates
established in post-intervention former Yugoslavia is to help solve unsettled ter-
ritorial questions and bring about a much delayed democratic transition. This is
not democracy promotion per se but an investment in democratic security.
The main lesson from the Balkans was that the two above-mentioned issues,
democracy-building and nation-state building are closely related: a democratic
transition has little chance of success unless there is a consensus on the territor-
ial framework. Hence the European Union’s entirely new paradigm in the
Western Balkans. Conditionality has traditionally worked with established and
functioning states taking on the obligations entailed in the EU accession process.
In the Balkans, the EU is now for the first time actually involved in nation-state
building: in Bosnia, a provisional state in search of a post-Dayton constitution;
58 A.-M. Le Gloannec and J. Rupnik
Macedonia, a fragile new state whose viability rests on the implementation of
the EU-brokered Ohrid constitution; Kosovo, a new state waiting for recogni-
tion; Montenegro, a new-born micro-state recently separated from Serbia; and,
finally, Serbia itself, which still does not know what its borders will be.
This reluctant EU involvement in nation-state building has specific features in
each case. It has established the EU as the most prominent international actor in an
effort combining a supranational ‘coalition of the willing’ ranging from NATO in
the field of security to the OSCE as co-organizer and monitor of elections and the
UN providing the international legitimacy for external involvement.
In Bosnia, the EU factor has been a major (if insufficient) argument in the
international attempt to move beyond the Dayton constitution imposed on the
warring parties in November 1995. Dayton made peace through separation. Ten
years after, the EU backed an attempt to move towards a more integrated polity
with a single army, single police and a simplified and accountable decision-
making process. After a constitution was imposed from abroad, this was sup-
posed to be a constitution adopted by deliberation from within. The attempt was
narrowly defeated, revealing the limits of both reliance on internal deliberation
and external tutorship when conflicting hidden agendas concerning the future of
the state still divide the three main communities involved. The Dayton constitu-
tion will enter history books as one that managed to avoid mentioning ‘the
people’ and referred to the three communities: a state without a subject and a
democracy without demos. That is an indication of the magnitude of EU’s chal-
lenge in Bosnia.
In Macedonia, unlike in Bosnia, the EU was involved in a preventive inter-
vention in 2000, which avoided a large-scale conflict between the Slav majority
and the Albanian-speaking minority. No less importantly, it has become
involved as a broker in the redrafting of the Macedonian constitution. If Dayton
was peace through separation, the Ohrid constitution was meant as peace
through inclusion. With direct EU involvement4 both parts accepted steps in that
direction: the Macedonians to open genuinely the institutions of the state to the
Albanian-speaking institutions; the Albanians to commit themselves to a
common state. Neither would have been possible without the prospect of EU
accession for both parties (and conversely, the shared responsibility for the con-
sequences of failure).
Serbia-Montenegro had been dubbed in Podgorica as ‘Solania’. This is
because the EU representative Javier Solana was instrumental in negotiating the
February 2003 compromise on a deferred path to independence of Montenegro
and later for the conditions of a referendum held in May 2006 (which required
55 per cent in favour, at the EU’s insistence). In this way the EU assisted the
birth of its smallest would-be member.
In Kosovo, the EU has no doubt established itself as the most important inter-
national actor in the aftermath of the NATO military intervention in the Spring
of 1999. It has been the main provider of external assistance for economic
recovery and institution-building. Now it is a major backer of the Ahtisaari plan
which proposed ‘supervised independence’ as the basis for its new mission
 Democratization by extension 59
(police and rule of law) which is supposed to pave the way for an exit strategy
from the protectorate.5
This brief overview highlights the present European dilemmas. First, over the
last decade the ‘Europeanized’ protectorates in the Balkans have been trying to
encourage the building of democratic institutions and the rule of law; but how
can it build ‘good governance’ and functioning state institutions if it doesn’t
know which state it is building?
Second: When the protagonists of the break-up of Yugoslavia embarked on
belated nation-state building, they thought they were, in their way, ‘catching up’
with Europe. They were told this was ‘balkanization’ or fragmentation, the very
opposite of European integration. Now both sides are discovering that the suc-
cessful and peaceful completion of nation-state building processes actually
depends on a joint EU membership prospect. Nationalist agendas can be over-
come and contested new borders reluctantly accepted only if compensated by
something more important for the future: EU accession. Hence the Union’s new
task: to provide a common roof for the completion of future member state-
building.
Along with state-building, a related issue is democracy-building under pro-
tectorate. The politics of ethnic nationalism in the 1990s fostered or reinforced
authoritarian regimes: instead of individual citizenship and the separation of
powers, the nationalist political elites successfully invoked the primacy of
collective bonds and the imperatives of national unity against an external foe.
Such an environment was obviously hardly conducive to the emergence of polit-
ical pluralism or a political system with checks and balances.
The postwar protectorates or semi-protectorates imposed a new framework
with the explicit aim to embark on a delayed democratic transition. This seemed
to work in the early stages after intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo (‘free and
fair’ elections and cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal on
former Yugoslavia became part of EU conditionality for the inclusion of coun-
tries of the Western Balkans in the Stabilization and Association Agreements
(SAA)). After a decade of imposed and then controlled democratization, the
process is revealing its contradictions. In February 2007, the Steering Board of
the Peace Implementation Council, the body in charge of the international pro-
tectorate in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has extended the mandate of the Office of
the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia until June 2008. Just as the inter-
national protectorate has in recent years been largely ‘Europeanized’, so the
office of OHR has systematically been in the hands of EU members starting with
Carl Bildt (former Swedish Prime Minister), the first appointee after Dayton, all
the way to Paddy Ashdown who was supposed to be the last European proconsul
and will certainly be remembered for his robust style of ‘democracy promotion’.
His decision in August 2005 to dismiss some 70 Serbian MPs, based on an intel-
ligence report from one embassy, brought into the open conflicting dynamics of
supervised democratization from above and the domestic political forces.
Instead of winding down the protectorate, the OHR mandate has been
extended until the summer of 2008 at the very moment when the Constitutional
60 A.-M. Le Gloannec and J. Rupnik
Court made public its July 2006 ruling stating that the absence of the right of
appeal by individuals sacked by the OHR in the past has deprived them of their
civic rights (including the right to stand in elections or to work for public com-
panies). The Court observed that this amounted to a violation of the European
Convention on Human Rights which, according to the Bosnian Constitution, is
the highest law in the land (Knaus 2007). The Constitutional Court noted that
Bosnia’s obligation to respect the OHR’s decisions does not preclude the
primary obligation of Bosnian officials and institutions to obey their constitu-
tion. The clash of two logics (Europeanized protectorate vs. domestic political
constraints) has now been exposed as the central contradiction of internationally
imposed constitutionalism. The court asks the government of Bosnia to
implement its ruling, but the government can only do what is acceptable to the
OHR. The democracy question for the protectorate is simple: either certain indi-
viduals are considered as ‘criminals’ and sent to ICTY in the Hague, or they are
allowed to run for office, but then the consequences of free and fair elections
must be accepted. The clash of two democratic legitimacies, elections and EU
protectorate, is not sustainable for long.
This dilemma of democratization from above had been pointed out by the
Council of Europe’s Venice Commission which in 2005 stated that it is ‘cer-
tainly not a normal situation that an unelected foreigner exercises such powers in
a Council of Europe state’. The report did accept that emergency powers were
originally justified, but that ‘such an arrangement is fundamentally incompatible
with the democratic character of the state and the sovereignty of Bosnia and
Herzegovina. The longer it stays in place the more questionable it becomes’
(European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission)
2005).
A similar issue appeared on the democratization agenda in Kosovo. Once
basic security – the prime condition without which democratic development is
impossible – had been established, the representative of the international
community SRSG Hans Hakkerup issued the Constitutional Framework for Pro-
visional Self-Government in May 2001, which also paved the way for the
general election in November. The document lists the creation of an elected
assembly and a prime minister and government chosen by the president of
Kosovo. But the authority of the latter was from the outset very limited com-
pared to the wide-ranging powers of the SRSG who could dissolve the assembly
and call a new election, set ‘financial and policy parameters’ for the budget,
appoint and remove judges and prosecutors, appoint the director of customs, the
police (Kosovo Protection Force) and the Housing and Property Directorate
(Independent International Commission on Kosovo 2000). If one of the most
concise definitions of democracy is ‘no taxation without representation’ then
Kosovo, under the new post-Milosevic Constitution, did not qualify. Since that
early period of the protectorate there has been a slow but steady shift of power
from the Europeanized protectorate to the local government with the aim of
adopting the UN benchmarks (Papadimitriou et al. 2007). ‘Standards for
Kosovo’ were presented as the pre-condition for discussing status. Now even
 Democratization by extension 61
those in charge of the protectorate accept that further progress on standards is
unlikely till the question of status is not clarified. In other words, it is back to ‘no
democratization and institution-building without statehood’.
Despite a significant shift of powers from the international administration to
the Kosovo government, much progress has yet to be made. ‘Conditional
independence’ is perceived by the local actors as a decisive step in the direction
of assimilating the institution-building process. European and more generally
international presence will not disappear with the settlement of a ‘final status’
for Kosovo, but it will shift from decision-making control to the supervision of
‘standards’; i.e. the implementation of conditionality for independence which, in
due course, would overlap with conditionality for EU accession.
In the Western Balkans democracies and states are being built from above,
with the EU as both an actor and a goal. An election is as much about domestic
legitimacy as it is about international legitimacy. The prime aim of an election is
to create an environment in which international (mainly European) actors can
operate and local actors conform to the European agenda (Woodward 2005). In
such a context, the only protectorate useful for democracy is one that seeks
systematically to do itself out of business. The dilemma for the EU is the follow-
ing: the only ‘exit strategy’ from the logic of protectorate is one of entry in the
EU; from an imposed polity that risks emptying the democratic process of its
substance to an external constraint that is accepted and legitimate.

Time and space: too early, too far away?

Democratization by extension necessarily raises the questions of when to inter-
vene, when to support actors involved in democratic change and when to offer
the rewards and guarantees linked with EU membership. Are the answers pri-
marily a matter of subjective interpretation, a political decision taken by the
Council? Or do the seemingly objective criteria provide well-founded indica-
tions about when to intervene? This question of when to intervene cannot be
answered in a definite and clear way. Different rationales may be at work. As
suggested earlier the Commission advocated the opening of negotiations with
the Eastern Balkans for essentially political reasons though the two countries
were not actually ready for membership. Too many parameters come in to play:
economic requirements and political ones may be at loggerheads, as the
examples of Romania and Bulgaria as well as Poland epitomize. Political con-
siderations may require early membership while economic circumstances would
call for delayed membership. Or again one might advocate early membership for
some particular political reasons while others would point at a later inclusion.
As far as the Western Balkans are concerned, an early accession to the European
Union might guarantee borders, foster local assimilation of institutions and
entrench democracy and thus consolidate the South-Eastern flank of an enlarged
EU. At the same time, enlargement to the Western Balkans might also lead to
the importation of instability in the EU, were democracy and ‘stateness’ insuffi-
ciently consolidated.
62 A.-M. Le Gloannec and J. Rupnik
Democratization, and particularly democratization via enlargement, involves
different timetables and different logics. On the one hand, time is necessary for
reforms to be introduced and to bear fruit, all the more so as the democratization
process is protracted and convoluted and the outcome of battles between various
constituencies uncertain. On the other hand, time may be a scarce commodity
for reformers in countries that are undergoing a democratization process. Poles
and Hungarians or Turks were or are growing impatient as reformers need to
deliver the benefits and uphold the promise of joining the EU. A momentum
must be sustained to press on reforms and secure support, otherwise political
costs for reformers may increase. This seems to be the case in Turkey: while the
impact of conditionality is resented in the country itself, some European govern-
ments have openly displayed their reluctance to engage Turkey, even after the
start of negotiations and at a time when a fierce though somewhat confused
battle is opposing conservative reformers and secularist nationalists. As a result,
a growing imbalance is being perceived in Turkey between conditionality and
incentives, between benefits and costs; Turkish politicians are increasingly
deeming it a political liability to claim Europe as a goal; and barely a majority of
Turkish citizens currently favour their country’s membership in the EU. In other
words, there are competing timeframes just as there are competing logics. A
gnawing question inserts itself in these different time warps: how and when do
we know that a country is firmly embarked on the way to a consolidated demo-
cracy? After all, was democracy so firmly anchored in the Iberian Peninsula
when Spain and Portugal approached the European Community? Is it less firmly
anchored in Turkey than it was just after these countries had shaken off their
repressive regimes?
Nevertheless, democratizing the periphery of the EU obviously raises the
question of its limits. It comes with a geopolitical twist: the further East and
South-East the European Union extends, the poorer and more unstable the
territories it encounters. Some of the candidate or would-be candidate countries
are poor. Some of them have ill-defined borders and sometimes, as in the case of
Turkey, they border on dangerous and certainly not democratic countries, such
as Iraq, Iran and Syria. Some of them have fledgling institutions, corruption
flourishes and illicit traffic of all sorts abounds. In some of these countries, from
Ukraine and Moldova to areas of the South-Western Balkans democratic
changes are fairly recent and far from stable. The European Union expanded so
far further South and further East to enlarge its area of stability, peace and pros-
perity. It actually embraced ten new states that had just freed themselves from
communism so that no new Berlin Wall would arise further East, along the
German–Polish border. This was the main concern of successive German gov-
ernments that advocated enlargement to avoid the emergence or at least the insti-
tutionalization of an economic and social divide between Poland and Germany.
Since the late 1990s and even more vigorously since the ‘Orange Revolution’ of
December 2003, successive Polish governments have strongly favoured
Ukraine’s membership in the EU for the same reasons German governments
were advocating Poland’s membership in the EU. Yet in doing so, the EU
 Democratization by extension 63
increasingly reaches towards unstable frontiers where EU influence remains
defused. More than an irony it is an unsustainable dilemma. The European
Union runs the risk of importing instability while trying to export stability.
Competition is thus taking place between the exportation of stability and the
importation of instability, between the difficult promotion of norms and murky
geopolitical requirements.
The Union has very few means at its disposal to overcome this dilemma. One
would be to erect a wall – as in Ceuta and Melilla – a paltry and, worse, unwor-
thy attempt at ‘driving off the invaders’. Another one is to draw the curtain and
stop enlargement while heeding the commitments that have more or less been
already made and to create beyond the supposedly final borders of Europe ‘this
area of well-governed democratic states’ which both the European Security
Strategy and the European Neighbourhood Policy attempted to devise in 2003.
This policy, however, is flawed in two ways: first, the ENP is lacking in persua-
sion so long as the ultimate prize of joining the European Union remains beyond
reach. As a result, the EU can only exercise a limited influence on the govern-
ments and the actors of democratization concerned. Second, were the EU to
intervene at an early stage of democratization, it might find itself embarked in a
very murky process both because it would find itself involved in political engin-
eering of a very difficult kind – as the case of the Western Balkans epitomizes –
and because it might foster resentment and backlashes in the recipient country.
Though one can hardly compare the cases of Ukraine and Turkey, which
underwent a bumpy process of democratization for half a century – and though
one is a candidate country and the other one is not considered as such – inter-
vention in both countries should be closely looked at. Intervening in Turkey may
be counter-productive. The country is experiencing intense in-fightings with no
overlapping dividing lines between secularists and a so-called moderate Islam,
between democrats, the army and those who would like to re-establish religion
as the defining principle of public life, between reformers and the corrupt and
weak parties of the old guard. The current battles pit the old Kemalist elites,
which neglected to introduce reforms and co-opt new members from the new
Muslim middle-class, against the new, moderate Muslim elite which wants to
reap the benefits of the democratic reforms it introduced and the economic
development it fostered. They further pit the democrats of all shades against the
army, which might intervene in order to tighten the rules of the game and draw
red lines if not in a soft manner, at least in a ‘post-modern’ one – by reference to
the ‘electronic memorandum’ the military published on its website on 22 April
2007. Last but not least, they pit a vibrant, modernized, though deeply polarized
society against political parties that have been unable to modernize – including
the AK party, which finds itself emulating the stale, authoritarian parties of the
Kemalist brand. This turmoil fosters at the same time a nationalist sentiment that
all, Kemalists and AKP supporters alike, suddenly brandish as the sole common
recourse available to all, the only language that might unite Turks of all shades.
As Olli Rehn, the Commissioner for Enlargement, recently declared, an inter-
vention on the part of the EU might be unwelcome and entail disastrous
64 A.-M. Le Gloannec and J. Rupnik
consequences. The French President nonetheless intervened in the run-up to the
22 July 2007 election when he reiterated his opposition to Turkey’s membership
and the opening of the financial chapter. This raises a twin question: should the
European Union stick to its commitments of opening chapters and divide the
whole process into technical sequences, or should the political process always
guide the negotiations? Should one take heed of political sensitivities in Turkey
or never lose touch with public opinion in France or in other countries of the
European Union?
Just like the ‘Turkish question’, the recent wave of ‘colour revolutions’ on
the periphery of Russia confronts the EU with new geopolitical dimensions of
democratization. From the ‘Rose Revolution’ in Tbilisi to Kiev’s ‘Orange
Revolution’ (leaving out the more dubious imitations in Central Asia) the
pattern combined American-backed support for civil society actors involved in
mobilizing youth activists against election fraud with European-backed support
for a negotiated solution among the elites: European ‘soft power’ has proved
effective.6 The Orange Revolution was not provoked by the EU, but it was influ-
enced by it. On the other hand, the results of the March 2006 elections in both
Ukraine and Belarus also clearly showed the limits of the influence on its ‘near
abroad’ (Peel 2006). No less importantly, the Europeans remain divided on the
implications of democratic change on the periphery of Russia, which also
happens to be EU’s new neighbourhood. Its democratization and support for
democratic forces there involves two major divisive issues. First: what are the
implications of support for democracy in Ukraine, Moldova or the Caucasus for
relations with Russia and what should be the priorities (democracy, energy
supply, security) within the quest for an overall EU partnership with Russia?
And second: should the European Union, in order to foster its democratizing
role on its outskirts, think strategically and keep open the prospect of member-
ship? Or should it seek to redefine its post-enlargement project, establish its own
limits first and then see how far and how deep its neighbourhood policy should
stretch? In other words, beyond the merits of democratizing the periphery
through enlargement, the EU’s own ‘integration capacity’ and political identity
are also at stake.
The only policy that the EU can safely pursue – and which is far from inven-
tive, innovative, let alone glorious – is the quest for reinsurance. This is what it
has done in an unsystematic, almost haphazard manner, in particular in the wake
of the fourth enlargement. It has sought to do so in three ways, first in devising
possible blockages in the pre-accession phase, during the negotiation and even-
tually in the post-accession process; second, in multiplying the criteria or
hurdles that the candidate countries have to meet; and last, in avoiding setting
any firm time limit for accession – all three processes being linked. The opening
of negotiations have sometimes been delayed and, in the case of Turkey, negoti-
ations have been suspended, though there is no precedent of a negotiation
opened and not completed. Criteria have multiplied as the history, one would
almost say the archaeology, of conditionality briefly described above suggests.
Successive waves of enlargement brought to light new difficulties and complexi-
 Democratization by extension 65
ties and with them new requirements, be it the fight against corruption, coopera-
tion with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the set-
tlement of borders and the establishment of good neighbourly relations – which
was completely mismanaged by the Council and the Commission when both
accepted the integration of Cyprus in the EU without pressing for a prior solu-
tion of the conflict (Phinnemore 2006; Tocci 2004). Cyprus will remain an
example (and a warning for the future) of incompetent and inept squandering of
EU’s leverage. Last but not least, no firm date for accession will be set in the
future. In that regard, the accession of Romania and Bulgaria provided an
example of what should not be done: The Commission turned out to be compro-
mising enough to gloss over Romania’s and Bulgaria’s credentials and to accept
them in the European Union on 1 January 2007 – or 2008 – as if that later date
had made a difference (Condon et al. 2007). In other words, it pretended to
delay without actually doing so, thus depriving the EU from exercising any
effective pressure on Sofia or Bucharest to further reforms.

Conclusion: absorption as the last frontier

In any case, the multiplication of hurdles is nothing more than an attempt to
devise safeguards at various stages and under various guises. They are attempts
by the insurer – the Union – to obtain reinsurance from its would-be members.
Will they however suffice to soothe the mood inside the EU and entice its
members to keep the door open? In the aftermath of Eastern enlargement and of
the failure of the European Constitution a new criteria, that of the so-called
‘absorption capacity’, has surfaced, although it had been mentioned in the wake
of the Copenhagen Criteria and put forth by the Delors Commission to justify its
rejection of Turkey’s application for membership, partly because Turkey was
not ready but also because the Community had a number of other problems to
tackle first (Lippert 2005: 121–122).
The ‘integration capacity’ criterion offers characteristics which distinguish it
from the conventional Copenhagen Criteria. The main difference is that it con-
cerns the Union rather than the candidate countries: it is not a prerequisite the
candidate countries have to fulfil but a condition that the Union itself has to
meet. In that regard, it seems profoundly asymmetrical: no matter what the can-
didate countries do or try to do, they may never reach an ever receding goal
which the sole members of the Union are entitled to define. To be sure, the con-
ventional criteria have to be met, not really negotiated. Yet the candidate coun-
tries either do or do not have the capacity to meet them, and they have the
capacity to convince the Union that they have. The ‘integration capacity’,
however, lies well beyond the candidates’ reach.
In essence, the concept is about the make-up of the European Union, both
objective and subjective. Here again this differs from the other Copenhagen Cri-
teria. Though ‘absorption capacity’ as a criterion may be broken into technical,
i.e. seemingly objective sequences such as the capacity of goods, service or
labour markets, finances or institutions to absorb new member states, it entails a
66 A.-M. Le Gloannec and J. Rupnik
more political dimension (Aydin et al. 2006).7 It is essentially a statement about
the identity of the European Union. Even though the EU has never ceased to
function rather well in spite of successive waves of enlargement and unfinished
institutional reforms, a growing degree of heterogeneity is introduced with suc-
cessive enlargements, all the more so when it has taken place while several
candidates had not met all the requirements. Solidarity as a link between old and
new members has been stretched and some new members, such as the current
Polish government, are criticized for their reluctant socialization into the EU. In
other words, the ‘integration capacity’ refers to the identity that the members of
the Union are supposed to share or hope to develop in the future.
The forgotten Copenhagen criterion is about closure and borders that remain
– for some time – to be drawn. These are not as much geographical borders –
since there is no such thing as natural borders – as they are a political construct
entailing a certain degree of arbitrariness.8 All borders are both objective and
subjective, they encompass territories, structures and peoples that share elements
the commonality of which is stressed rather than ignored (Eder 2006; Sund-
haussen 1999). To that extent, the last Copenhagen criterion is a ‘norm’ that
differs from the others spelled out in June 1993. Democracy is not at its core,
rather identity in the sense of commonality, compatibility and a ‘community of
fate’. This need not be essentialist, it can be moulded and shaped; it can indeed
be minimalist, as Klaus Eder put it. Instead of being aimed at the outside world,
at shaping the world beyond Europe’s borders, the ‘absorption capacity’ refers
to a Europe looking inward. Thus two competing logics are at work: one is
about projecting democracy through enlargement, a logic which seems to be
losing its efficiency – partly because the further the EU reaches, the more diffi-
cult it is, and partly because neither the Commission nor the member states have
deliberately sought to maximize its usefulness. The other is the logic of
entrenchment, which seeks to counterbalance extension by consolidation inside
the EU. Yet, just as the ‘enlargement vs. deepening’ debate of the early 1990s
had shown, the two logics need not be mutually exclusive. Stability at the
margins of the EU – and thus in the EU itself – will remain unlikely without the
perspective of European integration, as the case of the Western Balkans shows.
The only way to turn illiberal democracies into liberal ones is for the EU to help
the peoples of the region take their fate into their own hands and become cit-
izens of their own country while becoming citizens of the EU. Only by anchor-
ing democracy through a credible guarantee of membership will these areas of
instability and would-be democracy fully develop. However, democratization
through enlargement cannot be pursued without the backing of citizens within
the EU, who so far have been largely excluded from the process. Certainly there
is a contradiction between two aspects of the EU as a union of states and as a
union of peoples. As a union of states, the EU negotiates treaties that should be
respected. As a union of peoples, its citizens should be involved and consulted if
the legitimacy of the process is to be sustained. Yet consulting the citizens of the
EU member states by referenda, once negotiations have been completed, is
politically risky and irresponsible on the part of member states. The political
 Democratization by extension 67
consensus-building process involving debates within and between states should
therefore take place much earlier and involve non-state, civil society actors. A
trans-European debate is a pre-condition for public opinion acceptance of the
process. Otherwise, frustration and backlashes will poison the whole process and
deprive the EU from the best tool it has devised to ensure stability and demo-
cracy at its periphery.

Notes
1 By reference to the Reinsurance Treaty of 1887 in which Bismark sought to ensure
Russia’s continued alliance.
2 It had not been made explicit from the very inception of the EEC in 1957 that only
democratic European states could join the European institutions, an element which the
Birkelbach Report explicitly stressed in 1962 at the time when Franco’s Spain sought
to apply for association.
3 Lippert (2005: 126):
As far as the enlargement towards Eastern Europe was concerned, both the Com-
mission and some member states pressed for the project and wrapped up this
historical decision in a series of small packages which often sounded very tech-
nical and which in any case increased the pressure on the European Union.
4 Alain Leroy, a French diplomat, was the EU representative and Robert Badinter a key
advisor to the drafters of the new constitution.
5 For a detailed discussion of the question, see International Crisis Group 2007. A
unified position within the EU on Kosovo’s independence ‘supervised’ by the EU was
by no means a self-evident proposition. Greece and Cyprus tend to back the Serb posi-
tion. Countries with important Hungarian minorities such as Slovakia and Romania
expressed strong reservations. Spain, confronted with the Basque and Catalan ques-
tions, was no less prudent. Nobody wanted the EU to endorse a separatist precedent.
6 Even Robert Kagan, a neo-conservative critic of European reluctance to support the
‘democratization’ of Iraq, praised the EU’s role in the Ukrainian crisis (5 December
2004).
7 Apparently the concept smacks of subjectivity as it refers to the ability of the Union ‘to
function politically, financially and institutionally as it enlarges . . .’ (European Council
June 2006).
8 Curiously enough Michael Emerson and his colleagues (Aydin et al. 2006: 10) imply
that the question of Europe’s borders is not an open one, as they contend that ‘In both
official and practical terms, “Europe” can be defined as the membership map of the
Council of Europe’.
5 The EU’s promotion of
democracy in the Balkans
David Chandler

This chapter follows Baudrillard’s view that the ‘dissolution of the political
subject’, i.e. the end of political projects of Left and Right, has created a crisis of
representation and that the location of power is no longer clear, that in fact,
political elites can no longer generate and externally project power, only simu-
late it (see, for example, Baudrillard 1987).1 In the absence of any connection
with the masses, with their own society, elites are unable to give policy-making
a broader social meaning, enabling them to engage and mobilize social support
for a political programme.2 Baudrillard’s framework enables the articulation of a
critique of traditional Realist or Critical understandings of democracy export as
dissimulation, feigning ‘not to have what one has’, i.e. as a pretence that policy
is not driven by self-interest or the needs of capital accumulation,3 through an
understanding of policy practice in terms of simulation, which ‘is to feign to
have what one hasn’t’: i.e. the pretence that there are clear instrumental interests
and ideological values being asserted by the EU (1983b: 5).
For Baudrillard, the framework of theoretical understanding is therefore
radically different, based on the importance, not of a presence (of interests, of
representation) but of an absence (a lack of social connection between elites
and society and therefore of a lack of social power). The key point that Bau-
drillard makes is that the framework of grasping reality as dissimulation – the
Critical or Realist critique of claims of ‘value-based’ policy-making alleged to
be concerned with the promotion of democracy, human rights and good gover-
nance – ‘leaves the reality principle intact, the difference [between the real and
the illusory] is always clear, it is only masked’. However, ‘simulation threat-
ens the difference between “true” and “false”, between “real” and
“imaginary” ’ because ‘the simulator produces “true” symptoms’ or effects
(1983b: 5). According to Baudrillard, ‘the spectre raised by simulation’ is that
the effects of power may exist but that ‘truth, reference and objective causes
have ceased to exist’ (1983b: 5).
This would seem to suggest an exercise of power which lacked strategic
direction and the traditional attributes of the political subject or agent of power,
including those of instrumental rationality and clear self-interest. Baudrillard
suggests that what drives power is less political self-interest (the product of the
politics of representation) and more the politics of simulation: the attempt to
 The EU’s promotion of democracy in the Balkans 69
hide power’s inability to cohere and project self-interest. Simulation is the
attempt to overcome, bypass or evade political elites’ lack of connection with
their own societies. Baudrillard suggests a double technique of simulation, first
the denial of the reality of the power of elites (‘the simulation of death’) and
second the exaggeration of the power of others or of events in and of themselves
(the construction of the ‘hyperreal’).
First, Baudrillard argues that: ‘Every form of power, every situation speaks of
itself by denial, in order to escape, by simulation of death, its real agony. Power
can stage its own murder to rediscover a glimmer of existence and legitimacy’
(1983b: 37). This chapter will argue that the EU itself is a product of power’s
attempt to deny itself – in this case, the attempt to deny the power that exists at
the level of the national governments of EU member states (for example, Heart-
field 2007). The EU by necessity enacts, in an exaggerated form, the techniques
of simulation of its member states, whose ‘crisis of representation’ – or inability
to present and project a socially-rooted ‘idea of the state’ or clear political
project or purpose4 – it magnifies. In effect, the EU is a gigantic simulacrum as
the product of the denial of power and reproducer of this process of denial
through the politics of simulation.
Second, Baudrillard argues that power hides its incapacity through the exag-
geration of the problems which it confronts, through the production of the
hyperreal:

The only weapon of power, its only strategy against [its collapse], is to rein-
ject realness and referentiality everywhere, in order to convince us of the
reality of the social, of the gravity of the economy and the finalities of pro-
duction. For that purpose it prefers the discourse of crisis.
(1983b: 42)

He argues that ‘hyperreality and simulation are deterrents of every principle and
of every objective’ because policy is no longer organized around objective
social threats and social problems. The response to power’s disappearance in the
play of simulation is the reliance on crisis, ‘it [power] gambles on remanufactur-
ing artificial, social, economic, political stakes’ (1983b: 43–44). It will be sug-
gested here that the construction of the hyperreal has been central to the
dynamic of policy-making in the EU, where alleged crises in the Balkans have
continually necessitated new EU activity and mandates and institutional devel-
opments on the grounds that ‘European values’, ‘European identity’, or ‘Euro-
pean security’ are at stake in these developments. The EU exaggerates the forms
of simulation apparent in member states’ own attempts to use foreign policy to
develop ‘ethical identities’5 – making foreign policy the centre of its ideological
and institutional attempts to constitute itself as a substitute symbol of political
community to the nation state. For the EU, every external measure, from trade
regulations to foreign aid, to the sending of troops abroad,6 comes attached with
the necessity of expressing the EU’s alleged shared ‘identity’ and ‘values’ in the
increasingly shrill and desperate simulation of these absent factors.
70 D. Chandler
Baudrillard suggests that a framework of simulation throws light on the
reality of power and its practices. The understanding of political practices and
policies as simulation enables them to be grasped more deeply in their material
relationship to the ‘crisis of representation’ than a Critical or Realist perspective
which would understand the discourses of the ‘export of democracy’ as a con-
scious fiction which seeks to dissemble reality (i.e. to lie about deeper economic
and political motives and interests).7 Of particular concern for my argument is
the difference between simulated ‘truth effects’ of political power and traditional
acts of political power. It could well be suggested that the effects of simulation
are the same as if they were traditional assertions of interest-based power.8 What
difference does it make, for example, to the people of Bosnia, whether the EU is
pursuing ‘real’ interests or simulating its political existence and its policy-
making? How can very real protectorate powers to export democracy be under-
stood in terms of simulacra and simulation?
Baudrillard appears to argue that the policies of political simulation would be
little different, despite the fact that the political stakes are illusory (hence, simu-
lation as threatening the distinction between the ‘real’ and the ‘imaginary’). For
example, he states that: ‘war is not any less heinous for being a mere simu-
lacrum – the flesh suffers just the same, and the dead ex-combatants count as
much there as in other wars’ (1983b: 70). It will be suggested here that, in fact,
there is a difference between simulation and interest-based policy-making and
that simulation, precisely because it stems from the weakness of the political
actor, (while no less real) can be seen to be a much more arbitrary and ad hoc
process of policy-making.
This is a process with little real relationship to either the policy object (in this
case, the Balkans) or the simulator (the EU) itself. This lack of coherence or
social grounding in either the object or subject of policy-making is reflected in
the apparent autonomy manifested by the bureaucracy of the EU itself. This
autonomy of the bureaucracy, brought into sharp focus by Baudrillard’s frame-
work, reveals the ‘truth’ of the mechanisms of power at play, and the way in
which the practice of democracy promotion in Balkans reveals the lack of
‘reality’ of both the EU (as a coherent actor) and of the Bosnian state as a con-
structed fiction (a simulacra). This autonomy is particularly highlighted where
the power of the EU is most overt, in the position of the EU Special Representa-
tives, which wield executive power over Bosnia and (with the impending settle-
ment) Kosovo.

Enlargement: the ‘mission’ of the EU?

Europe’s ‘mission’ to bring democracy, peace, human rights and good gover-
nance to the Balkans reveals its lack of mission. The mission to transform and
save the Balkans relies on the techniques of simulation, not just the simulation
of the EU itself as a political actor bearing the trappings of a sovereign state, but
also the denial of the EU’s power, or rather the denial of the power of the EU
member states, and the construction of a hyperreality of Balkan crisis.
 The EU’s promotion of democracy in the Balkans 71
According to the April 2005 report of the International Commission on the
Balkans, chaired by Guiliano Amato, former Italian prime minister, The Balkans
in Europe’s Future:

If the EU does not devise a bold strategy for accession that could
encompass all Balkan countries as new members within the next decade,
then it will become mired instead as a neo-colonial power in places like
Kosovo, Bosnia and even Macedonia. Such an anachronism would be hard
to manage and would be in contradiction with the very nature of the Euro-
pean Union. The real choice the EU is facing in the Balkans is: Enlargement
or Empire.
(ICB 2005: 11)

This quote sharply sums up the dilemma facing Western Europe, or the EU, with
the end of the Cold War – how to relate to and manage its new eastern ‘empire’.
The response of the EU has been to engage in external regulation and relation-
ship management interventions but at the same time deny that it is exercising its
authority over the region. It is entirely appropriate for the international commis-
sion to pose the EU’s policy choices as ‘state-building’ or ‘empire’ and it is this
dilemma, this denial of power, which has driven the enlargement process. This
denial of the new West/East hierarchy of European power, and the EU’s de facto
‘empire’ to the east, has taken the form of democracy-promotion and state-
building and the rapid extension and drawing out of the enlargement process to
the Balkans.
Where the international commission is slightly out of step with reality is in
the assertion that the question of ‘Enlargement or Empire’ was one being posed
in 2005. In fact, it was essentially resolved in 1999 when, with the end of the
Kosovo war in April, the European Union headed the beginning of an ambitious
international experiment in state-building and democracy promotion in the
Balkan region. State-building has enabled the EU to project its power in the
therapeutic framework of the liberal peace, of the capacity-building and empow-
erment of its eastern neighbours, rather than posing the questions of political
responsibility which are raised with empire. Instead of posing the question of
Europe’s imperial mission – in concrete terms, what Europe stands for and what
Europe represents in relation to a Balkan reality – state-building and democracy
promotion shifts the focus to the governing regime of the potential candidates.
State-building through democracy promotion involves no less expenditure of
resources than empire, in fact, if anything, state-building is more invasive and
regulatory. The EU has not been hesitant to intervene, merely reluctant to
assume political responsibility for intervention. The state-building process of EU
enlargement has been able to be highly regulatory precisely on the basis that the
regulatory mechanisms invest political responsibility in the candidate countries
while denying the EU’s domination.
In the process of enlargement, the two drives of simulation – internally, with
regard to the EU’s purpose and coherence, and externally, with regard to the
72 D. Chandler
Balkans – intervention in the hyperreal (creation of the hyperreal) and denial of
power (denial of the real) come together in a particularly forceful way. The EU’s
experiments in shifting the political responsibilities of power away from Brus-
sels have been described as implying no less than the ‘reforming and reinventing
[of] the state in South Eastern Europe’. As the European Stability Initiative
observed:

A new consensus is emerging among both regional and international actors

that the most fundamental obstacle to the advance of democracy and secur-
ity in South Eastern Europe is the lack of effective and accountable state
institutions. Strengthening domestic institutions is increasingly viewed as
the key priority across the diverse sectors of international assistance, as rele-
vant to human rights and social inclusion as it is to economic development
and democratisation.
(ESI 2001: 18)

This is argued to be the special mission of the EU. The Commission argued
that its focus on exporting democracy to the region through building the
capacity of state institutions and civil society development reflected not only
the importance of this question and the clear needs it had identified, ‘but also
the comparative advantage of the European Community in providing real
added value in this area’. It would appear that the Balkan states were fortunate
in that their wealthy neighbours to the west had not only identified their
central problems but also happened to have the solutions to them already at
hand (EC 2001a: 9).
The result of the EU’s simulation of its ‘mission’ is the problematization of
the Balkans, of both the states and the societies which it exercises power over. It
is important to note from the start the artificial and somewhat forced nature of
the justifications for the EU’s state-building project. The problems identified in
the governance sphere were not with the formal mechanisms of democratic
government or the electoral accountability of government representatives but
were concerns that went beyond procedural questions of ‘free and fair elections’
to the administrative practices and policy choices of governments and the atti-
tude, culture and participation levels of their citizens. Regarding institution-
building, the European Commission asserted that:

The lack of effective and accountable state institutions hampers the ability
of each country to co-operate with its neighbours and to move towards the
goal of closer integration with the EU. Without a solid institutional frame-
work for the exercise of public power, free and fair elections will not lead to
representative or accountable government. Without strong institutions to
implement the rule of law, there is little prospect that states will either
provide effective protection of human and minority rights or tackle inter-
national crime and corruption.
(EC 2001a: 9)
 The EU’s promotion of democracy in the Balkans 73
Where, only a few years previously, free and fair elections were seen to be the
main indicator of representative and accountable government, institution-building
was now held to be the key to democratic development. According to the Com-
mission, strengthening state institutions was vital for ‘assuring the region’s future,
being as relevant to human rights and social inclusion as it is to economic develop-
ment and democratisation’ (EC 2001a: 9). While the Balkan states met the tradi-
tional democratic criteria, necessary for the incorporation of new members, such
as Spain and Portugal, into Europe-wide mechanisms in the past, they were now
held to fail to meet the new, more exacting, standards which are being laid down
for membership of European bodies at present (Storey 1995).
Regarding the second aspect of governance, civil society, the Commission
was even more forthright in its condemnation of the aspiring members involved
in the Stabilization and Association process:

none of the countries can yet claim to have the level of vibrant and critical
media and civil society that is necessary to safeguard democratic advances.
For example, public and media access to information, public participation in
policy debate and accountability of government and its agencies are aspects
of civil society which are still largely undeveloped in all five of the coun-
tries.
(EC 2001b: 10–11)

In this case, the applicant states from the Balkan region could apparently not
even make a ‘claim’ that they could safeguard ‘democracy’ in their states
without external assistance in the form of democracy promotion and capacity-
building. In fact, the Commission was clearly concerned by society in the region
as much as by government, arguing that the aim of its new programmatic devel-
opment was necessarily broad in order ‘to entrench a culture . . . which makes
forward momentum towards the EU irreversible’ (EC 2002: 8).
The process of constructing a Balkan hyperreality in order to construct the
EU’s mission is that of simulation. The precondition for the EU’s ‘member state
building’ in the Balkans is the formal and informal subsumption and subordina-
tion of the region. The Balkans are already integrated into the EU and this is pre-
cisely the problem posed by the region: its ‘real’ regional subordination to the
EU. It is the dependency of the Balkan states on EU policy-makers and EU
policy that makes the process of ‘integration’ necessarily an exercise in simula-
tion and makes simulation necessary. The simulation of policy-making creates a
hyperreality of Bosnia and Kosovo where the discursive language of choice is
that of crisis (Baudrillard 1983b: 42). The EU actively seeks to deny its political
subjectivity not by taking responsibility for policy but by denying its power to
make policy and in so doing reveals its ‘real’ lack of political subjective capac-
ity. The EU’s ‘inability to produce the real’ is reflected in its creation of the
Balkan threat – the hyperreal – simulating the EU’s incapacity to take political
responsibility for its power at the same time as multiplying its ‘truth effects’, its
interventionist impact in the region.
74 D. Chandler
The politics of emergency and the discourse of crisis is a simulation, but a
real and necessary one. Europe’s ‘big challenge’ in another context, where
power was confident of its capacity and its project, would be no challenge at all.
The former international High Representative and EU Special Representative
from 2002 to 2006, Paddy Ashdown argues that the Balkans are a ‘relatively
tiny morsel’ for the EU to swallow, with their tiny populations and tiny
economies (Ashdown 2007: 118). The EU has already spent two billion euro in
Kosovo since 1999 and will provide a further 1.5 billion euro to finance its pro-
posed office of the International Civilian Representative. The EU’s formal
assumption of the management of Kosovo is being described as ‘the moment of
Europe’. Kosovo is a re-run of Bosnia as declarations are made of Europe’s
mission. This is simulation as the values and purpose of the EU are not at stake
in Bosnia and Kosovo.
In fact, this is a double simulation, first, evading where the EU’s values and
purpose are in question – i.e. within the member states of the EU whose popula-
tions are unlikely to be able to vote on any new version of the European Consti-
tution – and, second, evading the ‘real’ political power and responsibility
exercised over the Balkans and recreating the Balkans as a ‘hyperreal’ foreign
and external challenge to the EU. Kosovo, ‘crisis what crisis’ argues the Russian
ambassador to the UK, who states that there are plenty of de facto states without
de jure recognition.9 What is the lurking dark threat of ‘inaction’ over Kosovo?
The EU is in a rush to give Kosovo its ‘independence’ to legitimize its regula-
tion and integration of Kosovo through the process of denying its own power
and simulating its ‘death’ as an imperial actor through Kosovo’s ‘emancipation’.
Within this framework, the process of hoops of ‘integration’ for Balkan states
to jump through, such as the Stabilization and Association process, can be seen
not so much as about integrating the Balkans as attempts to distance the Balkans
from the EU; in other words, attempts to avoid the questions of the capacity of
the EU to represent reality, to assert real power and responsibility over the
region. Bosnia is a new type of state, being built through this process of simula-
tion. Bosnia is a powerful example of the reality of the effects of simulation, of
the EU’s need to simulate the exercise of power by distancing power and polit-
ical responsibility.
To all intents and purposes Bosnia is a member of the European Union; in
fact more than this, Bosnia is the first genuine EU state where sovereignty has in
effect been transferred to Brussels (no other state is as integrated as this one).
The EU provides its government; the international High Representative is an EU
employee and the EU’s Special Representative in Bosnia. The EU administrator
has the power to directly impose legislation and to dismiss elected government
officials and civil servants. EU policy and ‘European Partnership’ priorities are
imposed directly through the European Directorate for Integration. The EU also
runs the police force (having taken over from the United Nations at the end of
2002) and the military (taken over from NATO at the end of 2004) and manages
Bosnia’s negotiations with the World Bank. One look at the Bosnian flag – with
the stars of the EU on a yellow and blue background chosen to be in exactly the
 The EU’s promotion of democracy in the Balkans 75
same colours as used in the EU flag – demonstrates the Bosnia is more EU-
orientated than any current member state.
However, the EU has distanced itself from any responsibility for the power it
exercises over Bosnia; formally Bosnia is an independent state and member of
the United Nations and a long way off meeting the requirements of EU member-
ship. After over ten years of state-building in Bosnia there is now a complete
separation between power and accountability. This clearly suits the EU which is
in a position of making policy with regard to the tiny state without either admit-
ting it into membership of the EU or presenting its policy regime in strict terms
of external conditionality. Bosnia is neither an EU member nor does it appear to
be a colonial protectorate. The relationship does not appear to be one of formal
equality or one of formal inequality – in fact, the relationship between the two
(and their separation as separate entities) is hard to locate. Power seems to have
no location, to have disappeared, through this process of denial and simulation.

Promoting ‘independence’ and ‘democracy’ in the Balkans?

The EU works best when it is in denial of its power and of political respons-
ibility – this denial is the source of its legitimacy (as the simulated state of
‘Europe’ – post-sovereign, post-national, post-interest-driven).10 The EU needs
Kosovo to have ‘independence’ and sovereignty (as Bosnia does), so the exer-
cise of power can be presented as ‘empowering’ – as facilitation, as ‘state-
building’, as capacity-building, increasing the independence, autonomy,
democratic accountability, human rights, rule of law, etc. in the Balkans.
But the EU has portrayed the Balkans as alien and problematic; as hyperreal,
as ‘in crisis’. The export of the solutions of freedom, autonomy, democracy,
self-determination only reveal the simulation involved in denying power and
simulating the existence of Balkan crisis. The simulation of executive and legis-
lative powers under EU control as ‘democracy-promotion’ flows from the simu-
lation of the Balkans as alien and crisis-ridden. The mission of simulation results
in the dialectic of distancing and domination.
This dialectic of simulation was revealed in the initial 1995 settlement where
the Bosnian parties formally invited the external powers to develop their own
mandates, creating the simulation of sovereignty rather than the ‘reality’ of a
protectorate.11 As Baudrillard writes in ‘The Precession of Simulacra’ in terms
of the external export of democracy to Bosnia:

From now on, it is impossible to ask the famous question: ‘From what posi-
tion do you speak?’ – ‘How do you know?’ – ‘From where do you get the
power?’, without immediately getting the reply: ‘But it is of (from) you that I
speak’ – meaning, it is you who speaks, it is you who knows, power is you.
(1983b: 77–78)

This process of external power imposed on the basis of the will of the Bosnian
people as manifested not through representation but simulation (through the will
76 D. Chandler
of the EU Special Representative) was clearly articulated in EU SR Paddy
Ashdown’s inaugural speech of May 2002:

I have concluded that there are two ways I can make my decisions. One is
with a tape measure, measuring the precise equidistant position between
three sides. The other is by doing what I think is right for the country as a
whole. I prefer the second of these. So when I act, I shall seek to do so in
defence of the interests of all the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, putting
their priorities first.
(Ashdown 2002)

Here representation – the representation of Bosnian voters through the ballot

box and expressed in the electoral support for three ethnic parties – is explicitly
seen to be a problem for Bosnian society, as preventing the will of the people
from being collectively manifested.12 In order for Bosnian people to be truly
represented ‘as a whole’, Ashdown argues it is necessary that he acts as their
representative against the political parties (held to be unrepresentative). The
Bosnian electorate and their will are simulated by Ashdown and at the same
time the alien and external power of the EU SR is denied; he is not imposing his
or the EU’s will, but merely the will of the people.13
This denial of power was taken even further in the shift (under Ashdown’s
rule) from the power of the Office of the High Representative to that of the EU
Special Representative, which was dressed up in the emancipatory language of
democratization, away from the ‘push’ of the Bonn powers to the ‘pull’ of Brus-
sels. Here the imposition of EU policy proposals is reposed as a voluntary
choice deriving from the desire to ‘join’ Europe, rather than the imposed exter-
nal oversight of the Dayton settlement. This simulation now means that Bosnian
politicians are forced to ‘freely’ choose to implement EU programmes rather
than having them imposed by edict. In 2006, Ashdown was interviewed on
whether the shift from ‘Bonn to Brussels’ made any difference from the point of
view of Bosnian representatives and citizens:

Yes, it makes a huge difference. If it is imposed with a stick then the con-
sequence is dependency . . . It takes a great deal of strength to be able to say:
‘No, we are not going to do this. You have to do it yourself.’ We have to be
patient enough for the country to set back a bit when this happens . . . They
have more independence because they are no longer supported by the use of
the High Representative’s powers. Europe has said that if reforms are
imposed via the High Representative’s powers then Bosnia cannot join . . . Is
Europe acting in a quasi-imperialist fashion? Yes, but the difference is that
it is up to people to say no if they want to. This is still persuasion, it is not
coercion. I think it is perfectly legitimate for Brussels to say: ‘Guys here are
the rules, if you want to join the club you have to conform to the standards.
If you conform to them fine, but if you do not want to you do not have to
join.’ It was very difficult for the Republika Srpska parliamentary assembly
 The EU’s promotion of democracy in the Balkans 77
to agree to abolish their army and put it at the disposal of state institutions,
but they did it, not me. It was a free vote in the Bosnian Serb parliament, I
did not impose it. I may have told them it would be a good thing and that if
you want to get into NATO you have to, but it was they who took the final
decision.
(Ashdown 2007: 113–115)

Here, Ashdown forwards a subtle distinction between direct imposition, where

the EU potentially bears direct policy responsibility and the policy of indirect
imposition, where Bosnia’s elected representatives are held to be freely choos-
ing certain policy prescriptions. The difference between these approaches may
be important for the EU but makes little difference to Bosnian representatives or
to the Bosnian public who are confronted with proposals drawn up by external
actors. In neither framework is there any genuine debate between Bosnian
parties or any role for local actors in the development of policy-making. In fact,
in the case of imposition by the High Representative there is at least the clarifi-
cation of power relations between the EU and the Bosnian state, even if there is
the practice of simulation in the assertion that the external bureaucrat is merely
ruling in the interests of the Bosnian people themselves.
Bosnia’s formal international legal sovereignty gives the appearance that it is
an independent entity, voluntarily engaged in hosting its state capacity-building
guests. Questions of aligning domestic law with the large raft of regulations
forming the EU aquis appear as ones of domestic politics. There is no inter-
national forum in which the contradictions between Bosnian social and eco-
nomic demands and the external pressures of Brussels’ policy prescriptions can
be raised. However, these questions are not ones of domestic politics. The
Bosnian state has no independent or autonomous existence outside of the EU
‘partnership’. There are no independent structures capable of articulating altern-
ative policies. Politicians are subordinate to international institutions through the
mechanisms of governance established which give EU bureaucrats and adminis-
trators the final say over policy-making. The Bosnian state is a phantom state (a
simulacra); but it is definitely not a fictional creation. The Bosnian state plays a
central role in the transmission of EU policy priorities in their most intricate
detail. The state here is an inversion of the sovereign state. Rather than repre-
senting a collective political expression of Bosnian interests – expressing self-
government and autonomy – ‘Westphalian sovereignty’ in the terminology of
state-builders – the Bosnian state is an expression of an externally-driven
agenda.
The more Bosnia has been the subject of external state-building and demo-
cracy promotion, the less like a traditional state it has become. Here, the state is
a mediating link between the ‘inside’ of domestic politics and the ‘outside’ of
international relations, but rather than clarifying the distinction it removes the
distinction completely. The imposition of an international agenda of capacity-
building and good governance appears internationally as a domestic question
and appears domestically as an external, international matter. Where the
78 D. Chandler
representative sovereign state clearly demarcated lines of policy accountability,
the state without sovereignty blurs them. In fact, ‘the politics of the real’ – polit-
ical responsibility for policy-making – disappears with the removal of sover-
eignty.14
Democracy, in so far as it can be said to exist in the form of elections etc.,
has no relationship to policy-making. The simulation of representation in Bosnia
and Kosovo could now be said to be complete under the reign of the EU demo-
cracy exporters and state-builders. The EU’s exercise of its power creates simu-
lated states in its own image, where the death of representation, disappearance of
power and the existence of bureaucracy isolated from society, takes its most
grotesque forms.

Arbitrary power: the EU ‘Special Representatives’

In the Balkans the EU Special Representative in Bosnia, who also holds the
Office of the High Representative, and the EU’s Special Representative in
Kosovo, who will assume the position of the International Civilian Representat-
ive, represent the tendency towards arbitrary power. Their powers are potentially
arbitrary both vis-à-vis the EU and vis-à-vis Balkan society.15
The EU Special Representatives operate (there are nine at present, ten with
the finalization of the post-status arrangements in Kosovo) under the direction of
the EU’s ‘High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy’
(CFSP). Javier Solana is currently the High Representative for CFSP. The post
is often termed the EU’s Minister of Foreign Affairs (a post which is alleged to
have failed to become a ‘reality’ with the failure of the Constitutional treaty).
Solana’s post highlights the process of reproduction of simulacra within the
EU framework. The planned post of Minister for Foreign Affairs would itself
have been a simulation. The EU planned no other ‘ministerial’ positions. (The
Council of Ministers is composed of national government ministers, its rotating
Presidency is held by national prime-ministers. It is only the Secretary-General
of the Council, the head of the Council Secretariat – the High Representative for
CFSP – who holds a simulated ministerial post, neither representative of a
national government, nor elected as a European representative, as are the
members of the European Parliament.) The EU’s Special Representatives are the
simulation of government representatives of the EU, which lacks a genuine
government of its own.
While in the realm of internal EU politics there is little clarity where political
responsibility lies, whether at the level of member states or in EU forums, it
seems that the further EU power stretches away from Brussels, the more it
appears capable of simulating itself as an independent political entity (not a
composite of member nation states). It is only in the international arena that the
EU comes into its own, where its representatives take on political power which
is separated from the national governments comprising the EU. In fact, it is only
in the international arena – where the EU is most free to simulate state-like
attributes – that individuals have the authority to represent the EU as an
 The EU’s promotion of democracy in the Balkans 79
independent political entity (and reveal the hollowness/truth of this simulation to
its full extent).
Nowhere is the power of the EU as an independent actor standing indepen-
dently and above its member governments, felt more powerfully than in the
Balkans, where the HR and prospective ICR have executive authority to make
legislation and sack elected local political representatives. In one way, the EU’s
Special Representatives clearly symbolize the end of representation. The EU is
the embodiment of the rejection of sovereignty, yet its ‘representatives’ repre-
sent sovereign power in Bosnia and Kosovo. They represent sovereign power
precisely because the relations of state sovereignty are not present in EU–Balkan
relations. The Special Representatives represent neither the citizens of Bosnia
and Kosovo nor the citizens of the EU. Rather, the simulated nature of both the
EU as a policy actor and the Balkan states as objects of democratization and
empowerment produces a relationship of ad hoc and arbitrary power.
This power is arbitrary in the sense of having no fixed or cohered relationship
to society. This flexibility has been exemplified by the extension of the powers
of the High Representative since Dayton, one incumbent explaining that this
process was one which has no fixed limits: ‘if you read Dayton very carefully . . .
Annex 10 even gives me the possibility to interpret my own authorities and
powers’ (cited in Chandler 2000: 65). The pattern of ad hoc and arbitrary exten-
sions of international regulatory authority was initially set by the Peace Imple-
mentation Council (PIC) itself as it rewrote its own powers and those of the
High Representative at successive meetings. The most important of these were
the initial strategic six-monthly review conferences: at Florence, in June 1996;
Paris, in November 1996; Sintra, in May 1997; Bonn, in December 1997; and
Luxembourg, in June 1998.
In Bosnia the EU SR clearly manifests the imploding nature of the continual
play of simulations, where every issue is held to manifest the ‘values’ of the EU
and the crisis of Bosnia. In fact, the tying of reform to EU membership has made
nearly every policy issue one of crisis for both parties. This was clearly manifest
in the regular crises over cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) where negotiations on membership for
several states were suspended over allegations of a failure to cooperate and the
bureaucratic imperative of cooperation meant that many alleged war criminals
voluntarily surrendered and were waved off to The Hague with full military and
political honours, seen as heroes, not so much for their role in the war, but for
their willingness to sacrifice their freedom for the country’s entry to the EU (see
Chandler 2005).
Ashdown, in particular, has been held to have overplayed his hand in seeking
to use the EU (and NATO) to support his reform plans by seeking to make
policy reform a pre-condition for progress towards membership. This was high-
lighted, in particular, with the issue of police reform that dominated the last
years of Ashdown’s term. Ashdown wanted the abolition of entity-based police
forces and the centralization of police authority. However, he was on a very
weak footing in linking his plans with EU membership, overpoliticizing the
80 D. Chandler
issue of reform, and perpetuating the hyperreality of crisis over the reform
process.
While Ashdown invoked the leverage of the ‘pull of Brussels’ to impose
these major reform proposals, it was clear that he was acting independently of
Brussels and the wishes of the European Commission. The Commission viewed
Ashdown’s actions as destabilizing Bosnia’s relations with the EU and con-
sidered the EU Special Representative to be on weak ground politically, as the
Swiss, German and Belgian models, which had been specifically looked at in
more detail, definitely did not follow the centralized approach intended for
Bosnia. The European Commission were reluctant for Ashdown to use the issue
for a political showdown and gave the Bosnian representatives evasive signals,
encouraging opposition to the proposals, and were pleased to see Ashdown’s
radical plans eventually watered down (Muehlmann 2008).
The political reflections of this are manifest in local political ‘representatives’
who do not need to (and cannot) take responsibility for policy-making, knowing
either that the EU will impose its will by diktat or back down and change it’s
policy proposals so as not to risk the enlargement process. Because all that
remains of the domestic political process is simulation, so-called ‘policy-
making’ – the assent to external will – becomes a simulation exercise and there-
fore either a crisis in the relationship between Bosnian representatives and the
Special Representative or between Bosnia and the EU. Therefore, this process is
much more problematized than a ‘real’ exercise of political decision-making
(one of representation) which necessarily involves compromise and negotiation
around problems arising from and related to that society.
The simulation of the EU’s power and purpose results in the operation of
power relations which are continually in contradiction with ‘reality’, continually
confronting reality with simulation and the creation of hyperreality. Thus one
self-creating ‘emergency’ follows another, as the fictional hyperreal portrayal of
Bosnia and Kosovo – of ‘resistance’, of ‘parallel structures’, of the power of
nationalists – are held to confront the fictional portrayals of the mission of the
EU – of the need to reform to meet EU standards, of the implementation of the
acquis, of empowerment, capacity-building and greater ‘ownership’. These
recurring crises are real not despite the fact that they are simulated, but pre-
cisely because they are simulations. The inevitable crises of EU policy-making
in the Balkans reveal the truth of the inability of the EU to regulate and integrate
the region through long-term strategic policy-making.

Conclusion
This chapter has argued that Baudrillard’s concepts of simulation and hyperreal-
ity are useful to provide insights into the European Union’s policy-making
process with regard to democracy promotion and state-building in the Balkans.
The use of this framework suggests that the EU, as a simulacra, lacks the capac-
ity to coherently assert the power of its member states. It further suggests that
the EU’s domination of the Balkans takes the form of a denial of power and
 The EU’s promotion of democracy in the Balkans 81
exaggeration and overpoliticization of the relations between the EU and the
Balkan potential members, through the hyperreal construction of the problems
of enlargement. It further suggests that the outcome of the process of simulation
is less the export of democracy than the export of power in an ad hoc and arbi-
trary manner and in the creation of states which are simulated – which are
ciphers for external power rather than linked to their own societies.

Notes
1 See, for example, Baudrillard (1987) and the accompanying interview with Sylvere
Lotringer.
2 These points are made in Baudrillard (1983a), where he clarifies that without political
engagement, ‘without this minimal participation in meaning, power is nothing but an
empty simulacrum’ because ‘Quite simply, there is no longer any social signified to
give force to a political signifier’ (1983a: 27, 19).
3 See, for example, Rita Abrahamsen (2000), Barry Gills (2000) or Steve Smith (2000).
For useful critiques of traditional IR theorizing, using Baudrillard’s framework, see,
for example, Cynthia Weber (1995) and François Debrix (1999: 9–15).
4 For Barry Buzan’s concept of the ‘idea of the state’, see Buzan (1991: 69–82).
5 This can be seen in the focus on a wide range of ‘other’-orientated foreign policy
frameworks, from the ‘first great war of interdependence, the struggle for climate
security’ (Margaret Beckett, UK Foreign Secretary, ‘Climate Change: The Gathering
Storm’, Annual Winston Churchill Memorial Lecture, British American Business
Inc., New York, 16 April 2007), to the concern with threats from failed states, to
humanitarian crises, to the war on terror. See, for example, David Chandler (2006a),
especially ‘The Ethics of Empire in Denial’, Chapter 4.
6 The extent to which every external expression of EU ‘concern’ rapidly degenerates
into a question of (crisis of) EU values was only too adequately demonstrated in the
EU’s assumption of the leading role in the UN peace mission following the Israeli
incursion into Lebanon in 2006. The EU’s attempt to simulate shared values led to the
dispatch of troops as an exercise in simulation (there was no intention of using them
to constrain either the Israeli forces or Hezbollah and therefore no idea what equip-
ment if any was required); see further, Chandler 2006b).
7 As Baudrillard states in the fictional quote from Ecclesiastes at the opening of ‘The
Precession of Simulacra’: ‘The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth – it
is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true’ (1983b: 1).
8 I would like to thank Zaki Laïdi for raising this question after reading the formative
thoughts for this essay.
9 Yury Fedotov, speaking on BBC Radio 4, 3 April 2007. See also, Russian President,
Vladimir Putin’s remarks, regarding Kosovo: ‘We hear only one answer. That we
need to hurry. But hurry where? What is happening that requires us to be in such a
rush?’ cited in Luke Harding (2007).
10 As Zaki Laïdi argues:
Power – understood in its widest sense – is conceived and experienced less and
less as a process of taking over responsibilities, and more as a game of avoidance
. . . Social actors avoid taking on their own responsibilities . . . because, in
the absence of a project of meaning, responsibilities are measured only in cost
terms.
(1998: 13)
For Baudrillard, ‘We are at the point where no one exercises power or wants it
anymore’, therefore the practice of power is simulation, the defence of elites is to
82 D. Chandler
allege that power is ‘being democratized, liberalized, vulgarized, and, more recently,
decentralized and deterritorialized, etc.’ (1987: 55).
11 Bosnia is probably a better and clearer example of what Cynthia Weber describes as
the end of sovereignty as a meaningful referent and the exchangeability of the signi-
fiers ‘sovereignty’ and ‘intervention’ (1995: 126–127) than her studies of US inter-
vention in Grenada and Panama.
12 From the beginning of the Dayton process, there was an assumption by international
interveners that the Bosnian people could never be constituted on the basis of
representation. The marginalization of the people of Bosnia from their own political
system by external powers was summed up in the first High Representative, Carl
Bildt’s observation that: ‘No-one thought it wise to submit the constitution to any sort
of parliamentary or other similar proceeding. It was to be a constitution by inter-
national decree’ (Bildt 1998: 139).
13 This process of simulation could also be observed in the July 2007 United Nations
Development Project Bosnia survey, The Silent Majority Speaks (UNDP 2007).
14 As Cynthia Weber notes, this understanding is problematic within the ‘logic of
representation’, where ‘a boundary “truly” exists between sovereignty and inter-
vention, and this boundary insures the distinction between these two terms’ (1995:
127).
15 This puts EU democracy promotion in a different light to that of national govern-
ments who are at least accountable to their electorate. For example, George W.
Bush’s defeat in the 2006 mid-term elections was largely on account of the public
perception of his failed policies with regard to Iraq. In the EU there is much less over-
sight over the policy actions and no direct electoral accountability for policy failings.
I am grateful to Christopher J. Bickerton for this point.
6 A missed opportunity?
The EU and the reform of the UN
human rights architecture
Franziska Brantner and Richard Gowan

The promotion of democracy and human rights is very high on the EU–UN
agenda,1 reflecting the widespread belief among European citizens that the EU
should promote human rights and democracy worldwide.2 Since the end of the
Cold War, EU members have been active in putting rights issues on the UN’s
agenda. Acting as a bloc, the EU has introduced over 200 resolutions on specific
rights situations in UN forums since 1991. EU members have also been instru-
mental to promoting elements of a normative revolution at the UN in the 1990s,
including the approval of the International Criminal Court and the Respons-
ibility to Protect. But Europe is not the only power which aims to promote
global norms through the UN – and, contrary to what is generally believed,
European preferences might clash with those of other active blocs, such as the
Organization of the Islamic Conference. For instance, in the summer of 2007,
the EU had to go as far as threatening its withdrawal from the nascent Human
Rights Council (HRC) in order to maintain the Council’s prerogative to address
country-specific situations.
While the EU finds itself opposed to members of the global south on rights
issues, it does so at a time in which relations between the United States and the
south at the UN have deteriorated even more dramatically (Benner 2006). This
has confronted the EU with a dual challenge. Its members want to ensure that
the US does not give up on the UN and at the same time that rising powers such
as China and India remain invested in the system. Javier Solana has warned that
“in 20 years time, it will be harder to convince giants like China, India and
others that a rules-based international system is in their interest too.”3
In this context, three types of strategy have been proposed for EU behavior at
the UN. The first is to speak with “one voice” so as to assert a clear European
identity in the world body, the second to be the “bridge” between the US and its
opponents (to be the soft middle power) and third to be a change-maker, to use
its leverage proactively by building new alliances.
The first strategy entails acting as a coherent and consistent voting bloc. In
that light, existing investigations on EU–UN relations focus on internal EU
coordination mechanisms at the UN and EU–UN cooperation mechanisms
(Laatikainen and Smith 2006; Wouters et al. 2006).4 But this analytical focus
has obvious weaknesses: it prioritizes the existence of common EU positions
84 F. Brantner and R. Gowan
over their substance. Also, unity alone is not enough to ensure European influence.
The EU and its consistent allies do not add up to a numerical match for the G77,
southern states coalition. This chapter demonstrates in its first section that the
achievement of a high level of coherence by the EU on rights in UN votes has been
paralleled by declining support for its positions among the wider membership.
Second, since the Iraqi debacle, there have been recommendations for the EU
to draw the US back into the UN system – effectively acting as a political bridge
between the Americans and the global south. This strategy has flaws though: it
can leave the EU looking weak on policy, as it once again apparently prioritizes
consensus over substance. Furthermore, while it has proved relatively easy to
identify common concerns for the US and EU on security issues at the UN, it
has been harder to set out any new vision for EU–US cooperation on rights. One
otherwise highly concrete set of recommendations to Washington and the EU
could only suggest a “searching transatlantic conversation” on rights questions
(Benner and Luck 2007: 21).
The third potential strategy for the EU is to focus neither solely on itself nor
excessively on the US, but to take a “change-maker” role in making the UN
system more effective. Some advocates have argued that the EU should be
robust in its use of influence and leverage to try to make the UN more “positive”
in its approach to human rights and security (Leonard and Gowan 2004). Con-
versely, it has been proposed that the EU should focus on well-regulated global
governance – and by extension the UN – as a good in its own right, especially as
both the EU and UN have an existential interest in maintaining the credibility of
international law (Fassbender 2004; Ortega 2007). Attempting to bring these
two positions together, it has been proposed that the EU should link its faith into
the UN to a new doctrine of promoting Global Public Goods (Biscop 2005).
This chapter argues that the EU’s most promising role is that of an alternative
change-maker, understood as a power that advances universal human rights by
reaching out to new allies and using reflectively, but nonetheless assertively,
European leverage. We do not argue for the EU to become the next bullying
power, but neither for the spreading of “European norms without force” (Laidi
2005). This begs the central question of what the EU profoundly wants to be
(Laidi 2005: 12): a catalyst for improved and enhanced international cooperation
on human rights or rather the exporter of EU preferences and influence beyond
its borders? Even if the two are obviously linked, equating the two amounts to
equating EU preferences to “interests of the world.” This is closely linked to the
central question of this volume, namely if EU normative power expresses “a sort
of European virtue claiming universal validity or is it a weapon in the hands of
Europe to promote its own interests?”.

Tracking European unity and influence on human rights at

the UN
The analysis of inter-governmental politics on human rights in UN forums needs
to be understood in terms of a growing political polarization within the UN
 A missed opportunity? 85
system as a whole that does not necessarily stem from rights questions.
Although UN members realistically recognize that political power is concen-
trated in the Security Council, other forums – including the Economic and
Social Council and both the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and HRC –
have become, in the eyes of many southern missions, centers of symbolic resis-
tance to the West. To critics from the south, the Security Council (on which the
US and five European members can usually predominate when united) appears
ready to ride rough-shod over the concerns of countries outside it. In 2006,
South Africa’s ambassador to the UN complained that the Council’s members
tended to treat the UN as “Fortune 500 Company,” in which they held “Class A
stocks” while all others had “common stock” (Rizvi 2006).
The depth of the ill-feeling around these issues was underlined in April 2006
when an important package of management reform proposals set out by Secretary-
General Kofi Annan were subjected to a highly unusual vote in the Fifth Committee
– its first for two decades. It members decided by 108–50 against going forward
with the reforms. The EU’s members were united, but on the losing side with the
US, and the British Ambassador (representing the EU presidency) decried a “chron-
ically inefficient” process that had “comprehensively failed to incorporate the views,
on many essential issues, of the European Union” (Better World Campaign: 2).
This episode highlighted the persistence of the North–South divide, and the
effectiveness of well-established voting blocs in the UN system – the EU, US
and their allies were soundly defeated by a united G77. The resulting polariza-
tion not only disadvantages the EU (less well-represented in these forums than
in the Security Council as Table 6.1 shows) but also means that rights votes are
treated as ammunition in a struggle over how the UN is run, distracting attention
from their substantive merits.
Given these tensions, and given the potential use of human rights as ammu-
nition, we would expect to see a decline in support for European positions on
rights at the UN. Previous studies have tended to focus on the EU’s unity at
the UN, rather than its correlation with its influence, although Karen Smith
noted in 2006 that support for EU positions on human rights appeared to be
declining in the General Assembly (Smith 2006a: 132). Recent research
carried out by the authors has shown this expectation to be broadly correct
(Brantner and Gowan 2007). European unity at the UN can be a good in its
own right. As Paul Luif showed in a 2003 study of voting in the General
Assembly, a convergence between current and future member states in the
run-up to enlargement was symptomatic of the Union’s expansion to take in
Eastern Europe. And European splits can also signal real political woes – Luif
published his findings shortly after the Iraq war had sundered European unity
at the UN (Luif 2003).
To examine voting patterns, the authors drew on a computation method used
by the US State Department in its annual report to Congress on voting in the
General Assembly.5 It is based on a calculation of “voting coincidence”: a per-
centage figure that indicates the frequency with which other Assembly members
vote with the US. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the figures show a massive decline in
86 F. Brantner and R. Gowan
support for US positions over the last decade. It reached a high of 50.6 percent
in 1995. By 2006, it had fallen to 23.6 percent. This decline began in the Clinton
era, as Washington distanced itself from the UN over Bosnia and Kosovo – but
it has intensified during the Bush presidency, as the US has voted alone (or with
small numbers of allies) against majorities at the UN as a matter of habit.
Applying the same method to EU voting in the Assembly must come with a
caveat: there are still cases in which the EU does not vote as a bloc. The number
of EU splits has diminished over the last decade. In the later 1990s, the EU
could not find consensus on roughly one-fifth of General Assembly resolutions
(although in many cases this reflected only one or two countries, most often
Britain and France, distancing themselves from the European majority). This
figure jumped to just over one-third of all votes in the 2003–2004 session of the
General Assembly, suggesting coordination problems following the diplomatic
disturbances over Iraq (see Figure 6.1). However, it is striking that enlargement
did not create greater disunity in the EU – it grew more coherent in 2004.
Turning to the EU’s influence, the authors used a more detailed version of
“voting coincidence” than that employed by the State Department. It is based on
all General Assembly votes in which the Europeans achieved consensus. The
table represents the overall level of support by non-European members of the
General Assembly for EU positions during each session (a 75 percent score
would mean that, on average, members of the General Assembly had voted with
the EU three-quarters of the time in a given session).6 Overall, the results looked
good for the EU. An examination of voting patterns reveals that, in those votes
on which it achieves consensus, the majority and the EU defended the same

40

35

30

25
Percentage

20

15

10

5
EU splits as % of total votes
0
52 (1997–1998)

53 (1998–1999)

54 (1999–2000)

55 (2000–2001)

56 (2001–2002)

57 (2002–2003)

58 (2003–2004)

59 (2004–2005)

60 (2005–2006)

61 (2006–2007)

Figure 6.1 Number of EU splits in General Assembly, 1997–2007 (source:

www.un.org/Debts/dhl/resguide/gares1.htm).
 A missed opportunity? 87

100
90
80
EU
70
60 US
50 China
40 Russia
30
India
20
10
0
52 (1997–1998)

53 (1998–1999)

54 (1999–2000)

55 (2000–2001)

56 (2001–2002)

57 (2002–2003)

58 (2003–2004)

59 (2004–2005)

60 (2005–2006)

61 (2006–2007)
Figure 6.2 Voting coincidence in General Assembly, in cases of EU consensus,
1997–2007 (source: www.un.org/Debts/dhl/resguide/gares1.htm).

position in General Assembly votes far more often than not – with a voting
coincidence score of just under 80 percent. It has moved a long way from the US
(which, using this methodology, scores below 20 percent).
This means that, on average, members of the General Assembly adopted
positions aligned with EU in four-fifths of the votes in the 2006–2007 session,
while aligning with the US in fewer than one-fifth of the cases. Yet these figures
do not reflect the EU’s performance on sensitive topics voted on by the General
Assembly, especially human rights. While EU coherence on human rights issues
had reached 100 percent by 2005–2006, e.g. the 25 always voted together, the
number of non-EU countries voting with the Europeans on human rights has
declined.
This graph shows that the EU has gone from managing consensus in three-
fifths to four-fifths of human rights votes for most of the last decade to achieving
total consensus in the 2005–2006 and 2006–2007 sessions. But the number of
non-EU countries aligning themselves with European consensus positions has
followed a downward trend. In 1997–1998, the level of support among non-EU
members of the Assembly for EU positions stood at 75 percent – by 2006, this
figure had fallen to 53 percent (meaning that on average, states only cast their
vote with the EU in a bare majority of cases). A striking feature of this down-
wards trend is that the decline of EU influence appears to have coincided with
the resurgence of China and Russia as voices on rights issues. In the late 1990s,
both the EU and US (with a 77 percent voting coincidence score) enjoyed higher
support than China (50 percent), India (62 percent) and Russia (67 percent). This
has been reversed, with the US (scoring just 22 percent) suffering a worse
decline than the EU, while China’s score is up to 81 percent and India and
Russia’s to 83 percent.
 120

100

80

60

40

20

0
52 (1997–1998)

53 (1998–1999)

54 (1999–2000)

55 (2000–2001)

56 (2001–2002)

57 (2002–2003)

58 (2003–2004)

59 (2005–2006)

60 (2006–2007)
Level of EU Voting coincidence with
coherence (%) EU concensus votes (%)

Figure 6.3 EU splits on General Assembly human rights votes, and voting coincid-
ence with EU consensus positions, 1997–2007 (source: www.un.org/
Debts/dhl/resguide/gares1.htm).

120 Voting coincidence

110 with US(%)
100
90
Voting coincidence
80
70 with EU (%)
60
50 Voting coincidence
40 with China (%)
30
20 Voting coincidence
10 with India (%)
0
52 (1997–1998)

53 (1998–1999)

54 (1999–2000)

55 (2000–2001)

56 (2001–2002)

57 (2002–2003)

58 (2003–2004)

59 (2004–2005)

60 (2005–2006)

61 (2006–2007)

Voting coincidence
with Russia (%)

Figure 6.4 Voting coincidence with China, EU, India, Russia and US on human rights
votes in General Assembly, 1997–2007 (in cases of EU consensus) (source:
www.un.org/Debts/dhl/resguide/gares1.htm).
 A missed opportunity? 89
The steepness of the American decline reflects the fact that the US has voted
against many human rights resolutions – sometimes on its own – that the EU
supports. These include issues such as the right to food and the rights of the
child. The US Administration’s suspicion of apparently uncontroversial rights
resolutions is a major obstacle to the EU acting as an effective political bridge
between the US and G77.
One area where the US and EU still agree, however, is on General Assembly
resolutions addressing rights situations in specific countries. In the 1990s,
Europe and the US built very large majorities in the General Assembly for votes
on the former Yugoslavia. In 1999, 122 states backed a resolution on Kosovo.
The EU and US continue to back such resolutions. Recent examples include
votes on Belarus, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Myanmar, Turk-
menistan and Uzbekistan. But the majorities in favor of these country-specific
resolutions have declined since a peak in the late 1990s. Whereas the average
number of countries voting in favor of country-specific resolutions peaked at
over 100 in 1998–1999, it has fallen to the low 80s in recent years. Although
most states not voting in favor still tend to abstain, the average number of votes
against these resolutions has crept upwards from an average of below 20 in the
late 1990s to the mid-30s.
Thus on both general and on specific country cases, the General Assembly
has become an increasingly challenging forum for the EU to advance rights
issues. It is not all bad news. The EU’s solid voting group – one-fifth of the
UN’s membership – can still count on the reasonably regular support of another
fifth.7 This includes the US and its own circle of consistent allies, middle powers
such as Japan and Canada, and a significant number of Latin American

120
Average number of votes

100
80
60
40
20
0
52 (1997–1998)

53 (1998–1999)

54 (1999–2000)

55 (2000–2001)

56 (2001–2002)

57 (2002–2003)

58 (2003–2004)

59 (2004–2005)

60 (2005–2006)

61 (2006–2007)

General assembly session

In favor Against Abstain

Figure 6.5 Support for country-specific rights resolutions in General Assembly,

1997–2007 (EU supporting resolutions in all cases; excludes votes on
Palestine) (source: www.un.org/Debts/dhl/resguide/gares1.htm).
90 F. Brantner and R. Gowan
democracies.8 But this coalition has obvious limitations: it contains virtually no
states from Africa (bar Burundi and Tanzania) and its Asian members are
mainly small American allies. The Latin American democracies that frequently
support the EU on rights are balanced by another group of Latin American
countries that oppose it (although large states in the region, including Brazil,
Chile and Argentina, are in the former group). Those countries that typically
oppose EU positions can be roughly divided between “frequent opponents”
(those with a voting coincidence with the EU of between 30 percent and 50
percent) and “hard opponents” (those with a voting coincidence score of less
than 30 percent). The “frequent opponents” of the EU on rights add up to 91
states – another 40 percent of the Assembly. Meanwhile, the “hard opponents”
only number 16, but include significant players including China and Russia.9
While the hardest opponents tend to be autocracies, frequent opponents of
European positions on rights include many democracies, including India and
South Africa. A correlation between political freedom and proximity to the EU
on rights issues is obvious in Europe, but varies significantly across other
regional groupings.10
There is no link between (non-European) countries’ formalized relations with
the EU and their votes on rights – neither countries included in the EU Neigh-
bourhood Policy nor countries covered by the Cotonou agreement have a higher
tendency to follow the EU’s lead on rights issues at the General Assembly. Only
a minority of those states that have signed Association Agreements under the
Neighborhood Policy – four of 12 – act as part of the European bloc.11 Of the 77
states the Cotonou agreement covers, just over one-quarter (20) are among the
EU’s frequent allies.
On human rights, therefore, the EU can genuinely boast to be an effective
voting bloc in the General Assembly. But the coalitions it helps create have
shrunk over the last decade. This experience appears to confirm the supposition
that the current polarization of the UN has negatively impacted on the EU’s
influence in the system – but our figures only provide a rough indication of a
gradual decline in this influence. The creation of the HRC, by contrast, permits
us to take a more detailed snapshot of EU actions and effects on rights issues –
in a case that put both structural and substantive issues at stake.

HRC creation story

On March 15th 2006, the General Assembly approved, 170 to four votes (US,
Israel, Marshall Islands and Palau against) with three abstentions (Belarus, Iran
and Venezuela), the new Human Rights Council. The HRC replaced the Com-
mission on Human Rights, which had come under heavy criticism from the
human rights community for being an extremely politicized and rather ineffec-
tive body. This was especially so after countries with despicable human rights
records gained membership and Libya had been elected for the chairmanship of
the Commission.
The HRC is now a subsidiary body of the General Assembly with a review
 A missed opportunity? 91
Table 6.1 Distribution of seats on CHR and HRC

Region CHR HRC

Africa 15 (28%) 13 (28%)

Asia 12 (23%) 13 (28%)
Eastern Europe 5 (9%) 6 (13%)
Latin America 11 (21%) 8 (17%)
WEOG and US 10 (19%) 7 (15%)
Total 53 47

Source: www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/membership.htm; www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/.

Notes
WEOG = Western European and other states group.

clause and the possibility of becoming a principal organ of the United Nations,12
it meets regularly,13 its members are elected directly and individually by secret
ballot by the majority of the members of the General Assembly (not just of the
votes cast) – instead of regional groups choosing their representatives – and,
“when electing members of the Council, Member States shall take into account
the contribution of candidates to the promotion and protection of human rights
and their voluntary pledges and commitments made thereto.”14
The new Council is marginally smaller (47 instead of 53 members). As the
principle of “equitable geographic representation” was applied, the EU has now
proportionally fewer votes in the HRC than it did in the CHR. The Latin Amer-
ican countries accepted doing the same. This redistribution was not huge, but
has given Asia and Africa a de facto majority in the HRC.

EU positions
The EU supported from early on the strengthening of the UN human rights
machinery. The presidencies, speaking for the EU, advocated for a different
status of the HRC – a standing body, possibly treaty body – with increased
meeting time and new membership rules.15 Regarding the latter, the EU wanted
to establish membership criteria (such as “abiding by the highest human rights
standards”) and to have the HRC elected by a two-thirds instead of simple
majority. Its position on the size of the HRC was ambiguous due to internal con-
troversies. It did not support the US call for a very small, Security Council-size
body. Smaller EU member states refused this proposal, just as much as smaller
non-EU states did, out of the awareness that a smaller forum would decrease
their likelihood of becoming member.
The EU took a status quo defensive position on many other aspects, such as
maintaining the CHR’s mandate to address country specific situations, the status
of NGOs or the CHR’s relation to the High Commissioner for Human Rights. In
professional EU “speak,” the EU’s general statement on UN reform on April 6th
2005 read: “The establishment of such a body [the Human Rights Council] must
92 F. Brantner and R. Gowan
take into account the valuable aspects of the acquis in the field of human
rights.”16

The EU and the US

Most members agreed on the importance of concluding negotiations before the
still existing, but by now discredited, CHR would open its 2006 session.
Approaching that deadline, General Assembly President Jan Eliasson decided to
take a courageous step. After having consulted all groups and relevant actors
and having collected their “dark-red lines,” he produced a compromise text that
did not leave anybody winning and nobody losing totally. Eliasson chose a “take
it or leave it” approach, asking the membership not to open the text again for
negotiations. Relatively quickly, the US came out in opposition and declared
that it would vote against the text. The US argued that Eliasson’s proposal
neither significantly reduced the size of the body, nor established a two-thirds
majority election mechanism nor binding membership criteria. Singapore came
out first in its support, then the African group, the Latin Americans – the EU did
not immediately react. It left doubt regarding its support due to internal squab-
bles. Some smaller EU countries had only then realized that the new HRC gave
the EU fewer seats, which meant fewer chances for them being elected. They
believed that the deal received was not worth losing seats for the EU.
Finally, after having solved its internal squabbles, the EU came out in support.
In the end, the fear was that some of the “like-minded” states would introduce
amendments, thereby reopening negotiations. The strongest opposition still came
from some members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), as well
as Cuba and Venezuela. Eliasson gained the support of the OIC by changing one –
the only – aspect of the text, strengthening the language on religious tolerance. Ini-
tiated by New Zealand, the EU in a last effort tried to persuade the US by enlisting
pledges from as many UN members as possible not to elect any human rights vio-
lating country – but in vain. This campaign failed, and deciding that it could not get
a perfect HRC, the US ended up opposing the new forum in near total isolation.
The EU defended a similar position to that of the US until the last two weeks
of negotiations, when the US decided to reject the compromise package. The
fact that the EU accepted the compromise deal in the end, contrary to the US,
does not allow us to conclude that the EU was in the “middle” or the bridge,
only that the EU accepted a deal in the end, which the US did not. The EU
would have proved its bridging power if the last minute effort by New Zealand
and the EU to convince the US had been successful.

EU and the south

The wider UN membership was not organized around the developing countries
coalitions of the G77 or NAM. Most countries accepted the idea of a new insti-
tution, of upgrading its status and having more regular sessions, but categori-
cally refused the idea of membership criteria and two-thirds majority voting.
 A missed opportunity? 93
Even though there was no overall coordination by the Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM) on the HRC negotiations and important Latin American countries such
as Argentina, Chile or Uruguay joined the EU/CANZ17/US position, there could
have been a NAM position on the opposition to criteria and two-thirds majority
elections according to several negotiators.18 Interestingly, since the negotiations
over the implementation of the new HRC have started, the developing countries
tend to speak together via NAM.
The important question is why democratic countries, such as South Africa,
did not support many of the EU/CANZ/US positions. It might, of course, be pos-
sible to argue that only the EU/CANZ/US really defend human rights, whereas
other countries (still) only prioritize interests. Versions of this argument are
heard in the EU.
But such an answer is short-sighted and highly arrogant. Two major reasons
can rather help to explain such positions, one more generic about alleged EU
double standards on human rights policies at the UN, the other about the content
of the proposed changes as such.

Alleged double standards

Most of the African and Asian countries had for a long time objected to the
“double standards” of the CHR, that they were the only target of criticism by the
CHR, leaving other situations like Chechnya outside; in short: resolutions were
politically motivated, and Western democracies addressed only situations where
they did not risk to compromise other national interests. Delegates from demo-
cratic developing countries singled out EU opposition to CHR and Third Com-
mittee attempts at criticizing the US for its human rights abuses at Guantanamo
Bay. Past attempts by Cuba at convicting the US had not found the support of
the EU. This in turn did not increase the credibility of the EU’s claim to
strengthen “universal” human rights. The linchpin for many became if the EU
was willing to support resolutions against the US, and evidence over the past
years had shown that this was not the case.19 While the EU was trying to act as a
bridge between the US and others on issues of structure of HRC reform, there-
fore, its claim to do so was undermined (from the south’s perspective) by the
European track record on substance.
The EU realized somewhere midway through the negotiations the risk of
losing the battle and of earning an even worse mechanism than the CHR. The
EU then changed its discourse and accepted the idea of dialogue, as well as
capacity building and the support for those countries on their way to the fulfill-
ment of human rights standards, as important tools of the new council.20 The EU
embraced the previously southern calls for a more genuine approach of dialogue
and cooperation – even though not abandoning the instrument of country spe-
cific resolutions (which the hardliners of the south sought to abolish and replace
by purely a system of dialogue and exchange). Once these concerns of develop-
ing countries were incorporated, negotiations were facilitated and moderate
developing delegates adopted more flexible positions.21
94 F. Brantner and R. Gowan
Non-reflective and non-strategic content of the proposals
While there was strong US and European support for creating a rights mechan-
ism that would institutionally exclude abusers, this plan met fierce opposition
from the vast majority of the global south, opposition not only from dictators,
but also from southern democracies, such as South Africa or India. A major
question evolved around possible membership criteria. Options ranged from “no
criteria” to the strongest existing human rights standards, e.g. including abolition
of the death penalty, or the acceptance of gay adoption rights. The EU did not
support such strict criteria, and more generally, the EU and the US (and CANZ)
were criticized for never having given clear answers to the following questions:
who defines the criteria, who monitors them and decides on the eligibility of
candidates? In fact, no clear position existed. EU internal disagreement over the
“how” led to a more general position mainly insisting on the need for criteria.
Only the US made a concrete proposal: “No Member State against which
measures are in effect under articles 41 and 42 of the UN Charter, or which are
subject to UN Security Council investigation, including a Commission of
Inquiry.” This criterion was unacceptable, also to the EU, as it proposed to give
the Security Council (SC) control over HRC membership – not to mention that
the decisions by the SC are not necessarily based on human rights considera-
tions. Perhaps Liechtenstein’s position helps us to understand their opposition
better: Liechtenstein argued from the beginning “We do not think that introduc-
ing criteria for membership is either feasible or desirable.”22 When negotiators
from southern democracies were asked why they did not support criteria or a
two-thirds majority election, their answers went along the lines of the principle
of equality and effectiveness considerations. They argued that the UN should not
create exclusive clubs, the main value of the UN being its universal member-
ship. Excluding the entire category of countries the HRC was actually supposed
to help in their transition towards human rights protection or to pressure into
respecting human rights was not seen as the most promising strategy. Put differ-
ently: alternative proposals presented could as much have been derived form a
strong human rights defender position.
The lack of transparency by the EU about criteria sustained the fears of many
among the developing countries of yet another body dominated by the “West”
setting its standards and applying these in an uneven manner. Given such suspi-
cions of developing countries and the level of low trust, the EU could have pro-
posed an institutional substitute for trust, possibly a clear mechanism for
establishing the proposed criteria.
The EU, as the US, advocated for two-thirds majority voting, hoping that
human rights abusing countries would not master to find the support of two-
thirds of the UN membership. The majority of the G77 favored simple majority
voting.
The proposed two-thirds majority vote and criteria were seen as increasing
the control of the EU over the new body: for EU members, strict human rights
criteria were not seen as a constraint, and the two-thirds majority gave the EU –
 A missed opportunity? 95
as much as to everybody else – more say in the elections. Even if criteria aimed
at strengthening the UN’s work on human rights, one cannot contest that this
would have deferred stronger control over the work of the HRC to democratic
and human rights defending countries, among which the EU is close to a
majority.
In the end, the EU move to ask for “no clean slate” per region,23 e.g. more
candidates than slots, found broader support among the wider membership.
Liechtenstein had already earlier on proposed an institutional mechanism that
would have given incentives for each region to present more candidates than
seats.24 Liechtenstein and others argued that two-thirds or simple majority voting
would not make any difference if there was no choice. The primary goal should
be to give all member states a real choice between candidates and trust them not
to elect human rights violators, with potentially much higher impact on the
outcome of the elections. This would have empowered other democratic coun-
tries to make real choices over membership instead of imposing some (Western)
criteria.
The EU’s objective of creating stronger control by democratic countries over
the UN human rights machinery met with the opposition of developing coun-
tries. In contrast, the EU found ways out of stalemate when it chose to prefer an
institutional setting with the potential of empowering other democratic countries
to make real choices over membership instead of imposing criteria. Similarly, its
acceptance of mandates and methods proposed by other democratic countries to
address human rights issues facilitated the support of moderate countries for a
strengthened body. The EU realized too late that the power asymmetries at the
UN are no longer such that the EU can remain the eternal norm-maker. Unlike
in its current neighborhood policy, the EU cannot suggest others to adopt rules
without participation in their making. It turns out that, in the end, this strategy of
controlling membership and decision-making processes, which would have
helped the EU to remain an eternal norm-maker, led to a situation in which the
EU lost control even further within the new HRC.25 The desire to exclude
member states challenging EU positions in the CHR – instead of finding new
ways of dealing with them – backfired.

HRC institution-building story

The EU is an even more coherent bloc in the HRC than in the General Assembly
– in all contested HRC resolutions to date, the eight EU members have voted
together. Additionally, the EU members of the HRC have also found to fill a
leadership vacuum because the US has so far declined to run for membership of
the Council. This makes the HRC unique within the UN system as a major
forum in which the EU bloc acts as a center of gravity unaffected by a US
alternative – and has an extra burden of responsibility for defending rights there.
Positively, a number of the worst rights abusers did not stand for election to
the HRC during the first secret ballots in May 2006. The EU scored a notable
success in campaigning against Belarus’ attempt to take one of the eastern
96 F. Brantner and R. Gowan
European seats – a success that was repeated in May 2007, when one-third of
the seats were open for election again. On this occasion EU support ensured that
Bosnia and Herzegovina narrowly beat Belarus in initial balloting, eventually
winning by 112 votes to 72.
But the overall profile of the HRC remains mixed from a European perspect-
ive on human rights. Earlier in this chapter, we divided the membership of the
General Assembly into a European bloc, frequent allies of the EU on rights, fre-
quent opponents and hard opponents. The first members of the new human
rights body elected by the General Assembly in 2006 were distinctly weighted
towards the latter pair of groups.
Of the 14 countries elected in the May 2007 round of ballots, four were
members of the European bloc (Bosnia, Italy, the Netherlands and Slovenia) and
one of its hard opponents (Egypt). The remaining nine states were all among its
frequent opponents.
The EU’s members have therefore found themselves in a doubly problematic
situation on the HRC, with both their structural position weakened by the re-
weighting of seats, and a three-to-two majority of members coming from among
Europe’s opponents on rights in the General Assembly. Individual successes
such as the repeated blocking of Belarus do not totally offset the flaws in the
European position.
This is complicated by the fact the EU also has to defend the US – many
members of the new Council have pushed to condemn American activities. The
EU members have refrained from criticizing the US, doing some damage to rela-
tions with other states. While the EU has been left (against its preferences)
without US support in the HRC, therefore, it has found itself cast as America’s
defense team there. The overall experience of the HRC has suggested that the
EU remains on the defensive in the new body. The EU distanced itself from an
early HRC decision on Darfur, and NGOs have criticized its compromise resolu-
tion of 2007 as soft on Khartoum. The majority of HRC resolutions are taken by
consensus, but the EU has so far lost in two-thirds of those that have been voted
on.26
In those cases where it abstains or is defeated on HRC resolutions, the Euro-
pean bloc is usually in a minority of 12–14 states. The Latin American countries
in the HRC often split in contested votes. This is in part because the Latin Amer-
ican countries are more sympathetic to thematic resolutions linking rights and
development that the EU typically opposes. But the Latin American countries do
continue to share the EU’s position on many aspects of the HRC, such as its
close cooperation with NGOs. Working through compromise, the EU can
however manage to push through resolutions in the HRC – in June 2007, the EU
co-sponsored a resolution on Darfur with the African Group. Again, this showed
that divisions over rights are sometimes surmountable. While Germany intro-
duced the resolution on behalf of the EU, Egypt – normally one of the hardest
opponents on rights – acted as the African co-sponsor.
The EU’s continued push for resolutions condemning specific countries goes
in parallel with the EU’s declining emphasis on advancing new international
 A missed opportunity? 97
human rights norms. The EU has not promulgated, since its worldwide cam-
paign against the death penalty, a new field for international human rights norm-
building. The Canadian or Swiss governments have been more proactive and
creative in addressing new (thematic) human rights concerns. The EU is by con-
trast quite conservative and does not push “new” issues (Smith 2006a) and its
engagement in the Human Rights Council and Third Committee has been highly
dominated by addressing country-specific situations. Its proactive thematic
approach is limited to individual countries, like France on human rights and
extreme poverty, or Germany and Spain on international human rights and
access to water – both rather addressing concerns in the south rather than issues
that also concern European countries, reinforcing the image of the EU using the
HRC only to point out problems in the global south. A lack of common and
coherent EU answers to new challenges is the main obstacle to being innovative.
On issues of human rights in the fight against terrorism, immigrants’ rights or
sexual orientation, the EU cannot go ahead with an already agreed position. Its
individual members would be part of the larger consensus-building process, with
Sweden probably being closer to New Zealand and Chile than to Poland. Such
fundamental disagreements only allow the EU to act as norm-enforcer (of those
norms that the EU member states have agreed upon), but not to be a leader in
norm-building.
Another example of norm-development is the follow up process to the
Durban World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia
and Related Intolerance. In view of the Review Conference in 2009 on the
Durban Declaration, the African group introduced in December 2006 a resolu-
tion calling for a preparatory process, including the establishment of a Prepara-
tory Committee. Democratic Latin American countries supported the proposal,
while the EU opposed it (among other reasons out of financial concerns over
additional money for supplementary preparatory meetings).
This trend raises a rather key question about the EU as normative power in
terms of its “ability to define what passes for ‘normal’ in world politics”
(Manners 2002: 236). It seems as if the EU is less interested in norm-building, in
“defining” what is normal, than in the “enforcement” of norms, trying to apply
pre-set criteria to individual states. If this seems obvious in the enlargement sce-
nario, the EU does essentially attempt the same within the UN, but with less
success as power asymmetries are less poignant inside the UN without the mem-
bership perspective.
Besides substantive work, the HRC’s early work tended to focus (if perhaps
inevitably) on procedural issues. These have often had however substantive
implications. During its first year, the HRC has spent much time trying to define
its working mechanisms and instruments – what aspects to take over from the
CHR, what to change, what to add.
The central issue in the end was China’s position that a two-thirds majority
should be required to take action on country-specific resolutions, de facto killing
the instrument. In response to China’s position, European Union members
threatened to withdraw from the Council. In the end, China agreed, but one cost
98 F. Brantner and R. Gowan
of China’s agreement, according to government sources, was that the mandates
of the Special Rapporteurs on Belarus and Cuba would be terminated. Russia – a
council member – has led demands for an end to the mandate of the controver-
sial special envoy for Belarus for a long time. Part of the deal was also to set as
permanent item on the Human Rights Council’s agenda “the human rights situ-
ation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories”– the only permanent
country/regional situation on the HRC agenda. This quest had been supported by
the vast majority of southern delegations. Also, over the course of the last year,
two “mandates” to monitor had already been abandoned by the HRC: Uzbek-
istan and Iran.
Throughout the so-called institution-building process, most negotiations
evolved around the HRC’s power to address country-specific human rights situ-
ations, as well as the level of member states control over the UN human rights
monitoring mechanisms. As already mentioned above, most of the African and
Asian countries had for a long time objected to the “double standards” of the
CHR, that they were the only target of criticism by the CHR. Also, the reluctance
of the EU to address internal, domestic, human rights problems, such as homosex-
uals’ rights in Poland or immigrants’ rights in Germany, at the United Nations did
not help to support the EU’s claim for universal coverage of the HRC.
In turn the majority of NAM members decided to oppose the re-introduction
of mechanisms that would single out countries, with negotiations about the HRC
agenda as one manifestation thereof. In order to prevent any possibility for the
HRC to address new situations of human rights violations, Algeria, Bangladesh,
Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, Russian Federation, China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia did
not only oppose the inclusion of an agenda item like “Situations requiring the
attention of the HRC” but also of the category “other issues,” as it could be
“misused” for introducing human rights situations. Nonetheless, the following,
among others, favored the maintenance of the latter category: Chile, Argentina,
Mexico, Australia, Japan, India, Norway, Republic of Korea and Switzerland.
Whereas Australia, Norway and Switzerland are not surprising allies, the
position of the Latin American countries as well as India and the Republic of
Korea merit attention. Similarly, southern democracies supported the mainte-
nance of strong NGO participation in all HRC fora. The lines on human rights
are not completely set.
Unfortunately, the EU had not benefited from the time starting with the adop-
tion of the HRC resolution to the beginning of the negotiations on the proce-
dures of the HRC to develop a coherent and credible set of proposals for new
human rights tools based on dialogue and capacity building. It did not live up to
its promise of using the HRC not only for country-specific resolutions, but also
for dialogue, as well as capacity-building and support for those on their way to
the fulfillment of human rights standards. Even if it is by no means clear if such
an endeavor would have changed positions, it could have tilted more moderate
countries towards the center.
The case of the “Human Rights Council Advisory Committee” is also reveal-
ing. As replacement of the former standing CHR Subcommittee, it is supposed
 A missed opportunity? 99
to function as a “think tank” for the HRC, undertake studies and research on
behalf of the HRC. The EU had advocated abandoning the standing character of
the body and replacing it with a roster of individuals that the HRC could choose
from according to need. The alleged idea was to avoid unnecessary meetings of
the committee members, but also to reduce the likelihood of one or two
members of the committee to influence all committee reports and studies in a
direction not favored by the EU (such as emphasizing too much the right to
development). This was not only opposed from the Cubas and Chinas, but also
from countries like Argentina and South Africa, and it was India that presented a
compromise proposal. These countries did not think that the “waste” of meeting
time was that grave and sympathized with the economic claims of the south.
The HRC story shows that southern democracies are willing to defend the
basic principles of a functioning UN human rights machinery, but also one of
the most fundamental values of the UN: universal membership and equality of
its members. Furthermore, they expect either the EU to live up to its discourse
and its expectations towards democrats: namely to set human rights questions
above other national (or EU) interest considerations or alternatively accept that
all countries support human rights causes when the price thereof is not too high
in terms of other national interests, as the Europeans do.

Conclusion
The creation of the HRC has thus in large part confirmed the importance of
underlying political issues we noted in our introduction and discussion of voting
patterns on rights in the General Assembly: the insufficiency of unity as a Euro-
pean strategy and the importance of polarization and bloc politics to all UN
affairs. At the most basic level, the failure of the EU to grasp that its own aspira-
tions to be a bloc at the UN will stimulate the inclination of other countries to
hold onto group identities has undermined European initiatives to move beyond
bloc-based politics – a failure of political self-awareness.
The data in this article shows a deepening divergence between the EU and
US on thematic rights issues in the UN General Assembly – and the US has
effectively boycotted the HRC, leaving the EU to represent the West there. But
this is complicated by further factors: the most obvious is the EU’s difficult
position vis-à-vis the United States, by which it attempts to assert its own iden-
tity but cannot escape from the US alliance – a problem that has taken on a new
form in the HRC. The “bridge building” strategy we noted as one option of the
EU looks particularly weak in here – the true bridge builders at the UN appear to
be those “realist democracies” that shift between substantive agreement with the
EU on rights and sympathy for the south.
This distinction between the EU and its Latin American allies points to a
more fundamental political challenge: the clashing definition of “universality” at
play. From the European perspective, the challenge has been to universalize a
set of rights that pre-existed the HRC – the most obvious tool for doing so being
country-specific resolutions. We might call this “output universality,” by which
100 F. Brantner and R. Gowan
the goal of the HRC is to raise all countries to a set standard. But the south
desires an alternative – “input universality,” perhaps – by which all countries are
able to engage in the definition of norms in the HRC. The fact that the EU is
more focused on targeting countries than developing new norms thus leads to
frictions – while the Latin American countries are ready to play both games.
The net result has been a clash at the nexus of norm-making and the pursuit
of individual countries – a major clash about the rules by which countries can be
challenged on rights. Rather than debate norms themselves or discuss individual
states in depth at the HRC (with the exception of Sudan), the EU has been
forced to put its reputation on the line over the precise set of conditions by
which it will be possible to focus on future abuses.
This is an unsatisfactory situation from any perspective, and the EU has suf-
fered from appearing to be firmly on the defensive – not a change-maker but
rather a defender of the status quo in this case. It is important to recognize that
the issue at stake was of extreme importance – an HRC with virtually no right to
pursue offending countries would be one in which there was little purpose in
debating norms. But equally, a chamber in which there is no room for normative
discussion is a poor venue to debate individual states.
The EU, having succeeded to act as a bloc in the HRC, is yet to act as the
core of a network of states capable of sharing and spreading a vision of human
rights. Instead, it finds itself acting defensively in both General Assembly and
HRC, and will continue to do so until it adopts a political approach that appears
more genuine progressive to the south. That is not a matter of giving up on prin-
ciples, but on promoting them better.

Notes
1 Cf. The Enlarging European Union at the United Nations: Making Multilateralism
Matter, published by the European Union, agreed by the troika and member states in
New York, April 2004; The European Union and the United Nations: The Choice of
Multilateralism, Communication from the Commission to the Council and the Euro-
pean Parliament, September 2003.
2 Cf. Eurobarometer: The EU’s Relations with its Neighbours, A Survey of Attitudes in
the European Union, September 2007; Eurobarometer: Europeans and Development
Aid, June 2007.
3 Javier Solana, speech to the Annual Conference of the European Union Institute for
Security Studies, Paris, 25–26 September 2005.
4 Policy-oriented publications include Espen Barth Eide (ed.) (2004) Global Europe
Report 1: Effective Multilateralism: Europe, Regional Security and a Revitalized UN,
London: Foreign Policy Centre and British Council Brussels; Ojanen, H. (2006) The
EU and the UN: A Shared Future, Helsinki: FIIA; and Ortega, M. (ed.) (2005) The
European Union and the United Nations: partners in Effective Multilateralism, Paris:
Institute for Security Studies.
5 Voting Patterns in the United Nations reports are available at www.state.gov/p/io/
conrpt/vtgprac/.
6 More technically, we have calculated voting coincidence scores as follows. Each vote
cast by each member state is given a score between 0 and 2 relative to the EU consen-
sus position, as follows:
 A missed opportunity? 101
Table 6.2 Score voting coincidence

EU vote Score for voting coincidence of third state

“No” Abstention No vote “Yes”

“No” vote 2 1 1 0
Abstention 1 2 2 1
No vote (absence) 1 2 2 1
“Yes” vote 0 1 1 2

A “voting coincidence” percentage is then calculated for each state by adding up its
total score for a General Assembly session, and dividing this by the maximum pos-
sible score for that session (the maximum score being that which a state that always
voted with EU consensus positions would achieve). The overall “voting coincidence”
percentage for a given session is calculated by totaling the individual percentages of
all non-EU countries and dividing them by the number of non-EU countries. This
method can be applied to smaller samples votes (such as human rights votes) and
other countries (as for China and other states here).
7 These countries include Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia,
Iceland, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, San
Marino, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey.
8 These counties include Afghanistan, Argentina, Brazil, Burundi, Canada, Chile,
Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Fiji, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Israel, Japan,
Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Micronesia, Nauru, New Zealand, Nicaragua,
Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Samoa, Solomon Islands, South
Korea, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Tonga, United States, Uruguay and Vanuatu.
9 Voting Patterns in the United Nations reports are available at www.state.gov/p/
io/conrpt/vtgprac/.
10 Boockmann and Dreher (2007) have also shown that there is no correlation between
the domestic human rights record and how countries vote on human rights resolu-
tions.
11 These countries include Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia,
Iceland, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, San
Marino, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey.
12 The CHR was a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council. The General
Assembly is the highest organ with universal membership, the Security Council and
the Economic and Social Council both have limited membership. The idea was to
elevate the institutional status of the UN human rights machinery in order to reflect
the importance the UN now assigns to human rights.
13 The CHR was limited to six weeks per year.
14 General Assembly Resolution A/60/L.48.
15 EU priorities for the 60th session: www.europa-eu-un.org/articles/en/article_4599_
en.htm.
16 EU Council Conclusions of November 7th 2005 on UN reform (emphasis in original).
Furthermore: “It [HRC] must retain the system of Special Procedures and build on
positive NGO-CHR engagement.”
17 CANZ = Canada, Australia and New Zealand speaking together.
18 Interviews with UN delegates conducted in New York by the author, June and July
2006.
19 For example on Guantanamo Bay: Cuba introduced for the first time a resolution on
“Question of arbitrary detentions in the area of the United States naval base in
102 F. Brantner and R. Gowan
Guantánamo” at the 59th meeting of the CHR in 2004. The representative of Cuba
introduced this draft resolution E/CN.4/2004/L.88/Rev.2, which he subsequently
withdrew. At the 60th meeting, on April 21st 2005, the representative of Cuba intro-
duced draft resolution E/CN.4/2005/L.94/Rev.1, Question of detainees in the area of
the United States of America naval base in Guantánamo, sponsored by Belarus, Cuba
and the Syrian Arab Republic. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Venezuela subsequently joined the sponsors.
At the request of the representative of the United States of America, a recorded
vote was taken on the draft resolution, as orally revised, which was rejected by 22
votes to eight, with 23 abstentions. The voting was as follows: In favour: China,
Cuba, Guatemala, Malaysia, Mexico, South Africa, Sudan, Zimbabwe.
Against: Armenia, Australia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Eritrea, Finland,
France, Germany, Honduras, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Maurita-
nia, Netherlands, Peru, Republic of Korea, Romania, United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America.
Abstaining: Argentina, Bhutan, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Canada, Congo, Ecuador,
Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Indonesia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay,
Qatar, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Togo and Ukraine.
20 Based on interviews by the author with officials of EU member states that partici-
pated in the HRC negotiations, June and July 2006.
21 Based on interviews by the author in New York at the UN and via telephone with
main actors from the different negotiating parties 2006 and early 2007.
22 Statement by Christian Wenaweser, Liechtenstein’s ambassador to the UN, October
24th 2005.
23 Due to the principle of equitable geographic representation, each region of the UN
has assigned number of seats in the HRC, which are however voted on individually
by the entirety of the membership – this was one of the compromises of the Eliasson
document.
24 Liechtenstein had made a proposal in that direction much earlier, arguing for simple
majority, no criteria, but instead a membership scheme that would recompense with
additional seats those regions that presented more candidates than slots. As it turns
out, Africa did not present more candidates than seats – thereby effectively circum-
venting the new election mechanism. Arguably, the Liechtenstein proposal could
have had better results.
25 The number of members on the Council from the Organization of the Islamic Confer-
ence (OIC) – currently 18 out of 47 Council members – is seen as playing a major
role in the current tensions within and around the Council. The terms of OIC
members Algeria, Bahrain, Indonesia, Morocco and Tunisia will expire in 2007. If
they are replaced with non-OIC members of the African and Asian groups, it is
thought that HRC dynamics could shift. However, it is also possible to be re-elected
for a second term.
26 Of all HRC resolutions passed in its first five sessions, 65 percent were passed by
consensus, 6 percent were passed with EU support, 6 percent were passed with the
EU abstaining and 21 percent passed against EU opposition.
7 The reception of EU
neighbourhood policy
Florent Parmentier

Since 2002, the European Union has struggled to formulate a coherent strategy
for the ‘wider Europe’, then including several countries that subsequently
became neighbours of the enlarged community. The European Neighbourhood
Policy (ENP) emerged out of the dilemma over membership that faced the EU,
offering an uneasy and varied mix of proposals and plans for closer cooperation
with a very diverse group of countries. In essence, the ENP is a process of
norms diffusion in the European ‘near abroad’, largely influenced by the EU’s
security concerns and realized under the constraints of the ‘enlargement fatigue’.
Most analysts of the ENP focus on the mechanisms through which norms are
spread. Inevitably, comparisons are made between the neighbourhood and
enlargement policies; these two policies share numerous similarities – in their
origins (Jeandesboz 2007), principles (extending the European internal order,
embedded in its social preferences) and methods (conditionality and socializa-
tion) (Kelley 2006; Tulmets 2006) – but there is also a fundamental distinction
between the two policies in the absence of membership prospects for the ENP.
Other studies are centred on the political and security interests developed in the
ENP framework, in various fields: migration, asylum, justice and home affairs,
etc. It is also generally well-noted that because of security and political consid-
erations, the new enlarged EU can no longer stay passive in its own ‘semi-
periphery’. The latter is now closely linked to the ‘core’ through a whole set of
features – geographical mobility of individuals, economic factors, claims for
‘Europeanness’, and geopolitical proximities.
This chapter is an attempt to link the ‘norms diffusion’ and the ‘norms recep-
tion’ processes, the latter being largely neglected by scholars (Rupnik 2007;
Meloni 2007; Delcour 2007). The ‘norms reception’ process corresponds to the
norm-takers’ appropriation – completely, selectively or accordingly to capacities
– of standards aiming at codifying their behaviour as actors on the premise of
commonly accepted principles, norms and values determined at the EU level.
Hence, the ‘norms reception’ approach leads to the following question: how
do neighbours confront, reinterpret, incorporate, implement or avoid the EU
normative message in a context of regional asymmetry?
In order to understand how norm-takers receive European norms, it is neces-
sary to distinguish three levels of analysis: political discursive strategy,
104 F. Parmentier
procedures and substance. The discursive strategic level deals with how the
norm-takers reinterpret the EU norms and values. The level of procedures is
about how the norm-takers incorporate the norms and values in the legal system
(Constitution, laws, judiciary codes etc.). Finally, the ‘substantial’ level is how
the norm-takers implement or avoid the norms and values in practice (organi-
zational ethic, role of bureaucracies and social groups etc.).
The chapter therefore seeks to provide an explanation of the norms reception
process. In pursuit of this aim, the first part of the chapter seeks to characterize
the Europe Neighbourhood Policy and the way it considers the ‘neighbours’, and
the second part argues that the norms reception should take into account the con-
figuration of the relations between the norm-maker and the norm-takers –
marked by a complex asymmetry. Finally, the norms reception process is
analysed in the case of the Ukrainian ‘Orange Revolution’.

How to become a neighbour?

While the neighbours’ objective is to follow the track of Central European coun-
tries, i.e. to obtain a promise of adhesion, Brussels wants the ENP to be – at least
for the moment – an alternative policy to enlargement. As such, its various fea-
tures help to understand how the ‘neighbour’ category was created and why it is
reluctantly accepted.

Sharing everything but institutions

In December 2002, Romano Prodi laid out a project suggesting that the EU
should share ‘everything but institutions’ (Prodi 2002). According to him, the
EU should stabilize its periphery through a substantive concept of proximity,
extending to this region ‘a set of principles, values and standards which define
the very essence of the European Union’ (Prodi 2002). It implies that the neigh-
bours should benefit from the same treatment and economic incentive as the EU
members, except for institutional participation in the process. After the ‘big
bang’ of 2004 and the failure to adopt a European Constitution through the
Dutch and French referenda, the ‘enlargement fatigue’ and ‘capacity of absorp-
tion’ (Emerson et al. 2006) have become part of the European vocabulary and
strategy. The EU needed time to ‘digest’ the newcomers: as Chris Patten put it:

Over the past decade, the Union’s most successful foreign policy instrument
has undeniably been the promise of EU membership. This is not sustainable.
For the coming decade, we need to find new ways to export the stability,
security and prosperity we have created within the enlarged EU. We should
begin by agreeing on a clearer vision for relations with our neighbours.
(European Commission, 2003a)

Considering the triangle ‘institutions – interests – identity’ helps to think

about the reception of this policy. Sharing ‘everything but institutions’ would
 The reception of EU neighbourhood policy 105
mean that the neighbours and the EU can share interests or identity. However,
these various aspects are closely linked in the neighbours’ own perceptions. It is
not clear how they may defend their interests without being part of the European
institutions, since institutions determine the rules (strategy sets and utility func-
tions) of the game i.e. decision-making. It is also questionable whether you can
share a European identity while not being an EU member, because the two seem
synonymous. Borders are generally considered as the central instrument of polit-
ical order, implying a sense of ‘Othering’ for the outsiders. In fact, the neigh-
bours suspect that the ENP framework is an attempt of the EU to minimize its
costs of transaction in transforming the neighbourhood without giving a guaran-
teed membership.
In that regard, the concept of ‘neighbour’ heightens the relevance and central-
ity of questions about the European identity (Ifversen and Kølvraa 2007).

The social construction of a neighbour

The EU, as a norm entrepreneur, creates its own category of analysis, whose
regional reception is generally largely neglected by scholars. In fact, the accep-
tance of the ‘neighbour’ category is closely linked to the definition of the EU
‘borders’ and polity.
The study of external perceptions of the neighbours is central to understand
the logics of the ENP and norms reception (Chaban et al. 2006). First, it helps to
measure the gap between intentions and EU observable actions. Second, Eastern
Europeans’ views on the EU help to shape EU identity and roles through regular
and continuous interaction between own role conceptions and structurally based
expectations. As such, ‘EU foreign policy, while being to a large extent driven
by internal ideas and processes (i.e. by agency), is also partly shaped in response
to others expectations and reactions’ (Chaban et al. 2006: 247). Third, especially
in the neighbourhood, the impact of the EU is largely influenced by outsider’s
expectations and perceptions. These three logics should be grounded in the
particular context of the Eastern European neighbours, whose expectations are
quite high as regards the EU.
The concept of ‘neighbour’ may appear to be natural and obvious from the
viewpoint of the EU – the whole region being a European ‘buffer zone’ protect-
ing it from ‘instability’ – yet, the ‘neighbours’ are displeased by the sense of
otherness it implies. Rather than being ‘natural’, this concept is a socially con-
structed reality, which carries an ambiguity felt about the Europeanness of the
neighbours. The category of ‘neighbour’ is not self-attributed, and has been con-
sidered with great defiance in Ukraine and Moldova, because it is accused of
being too essentialist, Euro-centrist and exclusionist. Furthermore, in Slavic lan-
guages, the equivalent of ‘neighbours’ is not positively connoted as in the
Anglo-Saxon tradition: the ENP is generally translated as ‘Policy of Good
Neighbourliness’ (in Russian, Politika Dobrososedstva) (Meloni 2007: 30). The
very term of ‘neighbours’ partly shows the ambiguities of the ENP: despite the
pan-European rhetoric of 2003 (‘Wider Europe’), the policy refers to the
106 F. Parmentier
‘European Neighbourhood’ and not to the ‘European Union Neighbourhood’.
Moreover, the extension of this policy towards the Southern Caucasus and
Mediterranean states has been seen as a denial of the European identity in
Moldova and Ukraine. It is not clear either why Switzerland, Iceland and
Norway should not be considered as EU ‘neighbours’ since they are not EU
members, but are located in its close periphery.
The geographical ambiguity of Europe lies in the fact that it cannot be con-
ceived without borders, but these borders remains fluid and contradictory – the
neighbours’ membership being neither agreed, nor rejected in the long run. The
reception of such a political decision is therefore central, because it is not a
purely administrative or technical question. Opening the Pandora’s Box can
engender a complex, costly and risky process, even if such a decision would be
based on clearly stated criteria and procedures.

Norms reception and regional asymmetry

Despite the rhetoric of equals in the ENP (the terms ‘interdependence’, ‘partner-
ship’ and ‘to share’ are abundantly used), the reality is more about an unbal-
anced relationship. The neighbours have more or less room for negotiation
according to their expectations and respective position – as it is shown in the
cases of Russia, Ukraine and Moldova, and Transnistria.

Why asymmetric interdependence brings reception back in

While many approaches insist on Europe as a type of norms entrepreneur, the
asymmetric interdependence should help to take into account the norm-taking side.
The use of the figure of empire as a metaphor of the post-Cold War European
security has been increasingly in vogue. ‘The projection of Europe’s Utopia on to
the rest of the world has a long history and many labels, from enlightenment to
colonialism, civic imperialism, or civilian power’ (Nicolaïdis and Howse 2002:
767). Ole Wæver uses it in order to describe the polycentric system of government,
multiple and overlapping authorities, complexity, fuzzy borders and divided sover-
eignty (Waever 1997). Imperial systems are generally organized around concentric
circles – a core, the close outsiders, and beyond (the close outsiders being more or
less an equivalent of the ‘neighbours’). Jan Zielonka calls the EU a ‘neo-medieval
empire’ (Zielonka 2001, 2006) on similar premises, while Ulrich Beck considers
the EU as a cosmopolitan polity, a kind of ‘peaceful empire’ (Grande 2007). On
that premise, the EU as a norm-diffuser has been described as a ‘soft imperialism’
(Hettne and Söderbaum 2005) or a ‘normative hegemon’ (Haukkala 2007; Diez
2005). The ‘soft imperialism’ refers to ‘an asymmetric form of dialogue or even the
imposition or strategic use of norms and conditionalities enforced for reasons of
self-interest rather than for the creation of a genuine (interregional) dialogue’
(Hettne and Söderbaum 2005: 539). Similarly, the ‘normative hegemon’ uses its
normative clout to set an asymmetrical bilateral relationship heading toward trans-
ference of its norms and values.
 The reception of EU neighbourhood policy 107
Yet, none of these assertions fully captures the picture. The relations between
the neighbours and the EU is not a simply of a ‘core-periphery’ type, implying a
form of domination – more or less associated with violence. In that sense, ‘soft
imperialism’ seems an oxymoron – it equates empire as a polity with imperial-
ism, which is a policy. A ‘normative hegemon’ supposes a kind of monopoly of
legitimacy regarding norms – whereas it is sometimes difficult to delineate the
origins of norms between key actors (the EU, US, OSCE, WTO). As such, most
of those approaches lay much emphasis on the EU action and gives little
freedom for neighbours to act. Therefore, it is probably more relevant to analyse
the relationship between the EU and neighbours in terms of complex asymmet-
ric interdependence, in which neighbours have some room for manoeuvre, high-
lighting the crucial role of reception in this social process. This asymmetry is
fundamentally a function of scarcity, since the power of each actor is determined
by the scarcity of the material or symbolic goods sought by the other actor.
The migration question is probably a case in point to confirm the asymmetry
of power and double-standard logics behind a normative rhetoric. The European
Commission document on the wider Europe and its neighbours (March 2003)
mentioned the objective of the ‘four freedoms’, among which the free movement
of persons. In the EU–Moldova and EU–Ukraine Action Plans, it is striking to
see that the migration question is nearly only considered through the prism of
the security-related concerns of Western European countries – on readmission
agreement, effective border controls, human trafficking, criminalization of
illegal migration and admission of asylum seekers and refugees. In return for
such steps and confidence-building with the EU, neighbours can expect some
kind of ‘visa facilitation’. The EU–Moldova Action Plan neither mentions the
fact that the diaspora plays a major role in Moldovan economy (more than one-
quarter of the GDP), nor includes it in a coherent development strategy. It does
not take into account the possible new tensions between neighbouring countries
– e.g. at the Romanian–Moldovan and Polish–Ukrainian borders – because of
symbolic (exclusion sentiment) and practical (mainly economic) dimensions.
This interdependence leads to various results in terms of ENP acceptance –
refusal from the Moscow side, forced acceptance from Ukraine and Moldova,
while the EU factor has an increasing influence at the level discourse in
Transnistria, EU’s closest ‘frozen conflict’ (Lynch 2004).1

The Russian refusal to take part in the process

Moscow’s behaviour before the ENP testifies that states can negotiate and
comply selectively with the EU normative discourse and practice (Delcour
2006).
The legal relations between the EU and Russia are based on the Partnership
and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), which entered in force in December 1997:
its main objectives were to promote European market and democratic norms, to
make clear that the quality of the relations depends on the level of Russia’s
internal reforms and to diffuse European norms and values without any
108 F. Parmentier
expectations as regards membership prospects. The ‘Common Strategy’ adopted
by the Council in June 1999 stipulated that:

A stable, democratic and prosperous Russia, firmly anchored in a united

Europe free of new dividing lines, is essential to lasting peace on the conti-
nent . . . The EU welcomes Russia’s return to its rightful place in the Euro-
pean family in a spirit of friendship, cooperation, fair accommodation of
interests and on the foundations of shared values enshrined in the common
heritage of European civilization.
(European Council 1999)

However, if the EU mentions the common values and wish for norms conver-
gence, the Russian discourse refers to geopolitics and great power interests.
Whereas Russia was included in the forthcoming ‘new neighbours’ in 2003,
it then refused to be part of this policy and searched for an alternative. In fact,
rather than being treated as a neighbour (or an ‘object’ of this policy), Russian
leadership insisted on being considered as a partner (or an ‘actor’), dealing in
bilateral terms with the EU – and, if necessary, directly with member states. At
the St. Petersburg Summit of May 2003, the EU and Russia agreed to develop
their plan for ‘Four Common Spaces’ (European Commission 2003b): common
economic space; common space on freedom, security and justice; common
space on cooperation in the field of external security; common space on
research, education and culture. Russian elites consider Moscow as a reviving
Great Power involved in global politics, and shaping its own regional pole – the
‘Near Abroad’.2 Since international relations perceptions evolve more slowly
than the current politics, it comes as no surprise that Russia desires to be recog-
nized as a global player, and strives for material and social benefits normally
associated with superpower status. Despite a shared neighbourhood, there is not
a shared understanding on this region and its evolution between Moscow and
Brussels.
Russia and the EU face a fundamental clash in their perceptions of the post-
Cold War world, around the central question of sovereignty (Kratev 2007).
Divergences can be observed on various grounds such as geopolitics, democracy
or energy. The very same terms – partnership, democracy or energy security –
have different meanings.
The Russian neo-eurasianist mind (Chaudet et al. 2007: 55–81, 119–136 and
137–225), in vogue among the political elites since the decline of the ‘Western-
izers’ in the mid-1990s, seems to oppose the European worldview. It lays much
emphasis on sovereignty whereas the EU model is based on governance. Neo-
eurasianism thinks in terms of geopolitics, sphere of influence and civilization –
a Schmittian rather than a Kantian view of politics. It is deeply concerned with
‘hard security’, Russia being surrounded by an instable neighbourhood (Cauca-
sus, China, Central Asia), which lead to a feeling of insecurity. Therefore, multi-
polarity and multilateralism should not be confused: the first refer to a realist
view of a balance of power, while the second implies a genuine world pluralist
 The reception of EU neighbourhood policy 109
system (Laïdi 2003). However, it does not preclude the possibility of agreement
on issues such as the Kyoto Protocol in 2004.
Another major difference between the EU and Russia lies in the conception
of democracy. Russia defends its own concept of ‘sovereign democracy’ –
inspired by the works of Carl Schmitt on decisionism, and developed by
Vladislav Surkov, an adviser of the Kremlin (Chaudet et al. 2007: 78). The state
should set the rhythm of economic and political changes without interferences
from abroad. According to this logic, sovereignty is a matter of capacity and
tends to lose its representative dimension, instead justifying the development
and build-up of power. It implies a solid strategic identity, economic independ-
ence and military strength.
In the energy domain, Moscow’s ability to negotiate is larger, e.g. for the
establishment of a pan-European energy market (Denysyuk and Parmentier
2006) or when Russia refused to sign the Energy Charter Treaty (Energy Charter
Secretariat 2004),3 which defends, according to Russia, more the consumers than
the suppliers. Although the economic relations show as a rule a strong asymme-
try (the Russian GDP is comparable to the Dutch one), the energy sector demon-
strates greater mutual interdependence – the supply-power of Russia being
counterbalanced by the share of the internal market in Russia’s export.4 In the
case of the Russian–Ukrainian energy crisis of January 2006, the ratification of
the Energy Charter Treaty would allow the EU to have more transparency of
supply between the main protagonists – Turkmenistan, Russia and Ukraine –
and a system of early warning with Russia and transit countries. In the wake of
the crisis, the EU sought to develop an energy security concept, based more on
interests (diversification of partners and sources) than principles – it may be
argued that the price asked by Gazprom to Ukraine reflected a greater leaning
toward market-based logic than the politically-motivated low prices of the CIS
(Stern 2006).5

A reluctant agreement: Ukraine and Moldova

Brussels retains much more leverage in Kiev and Chisinau than in Moscow,
because of their desire to join the EU. There, the ENP works through a socializa-
tion strategy combined with a type of ‘soft conditionality’. This conditionality
needs to be further elaborated.
‘Soft conditionality’ (i.e. linking the granting of benefits to the fulfilment of
some conditions) differs from the ‘hard conditionality’ used during the enlarge-
ment because it does not lead to the political inclusion within the EU. ‘Soft con-
ditionality’ influences policies, but does not propose a one-fits-all policy. During
the enlargement process, ‘hard conditionality’ was legitimate because it con-
tained an element of democratic legitimacy through popular referenda. In the
case of the neighbours, in the absence of membership, there can be no such
negative feedback after the implementation of the acquis. There can be no
referendum and the neighbours are not part of the decision-making process that
normally accompanies representation in the EU institutions.
110 F. Parmentier
However, it could be too quick to conclude that the neighbours are under the
EU ‘domination’; based on their perception, the EU plays metaphorically the
role of a ‘substitute for empire’ (Rupnik 2003), reluctant to continue to accept
more newcomers – in that sense, it would be an ‘empire by invitation’ (Lun-
destad 1998). There is a great appeal for internalizing the acquis communautaire
and the EU values (despite opposition and resistance in the implementation),
since it is considered as an imperial modernization – and based on their own
expectations to be recognized as fully ‘European’. The main threat the EU poses
to the neighbours is marginalization – as the case of Slovakia in the 1990s
clearly shows.6
Therefore, the Ukrainian and Moldovan political leaderships take it pragmati-
cally as a ‘second best’: the lack of alternative pushed them to accept the Action
Plans. The ENP is seen as a way to strengthen the European profile of their
country, waiting for an eventual membership prospect. As Oleg Ryabchuk, then
Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine put it:

We do not support the idea that the ENP should be distinct from the policy
of the EU enlargement. On the contrary, we believe that by enhancing coop-
eration and encouraging reforms it could be of great help in supporting
Ukraine’s European aspirations. It should become a short-term model of
relations, designed to prepare the ground for Ukraine’s progressive integra-
tion into the EU.
(Ryabchuk 2005: 6)

The gap between neighbours’ expectations and EU actions was especially strong
after the Orange Revolution, when the EU was asked to consider the case for
membership.
The cooperation between the EU and neighbours depends on the political will
of each side, but it works better when there is a special emphasis on EU security.
For instance, the Moldovan and Ukrainian sides have requested assistance from
the EU on the Ukrainian border (Transnistrian segment) in June 2005. The
EUBAM (European Union Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine)
was launched in December 2005 in order to improve the quality of the common
border and struggle against contraband and trafficking. As regards this coopera-
tion, Solana declared in Odessa:

the decisive factor is not what the EU does, but what we do together. Our
border engagement is here to help you in many crucial fields – from tech-
nical assistance to deep political co-operation and from making your fight
against corruption a success to building the preconditions for a settlement
on the future status of Transnistria.
(EUBAM 2005)

However, though Ukraine and Moldova had initiated this border control
mission, they had in the end little room to shape the dynamics of cooperation.
 The reception of EU neighbourhood policy 111
Transnistria: how a normative power gains influence in a ‘frozen
conflict’
The enlargement to Romania and Bulgaria in 2007 has also led to the creation of
the ‘Black Sea dimension’ of Europe, with an emphasis on strategic and security
stakes – e.g. the so-called ‘frozen conflicts’. The EU may influence its neigh-
bourhood with other international actors that do not share similar norms and
values – contrary to what critics might expect.
The de facto state (Pegg 1998; Lynch 2004) of Transnistria, a crossroad for
contraband (Parmentier 2006a) and trafficking, is increasingly attracted by the
EU – in its own way. Tiraspol is a separatist entity that broke with Moldova in
1991, and has not reached an agreement for a peace settlement. Since the break,
it has elected the same leader, Igor Smirnov – who proclaimed his aim of secur-
ing the Transnistrian independence (Smirnov 2004). Whereas in the early 1990s,
the Moldovans were more or less willing to unite with Romania, Transnistria
remained strongly attached to Moscow, adopting the ‘great chauvinist’ attitude
close to the Russian far right. Yet, despite diffusing strong anti-Western senti-
ments (more specifically anti-American), the Transnistrian leadership tries to
reincorporate partly the European normative discourse, especially with the new
Speaker of Transnistrian Parliament, a self-defined ‘pro-reformist’, Yevgeny
Shevchuk. After the referendum of September 2006, he implicitly argues that
the EU should support this vote for independence on normative principles
(Novyj Region 2006) – although with dubious base. The creation of the ‘NGO’
designed from above, Proryv (‘Breakthrough’), as an artefact for civil society
(Parmentier 2007), or media manipulations tend to fake compliance with EU
norms, obscure the more public relations aspects of many actions aimed at ‘nor-
malizing’ the Transnistrian situation on the international level (Parmentier
2007).
The reasons for European attraction in Transnistria are two-fold: first, the
political leadership is less monolithic that it once appeared, since the old
Moscow armament networks face more competition with local enterprises that
increasingly depend on the EU market, e.g. the local firm ‘Sheriff’, a well-
implanted conglomerate, Moldavizolit, Moldavkabel, Tighina, Floare Tirotex,
Odema, Rybnitsa Metallurgical Plant (Popescu 2007: 81). The Chambers of
Commerce and Industries of Leipzig and Tiraspol have established direct ties.
The ‘stake in the internal market’ has political effect in promoting European
norms and standards (Gstöhl 2007) – the so-called ‘regional policy externality’
(Egan and Nicolaïdis 2001) – even in Transnistria. In fact, according to local
experts, ‘Europeanization of business rules, norms and standards in the
Transnistrian zone, consideration of economic and social interests is the most
suitable way for reconciliation’ (Center for Strategic Studies and Reforms
2006). Second, its own claimed course toward independence leads the
Transnistrian authority to gain some legitimacy on the international stage,
particularly in the US and EU. While it is generally considered that the EU has
more leverage in countries asking for integration and well-intentioned toward
112 F. Parmentier
Brussels, it can reach a growing degree of influence in other cases due to its
regional situation.
The reincorporation of the EU discourse shows how the normative stance
may have effects at the level of the official discourse – Tiraspol being neither
close to a procedural nor a substantive democracy.

‘Norms reception’ and the Orange Revolution

The dialectics of European involvement

The discussion in this part is not another contribution to the well-developed
body of literature on the Orange Revolution (Wilson 2005; Aslund and McFaul
2006; Karatnycky 2005; de Tinguy 2006; Goujon 2005; Parmentier 2006b). It
intends to illustrate the norms reception process through the dialectics of EU
involvement, before taking into account how discursive strategy, procedures
and substance changed along the EU lines in the follow-up to the Orange
Revolution.

The dialectics of European involvement

The dialectics of involvement relied on previous bilateral relations between the
EU and Ukraine and the open nature of the Eastern borders.
The bilateral relations between the EU and Ukraine developed more slowly
than between Kiev and the member states, due to the motivation of the two
sides. On the one hand, although Ukraine was the first CIS country to sign the
Partnership and Co-operation Agreement (PCA) in June 1994, it came to force
more than four years later. In fact, the EU member states hesitate between a
‘Russia-first policy’ embodied by Germany (Kempe 2006: 6)7 or a ‘pro-
enlargement’ policy inspired by Poland, which explains why the EU seems
reluctant to develop wide relations with its Eastern neighbours. On the other
hand, Ukraine has developed its own European discursive strategy in the early
1990s, although it was assessed as a case of ‘declaratory policy’, that is ‘integra-
tion without Europeanisation’ (Wolczuk 2004). The pro-Western rhetoric of the
Kuchma era was compensated by a pro-Eastern policy, highlighting the internal
and external contradictions of Ukraine on religious, linguistic, ethno-cultural or
political terms.8 The European message was reduced to a geopolitical allegiance
that allowed gaining some strategic autonomy vis-à-vis Russia, and the internal
transformation dimension was neglected. Ukraine is internally divided over its
foreign-policy orientation, and Kiev had to develop a policy that prevents the
alienation of major ethnic groups in Ukrainian society by steering its ‘multi-
vector policy’. President Yushchenko had taken into account this fact when he
paid his first visit to Moscow the day after his inauguration (24 January 2005)
and declared that Russia was a ‘permanent strategic partner’, while adopting a
clear stance for a European choice (the choice of Borys Tarasyuk as the Foreign
Minister, with well-known pro-Western orientation, is significant). Public
 The reception of EU neighbourhood policy 113
opinion often sees no contradiction in finding itself in overlapping integration
spaces, although the implementation of a multi-vector policy is hardly realistic.
Despite the difficulties of bilateral relations, the Orange Revolution opened
up the question of the European integration of Ukraine. The EU was involved by
giving significant direct support to election monitors as well as groups from civil
society. The enlargement of 2004, incorporating eight Central European coun-
tries including three Baltic States and Poland, gave a strong impetus to the EU
presence (Hill 2002). In fact, the EU politics can be understood as the two-way
process of policy-making and institution-building at the European level which
then feeds back into the member states and their political process and structures,
including NGOs – leading the EU to denounce the electoral frauds from the very
start. Moreover, the post-enlargement EU has acted as an efficient mediator in
the round-table, with a troika composed of the Polish President Kwasniewski,9
the Lithuanian President Adamkus and the High Representative for ESDP,
Javier Solana. However, it is also accurate that the Polish posture raised some
opposition within the EU, or at least scepticism. Among others, José Borrell,
then President of the European Parliament, criticized the role of Poland and
Lithuania for acting under American influence and having a different stance
from the majority of the other European countries, especially that one advocated
by the older members.
In fact, the EU discourse around implementing the acquis first and then
asking for membership negotiation has been reversed by the advocates of
Ukrainian membership: the EU should provide Ukraine with a membership
perspective, as a moral duty, because Kiev has shown its attachment to the Euro-
pean values. According to the Ukrainian discursive strategy, the Orange Revolu-
tion made Ukraine more compatible with the EU; it should in any case avoid
drawing the final boundary of the European Union – given there is no ‘natural
borders’ based on history, geography or culture. Thus, it carries the assumption
that the Orange Revolution constitutes a radical break with the Kuchma era, of a
political rather than social nature, on a norm-taking base. The following section
investigates this claim of norm reception in Ukraine.
In order to investigate the Orange Revolution and norms reception, the dis-
cussion follows three levels of analysis: discursive strategy, procedures and sub-
stance. It also distinguishes two definitions of revolution, with different time
sequences: ‘revolution as a moment’ and ‘revolution as a movement’.
First, ‘revolution as a moment’ refers to a type of upheaval, which is gener-
ally sudden and massive. In this situation, according to Charles Tilly (Tilly
1978), two or more blocs contest for state power: the Orange coalition, outside
the existing polity try to obtain the power; these contenders receive electoral
support from a significant part of the population against the current administra-
tion; and the repressive institutions (army, police, SBU – secret services) prove
unwilling to repress the Orange supporters, who were massively mobilized on
the Maidan place, thus making incomplete the old regime’s hold on the state
apparatus. The outcome was a ‘negotiated transition’ as in Poland and Hungary
15 years earlier. Yet, if the Polish and Hungarian challenged a monopoly
114 F. Parmentier
party-state, the Orange Revolution had more to do with a revolution against
post-communism – that is election falsifications, corruption, a competitive
authoritarianism, that is to say a hybrid fusion of the former Soviet system with
the emerging reformed economy and polity (Kuzio 2005) and a ‘blackmail state’
(Darden 2001).
The most important point for norms reception is the emphasis laid on proce-
dures during the crisis: it was the electoral frauds that broke the back of the
Kuchma regime’s power; both pro-Yushchenko and pro-Yanukovych forces
sought the support of the Central Electoral Commission and the Ukraine
Supreme Court to legitimize their political position by legal means;10 the round
table and the re-vote of the run-off held on 26 December 2004 were essential in
the peaceful ending of the process. As such, the respect for procedures opens the
way toward a more substantive democratization in Ukraine.
Second, ‘revolution as a movement’ describes a type of change: the time
sequence is longer. As Huntington put it, revolution is ‘a rapid, fundamental,
and violent domestic change in the dominant values and myths of a society, in
its political institutions, social structures, leadership and government activity
and policies’ (Huntington 1968: 264). This very demanding definition goes
beyond revolutionary romanticism (or ‘surge to freedom’): the outcome is as
important as the particular event. The fundamental changes promised by the
Orange Revolution in the dominant values of the society remains largely
unachieved – some calling it a ‘Revolution betrayed’, whether for not fulfilling
its ‘pro-market’ perspective (Aslund 2005)11 or for making a political deal with
Yanukovych in September 2005 (Maksymiuk 2005). In fact, Ukraine has a weak
institutional framework which hinders the political and economic reforms
required to approximate the EU standards. State institutions are captured by
various economic interest groups – the so-called ‘oligarchs’12 – which mainly
supported Yanukovych, but not necessarily (e.g. Petro Poroshenko or David
Zhvania) – and some corrupt bureaucrats. The norms reception is then con-
strained by the structural capacities of the Ukrainian state, with the state appar-
atus using informal practices of decision-making and policy and resistance to
formal structure imported from the EU model.
Although it has been unanimously considered as a breakthrough in terms of
democratization, and has achieved some results (press freedom, freedom of
speech), it has fallen below public expectations, partly due to a greater political
instability – democratization does not necessarily go hand in hand with stability
(Mansfield and Snyder 2005). Many crises occurred in a few short month: the
conquest of power toward a common enemy is often easier with political allies
that are altogether rivals. Programmatic issues and political strategy diverged –
on questions such as mass reprivatization or the way to treat the former Kuchma
elites (Gongadze case, 2004 electoral frauds, oligarchs). In September 2005,
Yushchenko, a soft-liner, removed the charismatic and hard-line Tymoshenko
from her prime ministerial post, after months of haggling. This split in the
Orange camp opened the door for Yanukovych to make a political comeback as
Prime Minister, after the victory of his party in the March 2006 parliamentary
 The reception of EU neighbourhood policy 115
elections and the break-up of the Orange coalition. Although he cannot claim a
majority of the seats in the Verkhovna rada (one-chamber Parliament), his party
reached an alliance with the Communist Party and former Yushchenko ally,
Oleksandr Moroz’s Socialist Party of Ukraine. The new coalition was combined
with changes in the constitutional framework (a shift toward a more parliamen-
tarian regime), which may impede the coherence of policymaking and legis-
lative capacities of the Rada (Whitmore 2006; Petrov 2006). Paradoxically
however, the third place position of the presidential party, ‘Our Ukraine’ and the
absence of use of ‘administrative resources’ is a confirmation that the 2006 elec-
tions were ‘free and fair’. The respect for electoral procedures seems to have led
to a more substantive culture of democracy – it is dubious that Yanukovych
would use the same illegal tools to win an election as in 2004, given the political
cost of such practices.
The two conceptions of revolutions evoked – revolution as a moment or as a
movement – help to catch the norms reception in a particular context and time.
The attraction of the European message is very evident at the level of discursive
strategy, but its translation in procedures and substance is more difficult to reach
– the adoption of the three levels proves to be unequal over time.

Conclusion: from ‘social preferences’ to ‘social

embeddedness’
The European norms should not be seen as transcendent values, hovering over
European societies, rather they should be properly associated with social prefer-
ences and interests so as to avoid the idealistic trap (Laïdi 2005). The EU some-
times selectively exports its norms into its neighbourhood – it has more leverage
in Ukraine and Moldova than in Russia, based on its own legitimacy in terms of
neighbours’ own finalité. If the EU is seeking to advance its agenda on legitim-
ate norms in the neighbourhood and to define the boundaries of ‘Europeanness’,
the neighbours press for these norms to be included in a possible future wave of
enlargement. On their side, this policy is pragmatically accepted, though also
rejected for some of its inherent ambiguities. Their relatively weak position in a
situation of complex asymmetric interdependency pushes them to adopt at least
the European discourse, and some internal changes leading to the implementa-
tion of European norms. By implementing procedures, the norm-takers are
expected to slowly head toward substantive reforms and reincorporation of
norms – a liberal teleology in an evolving neighbourhood.
Similarly, the norms reception process in the neighbouring states should not
be understood as a passive absorption of norms and values through various
mechanisms (as conditionality), because the neighbours can confront, accept or
avoid them. In fact, the norms reception process in these states should be under-
stood in terms of ‘social embeddedness’ (Hobson 2000; Seabrooke 2002).
‘Social embeddedness’ conceives the state–society complex as a contested
rather than a functional space: the state can enhance its interest only when they
become largely embedded within the whole of its society. By contrast with
116 F. Parmentier
‘isolated autonomy’ (Skocpol 1979) or ‘embedded autonomy’ (Evans 1995,
Hobson 1995) approaches, which lead toward a neo-realist and functionalist
explanation of the complex asymmetric interdependence, ‘social embeddedness’
helps to emphasize the role of social norms. The EU norms exportation in the
Eastern neighbourhood should not only be seen as a resource for the state to
launch reforms and dominate society, but also as a way for society to make the
state more accountable – given the particular legitimacy laid on the question of
‘Europeanness’. The EU norms reception approach brings the legitimacy ques-
tion back in the relationship between the Brussels and the neighbours; the EU
norms are also an object of contestation and power within the state–society
complex of the host countries. To be successfully adopted by local actors, inter-
national norms need to take into account the ‘appropriatedness’ of the norm
(depending on the initial conditions of the norm-takers) and the political will of
the concerned elites (Cortell and Davis 1996). However, the social embedded-
ness approach does not necessarily mean that maintaining the status quo is the
only viable option for the EU. Yet, it enlightens a particular dilemma for the EU:
if it plays power politics, it turns a blind eye to norms as a legitimate basis on
which it can act; but if it refuses to be a transformative power, it can only export
norms without retaining normative power.
In its attempt to articulate the role of the social preference – the normative
power theory and social embeddedness – the norms reception approach recog-
nizes that if the EU constrains the neighbours, its policies are also resources with
which states seek to enhance their power and interests. This approach helps to
explain how the European norms are confronted within the internal political
game of the neighbours, and how they may have constitutive effects. It also
helps to understand why the same norms can have tremendous effects in a
neighbouring country and not in another, a fact that is not always well-defined in
the ‘normative power’ literature.

Notes
1 The ‘frozen conflicts’ refer to the post-Soviet conflicts (Transnistria, Abkhazia, South
Ossetia, Nagorno Karabakh), based on a drive of separatist states toward independ-
ence and state-building. They are unrecognized by the international community, and
the negotiating process of conflict resolution proves inefficient. In fact, the adjective
‘frozen’ is certainly misleading because of the fluid nature of the conflict: identity,
borders, economic interests are still evolving.
2 The concept of ‘near abroad’ (blijne’e zarubeje) refers in the Russian foreign policy
toward the post-Soviet countries, and witnesses of a shift in Russian strategic thought
after years of Westernization. According to the 1993 foreign policy concept, Russia is
still a great power with several foreign policy priorities: ensuring national security
through diplomacy; protecting the sovereignty and unity of the state, with special
emphasis on border stability; protecting the rights of Russians abroad; providing
favourable external conditions for internal democratic reforms; mobilizing inter-
national assistance for the establishment of a Russian market economy and assisting
Russian exporters; furthering integration of the Commonwealth of Independent States
and pursuing beneficial relations with other nearby foreign states, including those in
Central Europe; continuing to build relations with countries that have resolved prob-
 The reception of EU neighbourhood policy 117
lems similar to those that Russia faces; and ensuring Russia an active role as a great
power.
3 The EU attempted in the 1990s, through the Energy Charter Treaty, to overcome the
contradictions between competitive markets and long-term producer–consumer
supply agreements. The Energy Charter aims at providing certainty and protection for
energy trade, transit and investment, and opens Russia’s domestic energy market to
competition, reflecting Europe’s stake in securing reliable supplies on favourable
trade conditions.
4 Besides, the same interdependency exists between Russia and Ukraine, because 80
per cent of the Russian gas to the EU is delivered through this country.
5 Before the crisis, the Yushchenko administration suggested in March/April 2005 that
gas transit tariffs should be moved to ‘European’ level and paid in foreign currency
(US dollars): Gazprom retaliate that the partners should also move toward ‘European’
prices (previously, it cost three to four times lower for the CIS countries). It is also
notable that the increase does not concern only Georgia and Ukraine, both contesting
Russian hegemony, but also Belarus.
6 Slovakia was under the EU pressure because of its internal political situation: if Prime
Minister Vladimir Meciar (between 1994 and 1998) was in favour of EU and NATO
integration, its behaviour did not fit with the requirement of both institutions. The
European Commission made it clear in July 1997 that Slovakia did not fulfil demo-
cratic criteria, and that the starting negotiations should be delayed. As a result, Meciar
lost the following elections in September 1998.
7 After 1989, Berlin had three strategic objectives: maintaining good relations with
Moscow; playing a decisive role on behalf of Central European countries, e.g.
Poland; and coordinating German initiatives with its European and transatlantic part-
ners. Until the Orange Revolution, Berlin answered to the Ukrainian aspiration
toward Europe that it should reform its political institutions and strengthen its civil
society. Yet, the reactions during the crises were rather limited comparing with
Poland, Schroeder having a very personalized relation with Vladimir Putin.
8 It is interesting to remember that if Kutchma won the presidential elections against
the pro-Western Leonid Kravchuk in 1994, he appeared as the pro-European candi-
date in the 1999 contest, against Petro Symonenko of the Communist Party of
Ukraine. He launched a strategy of Ukraine’s integration with the European Union in
1998. Then, his foreign policy was marked by a serious drift toward Russia.
9 President Kwasniewski was able to lead the team of international mediators during
the crisis for three main reasons. First, he was trusted by the outgoing President
Kuchma during Ukraine’s international isolation between the ‘Gongadze scandal’
(2000) and the dispatch of Ukrainian troops to the invasion war in Iraq (2003).
Second, he remained relatively neutral before the elections, underlining only his
support for the principal of an open, fair and democratic poll, which made him an
acceptable mediator to both sides. Third, Kwasniewski’s knowledge of Ukrainian
affairs made him a legitimate candidate for the mediation.
10 The Central Electoral Commission took position for Yanukovych in November 2004,
while the Ukrainian Supreme Court broke the political deadlock in early December
when it invalidated the official result that would have given Yanukovych the
presidency.
11 Strangely enough, the same Orange Revolution is sometimes criticized for not strik-
ing hard the ‘oligarchs’, notably among the followers of Yulia Tymoshenko.
12 The massive misappropriation of state assets and rent-seeking after the independence
led to the emergence of the so-called ‘oligarchs’, individuals whose access to political
decision-making help their economic pursuit. It is not a monolithic and homogeneous
social group, divided between regionally based elites, each trying to secure an access
to the presidency.
8 European Union’s exportation of
democratic norms
The case of North Africa
Luis Martinez

Since the states of the Maghreb gained independence, democracy has been
depicted as a possible horizon by the political leaders of those countries. Never-
theless, following independence, those post-colonial states had other challenges
to face, such as underdevelopment, state-building and the recovery of a lost
identity, and therefore democracy was relegated to the back burner. Authorit-
arian regimes seemed to be a necessary step for the development of societies
considered as not yet civilised. Charismatic leaders such as Boumediène, Hassan
II, Bourguiba and Qadhafi embodied young states working toward change.
Those figures masked, though, the great upheavals that were taking place within
those societies: the demographic revolution, the legitimacy deficit of political
institutions and the economic failure of development schemes. As those
emblematic figures disappeared one by one – with the exception of Qadhafi – it
finally became clear how fragile those regimes were, confronted with social
struggles before and Islamist social movements and political parties afterwards.
Acknowledgement of the disastrous trajectory of post-colonial states in North
Africa (civil war in Algeria, international embargo on Libya, police regime in
Tunisia and overwhelming social injustices in Morocco) should have led to an
in-depth critical account of North Africa’s governance (Albrecht and Schlum-
berger 2004). However, it seems clear that such badly performing economic and
political systems suit the governing elites and that the European Union supports
those regimes within the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership.
After the failure of democratic transition in Algeria (1989–1991) and exporta-
tion of democracy to Iraq, there is little room left for hope in a broad-sweeping
democratic moment taking hold in the Arab world in general and in the Maghreb
in particular. And yet, North Africa continues to have its gaze strongly trained
on Europe.
A Euromesco survey shows that the EU is seen as a model both in Morocco
and Algeria. In answer to the question ‘If you had to vote for a project, which
one would you choose?’, 42 per cent chose EU integration and 30 per cent,
regional integration; and this despite all the common characteristics and advan-
tages that they share with the other North African countries. On the other hand,
only 2 per cent of the respondents chose the establishment of a free trade area
with the United States. The desire for a close link with the EU should be
 EU’s exportation of democratic norms 119
analysed as the demand for domestic reforms in response to external constraints.
Many North Africans believe that economic and social reforms can be achieved
only if there is an external actor favouring them. This is also the reason why the
citizens of the Maghreb are highly disappointed in the EU’s lack of engagement
of the Arab Maghreb Union: 44 per cent of them think that the EU is scarcely
engaged, interested and involved in North Africa and 25 per cent of them feel
that the EU is not at all involved in North Africa. This disappointment is as
strong as the conviction expressed that reforms can only be made within the
context of a regional project. The EU’s lack of interest in strengthening regional
integration is judged as a lost chance for improving the region’s economic and
social context. In such a scenario, the rise in power of the PJD (Justice and
Development Party) is seen as a ‘chance for Morocco’s people’ by 19 per cent
of the people interviewed and as an opportunity for the UMA by 22 per cent of
them. On the contrary, 27 per cent of the people interviewed believe that the
PJD’s victory in the legislative elections scheduled for November 2007 will be a
cause for concern for the European Union. The PDJ seems to be the domestic
constraint needed in order to launch economic and social reforms. In short, since
there is no external actor exercising constraint, the population will opt for an
internal constraint with the hope of seeing its living conditions improved. In this
way, an Islamist government becomes the ideal solution for defeating inequal-
ities, reducing unemployment and eradicating poverty. The EU’s lack of
involvement in North Africa is offset by overwhelming support for the PJD
(www.euromesco.net/). In other words, reforms will either be achieved via
external constraints or via the PJD.
Whereas Maghreban societies would like the EU to get more involved in the
region at the political level, since 11 September 2001 and Eastern enlargement,
the EU has placed security issues (terrorism, migration, borders, energy) at the
heart of its concerns and gives the impression of reducing its relationship with
North Africa to the sole issue of security. Within this framework, the EU has
reshaped its neighbourhood policy. According to Rosa Rossi (Rossi 2004: 11):

A step-by-step or progressive approach towards EU neighbouring countries

is also required in order to introduce a gradual engagement for each state
depending on its willingness to progress with economic and political
reform. The way to pursue this policy is not anymore political conditional-
ity but rather benchmarks: clear and public definitions of the actions that the
EU expects the partners to implement.

EU policy in exporting European norms and democratic

values to North Africa
In May 2004, Chris Patten underlined that:

Over the past decade, the Union’s most successful foreign policy instrument
has undeniably been the promise of UE membership. This is not sustainable.
120 L. Martinez
For the next decade, we need to find new ways to export the stability, secur-
ity and prosperity we have created within the enlarged UE. We should begin
by agreeing on a clearer vision of the relations with our neighbours.

Adopting this point of view, the European Commission presents its neighbour-
hood policy (ENP) and defines a new framework for relationships with countries
that are not concerned with EU membership. The exchanges between the EU
and the South Mediterranean countries now take place within the framework
produced and defined by the EU (Labouz et al. 2006).
For the Maghreban countries that wish to:

The EU offers our neighbours a privileged relationship, building upon a

mutual commitment to common values (democracy and human rights, rule
of law, good governance, market economy principles and sustainable devel-
opment). The ENP goes beyond existing relationships to offer a deeper
political relationship and economic integration. The level of ambition of the
relationship will depend on the extent to which these values are effectively
shared. The ENP remains distinct from the process of enlargement although
it does not prejudge, for European neighbours, how their relationship with
the EU may develop in future, in accordance with Treaty provisions.
(ec.europa.eu/world/enp/policy_en.htm)

Bilateral relationships are thus engaged:

The central element of the European Neighbourhood Policy is the bilateral

ENP Action Plans agreed between the EU and each partner. These set out
an agenda of political and economic reforms with short and medium-term
priorities. Implementation of the first seven ENP Action Plans (agreed in
early 2005 with Israel, Jordan, Moldova, Morocco, the Palestinian Author-
ity, Tunisia and Ukraine) is underway and that of the latest to be agreed
(with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) is about to begin. Lebanon will
follow shortly and the EU-Egypt ENP Action Plan is nearly agreed. Imple-
mentation is jointly promoted and monitored through sub-Committees.
(ec.europa.eu/world/enp/policy_en.htm)

In North Africa, only Libya has not yet activated the ENP procedure, since it is
not yet a member of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. The ENP replaces the
Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. The latter, on the wane, has not produced the
expected results. In North Africa, the virtuous circle did not kick in and the
results of the Barcelona process are extremely mixed (Moisseron 2005;
Barcelona Plus Report). Democracy is still absent from the region, economic
development is very low and intra-regional trade is no more than 3 per cent.
Paradoxically, the country that has proven to be the ‘best pupil’ is Tunisia.
The EU’s lack of interest in North Africa’s political problems explains the
general situation of the region. North Africa must become a privileged partner
 EU’s exportation of democratic norms 121
for EU relationships, like Mexico within the framework of the NAFTA.1 The
short-sighted vision of the EU becomes evident in the EU’s spreading itself
thinly over diplomatic theatres where its influence is very limited (Israel–Pales-
tine conflict, Iraq war). In fact, the European involvement in those areas is the
result of the EU’s fear of being marginalised in favour of the United States.
Interference in these conflicts requires considerable financial and military
means, rare resources in Europe where the growth rate is half that of the US.
Instead of challenging the US in those areas where it is bound to lose ground,
would it not be wiser for the EU to become more heavily involved in a region
such as the Maghreb, with the aim of building a model of development and
democracy whose visibility in the Middle East would certainly represent an
attraction? In the long run, would not the integration of the Maghreb in a pre-
ferred relationship with Europe allow the EU to have greater influence over
Middle East conflicts at a lower cost?
Within the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, the economic
and security dimension has largely prevailed over the prospect of political
reforms. Nevertheless, over the last ten years the South Mediterranean
economies have not taken off and security problems have developed through ter-
rorism. It thus seems plain that, if restoration of the major macroeconomic bal-
ances was an imperative, it is not enough to ensure stability in states facing
poverty, injustice and a lack of basic rights. In the Euro-Mediterranean Partner-
ship, democracy seems to be left by the wayside, but how is economic change
conceivable if the political leaders of those countries show little concern for ful-
filling their citizens’ expectations (Gillepsie 2004)? Here it is not a matter of
imposing democracy, like the US tried to in Iraq, but of emphasising that demo-
cracy is an imperative goal that North African political leaders must strive to
accomplish. Complacency with authoritarian regimes which patently disregard
human rights empties the ENP of its meaning and relevance.
For that reason, the indifference, even the complacency with which EU
member states deal with corruption in North Africa is extremely worrying. The
purloining of public resources to private ends by unscrupulous political leaders
must not be ignored by the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. It is hard to accept
that denouncing corruption within the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership is taboo.
In Southern societies, this taboo empowers the Islamist movements, which base
their action on virtue, in opposition with regime corruption. The Euro-
Mediterranean Partnership remains silent over the issue of corruption even as
the major NGOs deplore it. In this context, how is it possible to imagine that a
viable economic policy can take place on the other side of the Mediterranean? In
all modern and democratic societies, corruption is a moral problem that jeopar-
dises political leaders’ integrity; in authoritarian regimes democracy is an
important handicap to development (Bardhan 1997). Foreign investors are
worried about the offshore capital movements towards foreign financial markets.
How then is it possible to increase foreign investors’ trust (and so increase FDI)
if national capital is invested abroad (Youngs 2002)? Corruption is more the
syndrome of regimes characterised by opacity and the exclusive control of
122 L. Martinez
resources than a simple matter of personal enrichment. In North Africa, poverty,
social injustice and deep socio-economic inequalities lend the issue of corrup-
tion a particular savour.
In Algeria and Libya, two authoritarian oil-producing states, all of these
symptoms are present. Is the ENP capable of reforming such authoritarian oil-
producing states like Algeria and Libya? The strategic document on Algeria
(2007–2013) produced within the framework of the ENP pinpoints three areas
where change would lead to improvements: a reform of the legal system; eco-
nomic growth and employment; the strengthening of basic public services
(Algeria Country Strategy Paper 2007–2013). Concerning Libya, which has
been invited to join the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and has benefited from
the ENP, the EU was confronted with the problem of the death sentence hanging
over the Bulgarian nurses. This case provides an opportunity to investigate two
phenomena: is an oil-producing state immune to external pressures? Can the
European member states stand together even in the face of an attractive Libyan
market? In other words, can the EU lean on an authoritarian rentier regime to
encourage it on the road to a democratic transition?

The oil rent: an obstacle to democracy and a diplomatic

weapon
Algeria and Libya are two authoritarian states: what margin for manoeuvre does
the EU have? Is it possible to promote democracy in the case of an authoritarian
oil state? Yasuyuki Matsunaga asks the following question: ‘Is the rentier state
adverse to democracy?’. He recalls that in theory, oil is an obstacle to demo-
cracy. The concept of rentier state appeared in the 1960s and is defined as ‘a
state that derives a substantial share or all of its income from abroad in the form
of resource rent’ (Mabro 1969). From a theoretical perspective, it helps explain
the political functioning of North African and Middle Eastern authoritarian
states. The rentier state has no need of collecting taxes from its citizens, due to
its external revenues (Beblawi and Luciani 1987). The lack of bargaining or tax-
payer demands between the state and its citizens gives rise to the depoliticisation
of the whole society. From this standpoint, there is ‘no representation without
taxation’, according to the expression used by Luciani. The ‘rentier redistributor
state’ ensures stability and social peace by offering, through oil export revenues,
goods and services to its population in exchange for its depoliticisation. One
might think that this mechanism immunises the rentier state against political and
autonomous demands in the face of external pressures. In fact, oil rent is a great
lever encouraging the construction of a security machine which annihilates all
forms of political protest. The ‘authoritarian syndrome’ appears closely linked to
the oil rent. Nevertheless, ‘the Arab world is more and more present in all the
comparisons of cases of regime transformation’ (Camau 2006). There is now a
new interest in the ‘democratic slips’ of authoritarian regimes, taking into
account the vulnerability of regimes in the face of political pressures (Ferrié
2003). On the other hand, oil rent in Algeria and Libya raises ‘the question of
 EU’s exportation of democratic norms 123
the conditions by which authoritarian regimes and more precisely autocracy pre-
serves itself through the changes that it makes’ (Ferrié and Santucci 2005: 11).
Besides being an obstacle to democracy, oil rent encourages the development
of violence in authoritarian regimes. This is amply evidenced by the analysis of
the role of oil rent in the progression of Algerian civil war (1991–1999), in
Libya’s revolutionary politics (1977–1993) and in the various Iraq wars (1980,
1991 and 2003) (de Soysa 2000; Collier and Hoeffer 1998). The work of K.
Terry Lynn shows how the abundance of resources, especially oil, in states with
weak institutions can lead to their collapse. So Michael L. Ross notes that: ‘Oil
does greater damage to democracy in poor states than in rich ones’ (Ross 2001:
356). This is borne out by an analysis of the case of Libya.
The oil sector is the main source of revenue for Libya. Oil sales have led to
the establishment of a redistributor state that nourishes an unproductive public
sector and that buys social and political peace. Since Qadhafi took power, oil
sales have tapped huge amounts of money (360 billion dollars between 1973 and
2003 (Jeune Afrique Intelligent 2003)). Complex informal networks gravitate
around the redistribution, investment and spending of this fortune. The ability to
restrict direct access to this strategic resource is a key factor in the stability of
Qadhafi’s power and that of his family and clans. In the 1970s, the nationalisa-
tion of the oil sector and later controlled access gave the state total control over
energy resources and a significant increase in income. In this context and from
the point of view of Libya’s leaders, the opening of the oil sector after the lifting
of the embargo must not turn into a perestroika, which would inevitably lead to
questioning the legitimacy of their power (on the example of the Algerian liber-
alisation at the end of the 1980s, which led to the destabilisation of the FLN and
therefore the whole state (Moore 2004)). Unilateral control over the oil rent is
vital for the survival of the regime. In this situation, the main aim of the current
regime is to increase Libya’s oil production to three million barrels per day
(bpd) to reach the production level prior to nationalisation. To do so, the regime
needs to modernise and replace outdated infrastructures. As a consequence,
Qadhafi has called for foreign investments, required to achieve this goal. The
setting up of an expert body governing the oil sector is a strong sign directed at
international enterprises. The experts’ main task is essentially to bring back the
American oil companies. The return of the Oasis Group is an important goal
aiming at creating a powerful lobby capable of putting pressure on the American
Administration in order to remove Libya from the list of state sponsors of terror-
ism. The Oasis Group (Amerada Hess, Conoco, Grace Petroleum) had left Libya
in 1986 following an order issued by Ronald Reagan to cease all relations with
Libya. For months, the group had been negotiating the retrocession of 41 per
cent of its shares in the Waha Oil Field (Maghreb Confidentiel 2004). Libyan
authorities would also like to see the return of corporations such as Exxon and
Mobil, which had left Libya in 1982.2
For diplomatic, military and political reasons, the government of Shukri
Ghanem had to satisfy American companies. Those last years, more or less
secret negotiations have taken place, where commitments have been made both
124 L. Martinez
by Libya (allowances to the families of the victims of the regime, an end to the
massive arms programme, help to the fight against terrorism, etc.) and English
and Americans (an end to the legal proceedings against Qadhafi, relaunching of
diplomatic relationships and the revival of the military cooperation (Maghreb
Confidentiel 2002)). The opening of the Libyan oil sector cannot, at a first stage,
be controlled or organised according to any hierarchy.
In short, the final goal of the Libyan government was to re-establish trust
between the regime and the British and American governments. The privileged
treatment US and British companies were granted in Libya corresponded to the
regime’s political will to solidify the new diplomatic relationship. In this
perspective, Tony Blair’s historical visit to Tripoli in May 2003 finalised a series
of previous negotiations in the military and diplomatic field.3 In 2003, Libyan
authorities evoked the possibility of organising a summit in Madrid at which
Qadhafi, Tony Blair, José Aznar (before the terrorist attacks of 11 March 2003)
and George Bush would be present! In fact, Seif el Islam, Qadhafi’s son and
likely successor, views the international system as being completely disrupted
since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Seif el Islam has worked to
make Libya move to the ‘good side’, that of US allies. In this respect, Libya has
some strategic assets: oil, anti-terrorist expertise and a strong role in African
politics (Exxon policy in Chad and South Sudan), all of them are of great inter-
est for the new allies. In fact, the British export credit agency ECGD has
resumed coverage of British investments in Libya. Also, in 2004, the British
(UK Trade and Investment in cooperation with Energy Industries Council) have
organised a mission to Libya with the aim of understanding Libyan ‘business
culture’. Many companies taking part in the operation underlined their concern
with ensuring Libya has the capacity to provide the necessary logistics to manu-
facture equipment. Libya does not have an industrial structure able to satisfy the
products’ demand that foreign investments in the energy field will create.
Jacques Chirac’s visit followed by that of the French Defence Minister were part
of the same plan: the promise of military cooperation in exchange for favourable
treatment of French oil companies in Libya.
It is therefore clear that the level of diplomatic exchanges is the key to access
the Libyan oil market. Exploration licences attributed in 2003 to Repsol and
OMV within the framework of the call launched in 2000 by the NOC were a sort
of reward for the companies who had invested in Libya during the embargo.
Libyan production was maintained under the embargo essentially by European
company investments: Repsol, Agip, OMV, Wintershall and Total (Libya
Country Report 1998). Agreements among companies have even allowed the
common exploitation of blocks in the Murzuk Basin. The excellent relationships
between Austria under Joerg Haider and the Italian political elites explain the
‘performance’ of these oil companies in Libya. Similarly, right after the
embargo was lifted (April 1999), French investments in Libya were strongly
encouraged by Libyan authorities, as a reward to the French role in promoting
Libya’s case at the United Nations. But when France threatened Libya not to
vote in favour of the definitive lift of sanctions if Libyan authorities did not ade-
 EU’s exportation of democratic norms 125
quately compensate the families of French victims, trade negotiations in Libya
were frozen to the detriment of French companies.
Libya exports 90 per cent of its oil production to Europe (Libya Country
Analysis Brief 2005). Oil was a diplomatic weapon during the period of the
embargo (1992–1999). Libyan positions followed from the will to maintain oil
production despite the sanctions. In general, the few interested companies were
encouraged to take part in oil production. The strategic partnership with Italy
favoured Italian companies, which had very good relations with Libya. Germany
and Switzerland also developed a strategic partnership with Libya favouring the
establishment of oil companies (Joffé 2000). The Spanish company Repsol also
gained a strong foothold in the Libyan market during the embargo. Under the
embargo, the setting up of European oil companies in Libya was a considerable
asset for neutralising the conflictual relationships with the US. The Clinton
Administration had evoked the possibility of strengthening the embargo against
Libya through an oil embargo. A whole arsenal of sanctions had in fact been
devised in order to penalise foreign companies investing in Libya. Italy and
Germany made clear to the Clinton Administration their rejection of an oil
embargo on Libya since Libyan oil exports to Europe were too important. For
Libya, the development of an interdependent energetic relationship with Europe
was a major asset on the diplomatic level in a time of tension with the US. From
the regime’s viewpoint, the diplomatic goal had been reached and Libya enjoyed
strong European backing capable of countering the sanction diplomacy adopted
by the US (Cortright and Lopez 2000).
So, despite UN sanctions, Libya remained an attractive prospect for inter-
national oil companies and those companies have discovered sizeable oilfields.
The EPSA 3 conditions have allowed foreign companies to make discoveries in
regions that were little explored until that time (Murzuk Basin, Ghadames,
Mabruk). The American threats of unilateral sanctions were not going to prevent
international companies from participating.4
European companies have taken advantage of the departure of American
companies during the 1980s: they set up in Libya despite UN sanctions and
despite the unilateral American embargo. Libya, like Algeria, became a strategic
country for Europeans within the framework of the European energy policy.
European companies have always been attracted by oil reserves and the gas
potential, and they planned a positioning strategy while waiting for the embargo
to finally be lifted. European oil companies have enabled Libya’s regime to
maintain its oil production despite international sanctions. The Libyan regime,
forced to revise its oil policy, has progressively ‘opened’ the oil sector according
to the development of conflictual relationships with the US. Therefore, under the
embargo European companies exploited the diplomatic tensions with the US and
made considerable investments in Libya. The presence of European companies
was a source of protection against the US for the Libyan regime, a factor helping
to maintain production and an opportunity to create political and personal ties
with European political leaders.
As the analysis of Libyan oil policy shows, the regime has very cleverly built
126 L. Martinez
up the relations needed to strengthen it. Libya’s oil policy has been successful in
satisfying the diplomatic aspirations of the regime: strengthening ties with
Europe, encouraging the return of American companies and improving Libya’s
image. Libya has a relational network on the international scene that has enabled
it to easily reintegrate the international community. However, the regime’s
energy policy has failed to meet the industry’s demands.
Like the Algerian military authorities, which have managed to make the rest of
the world forget the civil war owing to the liberalisation of the oil sector and a
policy of national reconciliation, Qadhafi’s regime nourishes the ambition of
placing Libya in the small circle of countries supplying Europe with oil. On the
model of French policy in Algeria, Italy aims to become the ‘godfather’ of the new
Libya. To that end, Italy has considerable assets: with its oil company, Agip, Italy
has enjoyed a privileged partnership with Libya for decades and it operates in the
Maghreb at the crossroads of Algerian and Libyan gas suppliers.5 Libya has a clear
interest in connecting some of these gas fields to the Algerian transport networks.
Does Algeria have any interest in the development of such a synergy? If, in the
short run, Algeria may be worried about seeing another gas supplier in North
Africa, in the long run Algeria can use its dominant position in order to become a
real hub of gas exportation towards Europe through the Euro-Mediterranean gas
pipeline that passes through Morocco and the Transmed gas pipeline.
In any event, despite the conflictual relations between Morocco and Algeria,
the building of a 1,385 km gas pipeline from Hassi R’Mel to Cordoba, Spain,
via Morocco, points up the importance of making certain interests converge.
Libya and Algeria obviously stand to gain from a convergence of interests in the
international gas market. Having learned from the past experiences in the oil
field, Sonatrach and Noc have acted together in order to ensure and reinforce
their positions. It is likely that the success of those companies in the oil sector
will be replicated in the gas field. The shaping of a Euro-Mediterranean space
gradually obliges the South Mediterranean countries to work toward policy con-
vergence. The example of the building of the Gazoduc Maghreb Europe (GME)
shows that the construction of a regional space has consequences on the bilateral
relations of those countries (in this case, Morocco and Algeria).
Libya is a gas provider country situated in the Euro-Mediterranean space. In
May 2003, the ministerial Declaration of the Euro-Mediterranean forum on
energy stressed the need to complete the ‘Euro-Mediterranean gas ring’ for
2003–2006, reinforcing its support for the following projects (Euromed Report
2003):

• gas pipeline supplying Spain and France starting from Algeria;

• gas pipeline supplying Italy and France starting from Algeria;
• gas pipeline starting from Libya to supply Italy (through Malta);
• gas pipeline connecting Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

The Libyan regime is aware of the advantages of its geographical position, but
also of the European concerns regarding threats to stability and security hanging
 EU’s exportation of democratic norms 127
over South Mediterranean countries. Libya’s energy policy offers it considerable
protection: does not its progressive integration in the circle of energy suppliers
make Libya immune to possible criticisms concerning human rights violations
and the lack of political freedom? Like other mechanisms essential to the
regime, the oil sector is undergoing transformations that fit within the regime’s
general plan. The main aim of the oil policy is to consolidate a regime that ten
years of embargo have considerably weakened. The oil rent is, in this case, a
considerable diplomatic asset: it allows the clearing of a regime considered until
a few time ago to be a ‘pariah state’ (Sicker 1987).

The ENP, the Bulgarian nurses and the Libyan El Dorado

Five nurses in a paediatric hospital in Benghazi were arrested in 1999 together
with a Palestinian doctor. In May 2004, a court found them guilty of having
deliberately inoculated 430 children with the HIV virus, 51 of whom have died.
The nurses were sentenced to death by the Criminal Court and for a few years
their life depended on the final decision of the Supreme Court. On 24 July 2007,
following months of secret negotiations, the Libyan regime finally agreed to
release them. Until then, the European Union’s sole reaction had been through a
statement made by its European Representative (Statement by Ferrero-Waldner
2006). But no single EU member state, not even the Scandinavian countries,
ever launched a campaign against Libya. How can this silence be explained?
This chapter shows that, given the El Dorado Libya represents, the Bulgarian
nurses were ‘abandoned’ to silent diplomacy by which only convert negotiations
could lead to the nurses’ liberation. Libya represents a lucrative and attractive
market that seriously tests the strength of the human rights principles touted by
the EU. In fact, the European Union’s limp reaction in this case reveals the
limits of its ability to export European norms and democratic values. It is true
that Libya is not party to the ENP and this limits the scope of EU action. But the
real explanation is connected with the fact that Libya offers a huge market for
arms industries, oil companies and transport industries. On 11 October 2004, EU
sanctions on Libya were lifted and arms sales to this country once again became
legal. In this context, no state dared take the defence of the Bulgarian nurses for
fear of trade retaliation. Hence, only a common EU action could have been
effective, thereby sheltering individual states from Libya’s possible retaliatory
measures. For over a year, Qadhafi’s son Seif el Islam tried to find a compro-
mise between the demands formulated by the revolutionaries in Libya and Euro-
pean demands. To everyone’s great surprise, his perseverance finally paid off in
July 2007. The Qadhafi regime handed the ‘hostages’ over to France, which had
taken part in the final stages of negotiations. In exchange, the regime hopes to
finalise a series of negotiations on arms contracts, even the construction of a
civilian nuclear power plant.
Libya is going through a process of transition that could, in the event of too
much EU interference in its domestic affairs, weaken those who advocate
Libya’s alliance with Europe. Now that the Qadhafi regime has placed itself on
128 L. Martinez
the ‘good side’ (with the United States and its allies), Seif el Islam believes that
Libya must not repeat its past errors but that the contrary must take advantage of
its comparative assets and offer its new allies the energy supply it needs as well
as cooperation in the fields of security and migration. The new elites emerging
in the oil and security sectors, educated in US universities, have progressively
marginalised the ‘revolutionaries’ educated in Eastern Europe and for whom
Africa and the Arab world were Libya’s future horizons. According to these new
elites, Libya must absolutely bind itself to the Western world. But how can the
revolutionary regime be undone without major upheaval? It still has ‘watchdogs’
who do not look favourably on the changes the regime is going through. In fact,
the new elites in coercion apparatuses, the new economic and diplomatic staff,
the clans affiliated with the regime and Qadhafi’s family are undertaking to
transform the regime. They are developing a new discourse that they diffuse to
the international community via the figure of Seif el Islam. They form alliances
in strategic areas such as oil and the ‘war on terror’. In short, they are building a
new image of Libya that is supposed to forever erase a past in which Libya was
likened to a terrorist state. Even if Qadhafi’s speech on the 37th anniversary of
the revolution produced a stir in the American media, the New York Times
stressed that Qadhafi ‘was criminalising the creation of opposition parties’. Nev-
ertheless, at the end of September 2006 the Libyan media was priding itself in
Foreign Minister Shalgam’s trip to New York and his meeting with Condoleezza
Rice. Libya was invited to discuss the big issues of the moment: the war in
Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Darfur humanitarian crisis. For the Libyan
regime, this meant it had been admitted to the club of responsible powers! The
conversion of the former ‘terrorist state’ was a success. It demonstrated the
regime’s capacity to adapt artfully to unforeseen changes (Martinez 2007).
But Libya especially looks like an El Dorado compared to the chaos in Iraq.
For instance, to the regime’s great satisfaction, in July 2006, the IMF mission in
Libya stressed in its discussions with Finance Minister Tayeb Al Saffi, that his
country could play the role of an economic centre if economic reforms were
carried out. For the moment, the government is focusing its policy on three
areas: oil, military and civil infrastructures. Libya appears as one of the more
attractive Mediterranean countries. The main aim of the creation of a Council
for Oil and Gas Affairs has been to devise a strategic policy in the energy field.
The Council is directed by the new Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmoudi and it
is composed of the following members: Tayeb Safi, Tahar Jehimi, Maatoug
Maatoug, Fethi Ben Chatouan, Ahmed Menissi, Fathi Ben Gdara and Shokri
Ghanem. In 2006, Libya produced around 1.5 million barrels of oil per day
(bpd). The government plans to immediately increase its production capacity to
1.8 million bpd and eventually to three million bpd in 2020. Prior to nationalisa-
tion in 1970, Libya was producing 3.3 million bpd (Gazzo 1980).
The lifting of the embargo has made Libya extremely favourable to foreign
direct investment (FDI), especially in the oil sector. Ahmed Abdulkarim, former
chairman of the Noc and present director of OilInvest, the state-owned oil
holding company, underlined that the government is trying to collect ten billion
 EU’s exportation of democratic norms 129
dollars of foreign investments in the field of oil before 2010 (Houston Business
Journal 2004). According to the British consulting company Robertson
Research International Ltd, Libya is a first choice destination in the field of oil
investment. Only the 25 per cent of gas and oil stocks, estimated at 40 billion
barrels, are exploited (Hassan 2004). In the gas sector, Libya plans to soon start
exporting its natural gas to Italy through an underground pipeline in the Mediter-
ranean. Libya’s gas stocks are estimated at 1,500 billion m3, which is 1 per cent
of the world stocks, and its production in 1999 was about 12,200 billion m3/year
(Energy Information Administration 1999). Compared to the Iraq nightmare,
Libya represents a dream for oil companies. Whereas the defeat of Saddam
Hussein promised the access to the world’s second largest oil reserves and huge
profits in the reconstruction of a state ‘brought back to the Middle Ages’, the
emergence of Qadhafi’s Libya as a new El Dorado came as a surprise.6 It must
be said that, after the embargo, Libya started a belly dance to turn the heads of
the big oil and industrial companies. In September 1999, Finance and Plan
Minister Abdel Hafiz Al Zalaytani underlined that between 2001 and 2005, the
government would invest 35 billion dollars (60 per cent by the state and 40 per
cent FDI) in the oil and electricity industries. He stressed that, for the next 20
years, the country would need around 150 billion dollars in investments (of
which 60 per cent by the state)! Libya’s projects are certainly huge but on a par
with its financial capacities. Unlike Iraq, Libya is safe and creditworthy. For the
authorities, these are undeniable assets that should be exploited since Libya has
moved to the ‘good side’.
In September 2006, the government issued its third international invitation to
tender: 12 offshore licences and 29 onshore licenses were put up for bid in the
prolific basins of Sirte and Ghadames and in the exploration basins of Murzuk,
Jufra and Cyrenaica. This third invitation fits in with the policy of opening the
oil sector inaugurated by Shukri Ghanem. In September 2004, Shukri Ghanem’s
government put 15 offshore and onshore areas for exploration up for bid, which
was exceptional. The procedure was meant to be more transparent than usual in
order to choose foreign investors. The Shukri Ghanem government announced
that the process would be conducted in a transparent fashion and that there
would be a departure from the opacity and the arbitrariness that had charac-
terised decisions in Libya in the past. This new way of proceeding was meant to
prove the new authority acquired by the Shukri Ghanem government in the
complex decision-making process. The Prime Minister had managed to convince
the informal circles close to the Guide that Libya needed to change its methods
if it wanted to convince foreign investors to return. The new government wanted
to demonstrate that the modernisation of the Libyan economy and infrastructures
absolutely had to go hand in hand with changes in trading practices. Neverthe-
less, the licenses granted through EPSA IV demonstrated that the oil sector
remains a diplomatic weapon for Libya. US companies obtained nine blocks of
the 15 put up for public sale. The political and diplomatic aim was achieved. In
May 2006, the US and Libya re-established diplomatic ties. The US–Libya
Business Association, lead by David Goldwyn, had met its goal: Libya is again
130 L. Martinez
accessible to Amerada Hess, Chevron, ConocoPhilips, Occidental and
Marathon.
But the Russian giant Gazprom is also interested in Libya, as it seeks to link
Algeria and Libya with its supply strategy for Europe. In early July 2007,
Gazprom management, led by its Deputy Chairman Alexander Medvedev, came
to Tripoli to negotiate a Memorandum of Understanding with NOC. What was
at stake was to strike a deal with Libya similar to the one with Sonatrach on gas
liquefaction and common calls for projects. All this made the Europeans worry.
Actually, Russia was trying to regain a foothold in the market that it was assured
of winning. In May 2007, the meeting in Tripoli between Yuri Safranik, chair-
man of the Russian Oil and Gas Union and Muhammad Saleh Mansouri, Presid-
ent of the Libyan Business Council, took place with representatives of the big
Russian companies: Lukoil, Tafnet, SoyuzNefteGaz, Makhachkala Seaport, etc.
Although the oil sector is the government’s priority, it is also concerned with
the civil infrastructures that suffered under the embargo. Revenues from the oil
rent have made a sustained investment policy possible. Air transport is one of
the privileged sectors: 12 Airbus (eight with an option) have been bought for
Afriqiyah Airways; two business jets were sold to Libya by Bombardier Inc.
Even more important, a deal was reached between EADS and the Libya Africa
Portfolio for Investment, led by Beshir Saleh, in order to build a training and
maintenance centre, an Air Academy and a meteorological centre. The idea is to
make Libya a regional hub for Africa and the Middle East.
The government aims to create a trading area from Zuwarah to Bukamash.
This free trade area is meant to have considerable impact on Libyan economy
since for the moment only the oil sector can benefit from the opening of the
market. This project, called ‘the Road to the Future’ and backed by Saadi al
Qadhafi, was introduced early September 2006 and, in his words, should make
the Libyan coast an area comparable to ‘New York, Monte Carlo and Hong
Kong’. This includes a series of projects: the Socialist Port Authority, in charge
of managing seven commercial harbours, is planning to enlarge the Misurata
harbour in order to reach a capacity of six billion tons of merchandise per year.
The Railway Executive Board has planned railway construction programme for
lines from Sirte to Benghazi (600 km), Benghazi to Tobrouk (470 km) and even
an underground project is under study. These projects have captured the atten-
tion of investors in the major industrialised countries.
After having given up on the development of weapons of mass destruction,
Libya now has the ambition of becoming a conventional military power. The
Russian, British, French, German, Italian and American industries are all scram-
bling for a piece of the action. As pointed out earlier, the lifting of EU sanctions
in October 2004, and the end of the American embargo in May 2006, opened the
Libyan arms market to international industries. For the moment, the Libyan
market involves the modernisation of nine frigates of the Libyan navy, border
control and the refitting of Mirage fighter aircraft. Since July 2006, the CIEEMG
(Interministerial Commission for Examination of War Material Exports) has
been exploring the possibility of selling Tiger combat helicopters to Libya.
 EU’s exportation of democratic norms 131
Libya still hopes to be a leading country in the region and on the continent. In
order to obtain the status of responsible power that Libya seeks, it needs to
rebuild its military power. The renewal of diplomatic ties between Libya and
France will even make the sale of Rafale airplanes and Tiger helicopters to
Libya possible. On 21 October 2006, the Defence Ministry has confirmed that
there is a Libyan offer being studies at the CIEEMG. The Libyan market is
highly coveted: the competition among European companies is stiff and it is
likely that the defence of the Bulgarian nurses was being sacrificed on the altar
of trade. What government would dare to jeopardise its economic and commer-
cial interests?

Conclusion
In the presence of an oil El Dorado, the exportation of norms and democratic
values is a priority for EU member states. It could even be said that, in a rentier
state, it is primarily corrupt practices that dominate. The lift of sanctions, by the
EU, over the sale of arms to Libya produced some criticisms. During a debate at
the WEU on 22 October 2004, the British Lord Russell-Johnston lamented that
as soon Libya started behaving better, the first reaction of the EU was to sell the
country arms, adding that it was not the best of solutions. In fact, how can inter-
national opinion be convinced – if this is indeed necessary – that Libya needs to
rebuild its conventional arms policy? The EU justification for lifting sanctions
on the sale of arms to Libya rests on the argument that Libya must be supplied
with the means to fight against illegal migration!7 In September 2004, a month
before the EU decision, Italy clearly expressed its will to help the Libyan regime
to avail itself of the military tools necessary to regulate migration flows: new
radars, helicopters, optical viewfinders, ships, etc. Using the excuse of an ‘inva-
sion’ of African immigrants coming from Libya (the pool of illegal immigrants
is estimated at around two million Africans), Italy managed to convince its
European partners to put an end to the ban on arms sales to Libya. In exchange,
Libya allegedly offered to set up ‘holding centres’ for illegal immigrants (Ferré
2005). The exploitation of the migration issue for military and commercial aims
was effective: the argument worked and the EU lifted its embargo on arms sales
to Libya.
The migrant problem is a headache for the Libyan regime for two reasons:
first, migrants spark xenophobic tendencies among the Libyan population and,
second, they are a cause for concern for Libya’s neighbour countries, which are
caught off guard by the flow of illegal immigrants through Libya. In the summer
of 2000, Libya was spotlighted in the media due to a tragic event involving
African immigrants: some one hundred Africans were massacred by young
Libyans ‘who did not want foreigners in their country’. Ali Abdel-Salaam Al-
Tereiki, the Libyan secretary of the People’s Committee for African Affairs,
stressed during a press conference that those murders were not of racist origin:
‘Racism does not exist for us, we are not whites . . . More than two and a half
million Africans live in Libya and only 1700 of them have an identity card’.
132 L. Martinez
Such practices illustrate the patent contradictions of Libyan society. Libya,
involved in the African Union project, has reacted with violence to African
immigrants allowed to stay in Libya without a visa. Many immigrants use Libya
as a stepping stone to Europe. In September 2007, Qadhafi asked the EU for
about ten billion euros in financial aid to combat these flows. If not money,
Libya hopes that Italy, for instance, will help it build an efficient navy. Concern-
ing its land borders, Libya has created special brigades and a Berber, General
Mohamed Ahrim, has been made responsible for the new armed brigade in
charge of controlling migration flows at the borders. All Libya needs now is to
acquire modern military equipment. Malta, the main EU member state con-
cerned with the issue of illegal immigrant flows, requested in late September
2006 that the EU provide Libya with concrete support: ‘if Libya had better
patrols at its southern border, it could reduce the number of immigrants that then
reach Malta and Italy’, stressed Tonio Borg, Maltese Minister of Internal
Affairs.
Libya is changing rapidly and it emphasises its convergence with the US and
EU interests in all areas. Libya put an end to its WMD programme and encour-
ages all its neighbours to do the same. Libya is liberalising its oil sector and it
offers Europe guarantees for its energy supply. The 7 October 2004 inauguration
of the West Jamahiriya Gas Project seals Libya’s bond to Europe: ‘We declare
before the world that Italy and Libya have decided to create in the Mediter-
ranean a sea of peace. The Mediterranean will be a sea of trade and tourism, a
sea under which oil and gas pipelines will pass through Libya and Italy to link
Africa and Europe’ (Jamahiriya News Agency 2004). At the same time, given
European worries over the migration issue, Libya is willing to accept ‘camps’ on
its territory. In February 2003, Tony Blair launched the idea of creating
‘regional protection areas’ outside of Europe and his project has been taken up
by Otto Schily, German Minister of Internal Affairs, and his Italian homologue
Giuseppe Pisanu, who launched the idea of creating ‘closed centres’, actually
camps where migrants’ asylum applications would be examined (Saint-Saëns
2004).
Can the European Neighbourhood Policy help to dismantle the Libyan revo-
lutionary regime? It must be acknowledged that the regime has started to free
some political prisoners. At the same time, in January 2005, a directive of
Colonel Qadhafi to the People’s General Congress asked for the abolition of the
People’s Court (conducting secret political trials). Nevertheless, for the Libyan
League of Human Rights:

The abolition of the ‘People’s Court’ and the exceptional laws is undoubt-
edly a commendable step in the right direction but should be followed by
other measures if the purpose of their abolition is to remedy the deplorable
human rights situation in Libya. In fact, respect for human rights has been
obstructed not only by the ‘People’s Court’ but, more particularly, by the
total lack of an equitable and independent judiciary.
(The Libyan League for Human Rights 2005)
 EU’s exportation of democratic norms 133
The opening of Libya to human rights organisations is part of the political deter-
mination to convince the Bush Administration that Libya has definitely changed
and that it should therefore be struck from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The fear of meeting the same fate as Saddam Hussein convinced Qadhafi to
change.

Notes
1 According to Martin Ortega:
Within the Barcelona Process, a sub-regional association could be created, having
EU and the three countries of Central Maghreb as its members. This sub-regional
framework would coordinate and help the three Maghreb countries in their
integration process. They would therefore benefit of the EU expertise in the
gradual opening of borders and the promotion of South-South exchanges. An
alternative would be the launching of a 5+5 Group that would then become a
5+5+1 with the EU. There is the need to have specific and concrete projects to
help the integration of Maghreb.
(www.iss-eu.org:new/analysis/analy161.html)
2 www.euromesco.net/.
3 In an interview for the Sunday Times, Seif el Islam stresses the role of the ‘market
tools’ – the unveiling of the Libyan networks – that allowed to get nuclear technology
in exchange of a British engagement in the formation of the Libyan army.
4 In August 1996, Bula Resources signed an agreement with NOC for exploration in the
Sirte and the Ghadames basins. In November 1997, the Repsol/Total/OeMV/saga
Petroleum consortium signed an agreement of exploration and sharing of the produc-
tion in the Murzuk basin. In November 1999, Repsol signed a new arrangement. At the
same time, the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) signed an arrangement with
NOC and so forth.
5 In 1985, Agip discovered a considerable gas stock in Libya. Agip suggested linking
this Libyan production with the Euromed Gas Pipeline. In 1994, Agip started talks
with Algeria, Libya and Tunisia for a common exploitation. The exploitation of the
field of El Wafa in Lybia in an example of common exploitation. This camp, dis-
covered in 1991, needs the construction of a pipeline leading to the terminals in order
to be exploited. One of the most economic solutions would be to transfer the produc-
tion in the field of Alrar, in Algeria. This field, built by the Soviets in 1985, is directly
connected through pipeline to Hassi R’Mel. Total, Agip, Repsol and Lasmo acquired
some positions in the field of El Wafa in the perspective of cooperation between
Algeria and Libya for common exploitation (Gurney 1996).
6 According to the British society Robertson Research International Ltd, Libya is one of
the main destinations for investments in hydrocarbons. Only 25 per cent of gas and oil
stocks, estimated at 40 billion barrels, are exploited (Hassan 2004).
7 The Luxemburg Declaration (General Affairs and External Relations Council) states
that: ‘It is well-known fact that one of the EU member states – and therefore all
member states because of the open borders – is having considerable problems with
illegal immigrants coming from Libya. The Ministers agreed today that cooperation
with Libya on the topic of migration has become a pressing matter’, EU Foreign Min-
isters on Libya.
9 The uncertainties of democratic
promotion in Afghanistan
Jean-Noël Ferrié

Any discussion of the state of democracy and more precisely the ‘democratic
moment’ should involve making a distinction, as does Michel Camau, between
the concepts of ‘democratization’ and ‘democratic globalization’ (Camau 2006).
Democratization is a virtuous process through which totalitarian and authoritarian
regimes become substantially democratic. Democratic globalization, on the other
hand, involves diffusion of the democratic reference and specific democratic
mechanisms, without necessarily giving rise to substantial democracy. Demo-
cratic globalization can therefore extend even to authoritarian regimes. In this
respect, the ‘democratic moment’ is more an element of ambiguity than a real
opportunity, in that it likens democratic globalization to democratization. Never-
theless, the ambiguity of the expression ‘democratic moment’ is something other
than an illusion, and in this regard, confusing democratic globalization with an
extension of deliberalization (as alterglobalization advocates tend to do) does not
accurately describe the situation. Authoritarian regimes are obliged to come to
terms with this reference, but the fact that this compromise does not entail
democratization in the true sense does not mean it has no effect on the nature of
such authoritarianism. Therefore, the confusion has to do with what actually
occurs and not with the fact that something rather than nothing happens.
What creates such an ambiguity is the undeniably mistaken idea that the uni-
versalization of a model necessarily and automatically implies the standardiza-
tion and universalization of an agenda and the behaviours linked to it. This
misunderstanding is generated by an underestimation of what is undertaken with
regard to what the local context allows. In other words, the constraints of path
dependency have been largely misjudged, and therefore the exportation of
norms inherent in this illusory agenda remained poorly thought out. Oddly con-
trasting with the political scientist’s approach, sometimes overly concerned with
the acceptance of external norms by local actors, it seems that most experts of
democratization and state-building do not even imagine that the democratic set –
consensual transitional government, constitution, elections, transitional justice –
could be at all ill-suited to any of the situations to which it is applied. They see
the democratic set as doctors might consider the protocol for multi-injured
patients in emergency medicine, which takes into account only the biology of
human beings and not their specific variables (Caplan and Pouligny 2005).
 Democractic promotion in Afghanistan 135
To a large degree, Afghanistan offers a striking example of the democratic
confusion that I set out to analyse in this chapter. The country is now experienc-
ing a crisis of the constitutional and democratic institutions that were rapidly
introduced by the international actors. I will especially focus on the differences
between the attitudes and the agenda of American, European and French actors,
even if at first the aim was to support a unilateral agenda initiated by the United
States, and to ‘regularize’ it, since the intervention can only seriously be said to
have been motivated by the desire to avenge an outrage. Nevertheless, the
empire of democratic ideology is such that this pure act of reprisal was sponta-
neously placed within a model of ‘democratic conversion’ naturally involving an
undervaluation of the context and excessive trust in the efficiency of the demo-
cratic set (Dorronsoro and Harling 2005).

Present state of Afghan institutions

After the American attack on Afghanistan, the international community rapidly
engaged in the reconstruction of the Afghan state, starting from the 2001 Bonn
Agreement. Complex constitutional institutions were also set up, thereby legiti-
mating, a posteriori, the American revenge. Certainly, if we consider the huge
problems of human development that continue to exist in Afghanistan, institu-
tional reconstruction was not the most urgent measure to take, yet, the situation
thus created is now a state of fact. Moreover, the arrangements made in Bonn
concerned only the ‘winners’, and not all of them were staunch partisans of the
developed constitutional agenda, such that the arrangements were more idealis-
tic and abstract than realist (Ottaway and Lieven 2002), since they gave the
various actors political power that might then prove to be counterproductive as
regards the goals initially pursued (Afghanistan National Human Development
Report 2004: 124ff).
The institutions created have proven to be rather unsatisfactory:

1 the Afghan political regime is a presidential one but, because of the elect-
oral system chosen, there is no majority party to support the president or
even any stable coalitions that might at least provide for the consolidation
and predictability of political preferences;
2 there is no formal distinction between the system of law and the system of
regulations, and therefore the parliament can potentially take charge of all
the issues and legitimately claim to impose its own solutions.

Moreover, in the early stages of implementing a constitution, institutional bal-

ances depend more on political party activities than on the existence of stabiliz-
ing rules. As a consequence, the parliament is naturally apt to seek an
equilibrium favourable to its primacy and the sole interests of its components. In
February 2007, the parliament thus tried to impose its leadership on the execu-
tive and the international community by passing an amnesty law, whereas the
country had committed itself to setting up a system of transitional justice. The
136 J.-N. Ferrié
parliament is also trying to gain control of the courts and in the wake of the
debates over the amnesty law, has threatened to withdraw Afghanistan from
certain international treaties it has signed.
The international community is not in a position to counter these initiatives
without considerable cost, also because the idea of democracy promotion seems
more and more to boil down simply to the imposition of Western – or even just
American – standards (Carothers 2006). The international community risks
therefore to be repeatedly confronted with such initiatives. There is also the
ensuing risk of conflicts between the executive and the legislative powers, with
the consequential paralysis of the state analysis. There is also the possibility that
the parliament will articulate projects of ‘national reconciliation’ (as the case of
the amnesty law suggests). All this is naturally the result of the equilibrium set
up with the Bonn arrangements.

The causal models

Democratic institutions were established in Iraq with the same speed that char-
acterized Afghanistan (2003: the constitution; 2004: presidential elections;
2005: legislative elections). This rapidity is based on the idea of a virtuous
circle, i.e. the idea that democratic transition will automatically be brought
about by setting up democratic institutions, which are meant to create the con-
textual conditions and the attitudes favourable to their success. This figure
inverts the classical conceptions of democracy according to which the institu-
tions sprout in fertile ground: here the institutions supply the topsoil. Where
does this conception come from? There are three possible origins, partly inter-
related:

Political theory, of course, which has tried to design a new model to replace
the gradualist one, according to which democratic institutions eventually
take root in well prepared ground.
The democratisation of Eastern European countries has served as a
model: the occurred swiftly, at least where it succeeded. The adoption of a
constitutional compromise and the election of the various governing bodies
have been followed by a consolidation of the regime. It is in fact with
regard to what happened in Eastern European countries that analysts such as
John Elster have talked about a ‘virtuous circle’.
(Elster 1998)

The influence of the idea – a very ‘American’ one that probably relates to
the political history of the US – that once the institutions are installed and
elections are held, the main problems are settled. The reference to the recon-
struction of Germany and Japan after World War II plays an important role
in this belief.
(Caplan and Pouligny 2005)
 Democractic promotion in Afghanistan 137
Those three origins can and, to a certain extent, do merge together: the first is
founded on the second and so is the third. It seems that the ambiguity of the
‘democratic moment’ is generated here: the theory of the ‘virtuous circle’ is
founded on the elision of the context. The problem of context is left for after-
ward, but the possibility of excluding the context from the factors of democrat-
ization derives from the misunderstanding of the contextual conditions of this
very elision. In the Eastern countries, at the moment the virtuous circle was
engaged, those countries benefited from favourable contexts that could, together
with the democratic institutions, create the fertile ground to consolidate them. In
other words, the democratic agenda can’t be standardized. Democracy does not
have an intrinsic timeframe acting independently from the places where it works
(Bunce 2000).
The United States apply the protocol of constitutional regulation regardless of
the context and the experience, as it is shown both in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
Although in Afghanistan, constitutional institutions proved to be rather ineffec-
tive and the cost of elections was very high, the US ambassador to Kabul argued
at the donor meeting (JCMB: Joint Coordination Monitoring Board) in London
in January 2007 that the main preoccupation for Afghanistan should be to
finance the next elections.
The US attitude concerning institutions is not purely naïve, as it may seem in
a context where it might appear that to achieve democratic progress the primary
concern ought to be the development of human security. Actually, support for
institutions goes along with the American capacity to select strategic institu-
tions. In fact, American technical assistance to the Afghan parliament has
particularly been given to the budgetary commission, i.e. regulating finances,
sidelining any other sponsor showing an interest in it. However, this is a mixed
rather than a realist attitude. This attitude derives from the deep-seated convic-
tion that Americans have in the link between democracy and tax-paying. For
them, representation is founded on the classic political theory that says the rep-
resentatives control the use that is made of tax revenue, because representation
is based on consent to taxation. This is supposedly the basis of constitutional
institutions. But what does controlling the use of tax revenue mean in a country
crippled by corruption and mainlined by sponsors?

The European Union attitude and its French variant

The EU and in particular the French attitude to the democratization of
Afghanistan is different from the American one. Neither the EU nor the French
attitude reduces democracy to the mere installation of constitutional institutions;
they have a broader conception of democratization based in particular on the dif-
fusion and respect of norms to achieve an overall balance (Laïdi 2005). The
European Commission Strategy Paper on Afghanistan for the 2007–2013 period
emphasizes issues such as the ‘transitional justice process for handling human
rights abuses which were committed during 23 years of warfare, women’s rights
and an unreliable justice system’ (European Commission 2007a: 7), while
138 J.-N. Ferrié
(singularly) linking the weakness of Afghan state institutions to the degradation
of the Afghan environment (ibid.: 9). The relevance of these considerations is
undeniably normative: it is indeed hard to see how transitional justice can allow
for better reconstruction of Afghanistan (ibid.: 11). Even more, this implies the
strengthening of a possible opposition to the state such as it is exists, since the
European document says that ‘support may be provided to the government and
civil society organizations for initiatives related to transitional justice’ (ibid.:
25). Here, civil society may have an agenda opposite to the government’s, which
could harm the stability of a government nothing short of authoritarian (prob-
ably more out of weakness than design) that does not have the strength to
impose itself and its own norms. But that is not all: transitional justice could also
represent a threat for the parties to the Bonn agreements who support the Afghan
government today, many of whom – some as ‘warlords’, others as ‘freedom
fighters’ – perpetrated human rights violations, just as all the others did.
Nevertheless, the European Commission and several European countries
financially support the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, led by
Simar Samar, a women’s rights militant and minister in charge of women’s
affairs in the first transitional Afghan government. One of the main tasks of this
Commission was to re-examine past abuses. In Kabul, fundraising drives organ-
ized by this Independent Commission are ostensibly held in the presence of the
European Commission representative and many European ambassadors. One
can only be doubtful with regard to what appears as a practical contradiction
between these two goals: the effective development of transitional justice is at
odds with the government’s political stability, also supported by European coun-
tries. But this contradiction has a reason that I shall explain later on.
At the same time, the rest of the European Commission programme seems to
be less idealist and more strategic, since it concentrates (in the field of gover-
nance) on establishing the rule of law through actions concerning police and
justice and the reform of public administration. However, the causal assertions
used to justify this strategy are more normative than realist: ‘The reconstruction
of the justice sector is essential for the establishment of the rule of law, which is,
in turn, a key condition for political stability and sustainable economic develop-
ment’ (European Commission 2007a: 22). Technically, political stability does
not necessarily imply the rule of law, as underlined by Huntington (1968): a
state can be stable and authoritarian, or even stable because authoritarian. At the
same time, there can be a ‘rule of law for business’ which is not, or not by
the same token, a ‘rule of law for citizens’. From the social science standpoint,
the relationship between rule of law and economic development is not clear. The
linking of all these preferences is not a foregone conclusion but the result of a
normative preference.
Finally, it should be noted that Afghanistan is just one case among many
others (especially the ACP countries) of a European policy unified through a
doctrine approved both by a body of experts (the executive administration of the
European Commission) and by the citizens’ representatives (the elected repre-
sentatives at the European Parliament). Thus, the communication from the
 Democractic promotion in Afghanistan 139
European Commission is entitled ‘Governance in the European Consensus on
Development’ (Commission of the European Communities 2006) and defines
governance as:

Respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms ... support for democrati-
sation processes and the involvement of citizens in choosing and overseeing
those who govern them; respect for the rule of law and access for all to an
independent justice system; access to information; a government that governs
transparently and is accountable to the relevant institutions and to the elec-
torate; human security; management of migration flows; effective institutions,
access to basic social services, sustainable management of natural and energy
resources and of the environment, and the promotion of sustainable economic
growth and social cohesion in a climate conducive to private investment.

It should rapidly be pointed out that the principles outlined in this communica-
tion express only the European idea of governance and are not a sociological
observation specific to any given society. It is a transcendental definition – in the
Kantian sense – of governance.
Democratic governance, according to the French doctrine of cooperation, is
quite close to the European conception:

The French approach to governance goes beyond the issue of institutions or

the formal frames of government. It concerns also the mechanisms of social
coordination that take part in political action. It refers to the political
decision-making process among and within all the social groups (state,
enterprises, communities, associations, etc.) and at all levels (from local to
global). It concerns the process of decision development as decisions them-
selves . . . The aim is not only to help reform a state but also to help a given
society to rethink its own administrative process.
(French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, DGCID/DPDEV 2007)

This definition is an interesting one, since it allows us to consider as part of gov-

ernance the functioning of associations while assuming that political institutions
are not necessarily part of it. This extensive, and subtly selective, model refers,
in a certain way, to the gradualist definition, since it considers that context
matters in achieving results and that local processes determine the final output.
Yet, that this is also admittedly a very cautious strategy, since the support for
NGOs is the least troublesome form of aid to governance in our relations with
authoritarian regimes. Supporting the civic education of women, for example,
does not pose any problem to the ruling regimes since this usually involves liter-
acy teaching and not promoting their active integration into political life (the
European Commission cooperation policy uses the same careful subterfuges).
This governance strategy moreover tends to minimize, but not ignore, the issue
of civil liberties and human rights. It develops mechanisms more than it claims
transcendental principles.
140 J.-N. Ferrié
In the European Union governance policy, the concern with human rights is
more pronounced than in the French conception, which instead devotes most of
its financial support to cooperation plans. In Afghanistan, the Independent
Commission for Human Rights is not financed by France and support for its
activities does not mobilize people of the same level in the donation meetings.
For the Europeans, the silk thread of respect for legality is a substantial element
for democracy, as Michel Camau, referring to Aron, shows in his analysis.
There is here a certain coherence with the European Union’s normative dis-
course. This reference to respect for norms is not part of a gradualist approach
but of the idea that the principles are intrinsically good. It is undeniably an
ethical conception of democracy. France’s position, instead, is one of a state
that wants to act as a bilateral actor and that cannot limit itself to the role of a
‘normative community’. The ‘normative community’ replaces the ‘national
community’ that does not exist. On the contrary, France, being a national
community, wants to preserve its bilateral arrangements (Laïdi 2006: 6). This is
even more important in the case of Afghanistan, since the presence of France
referred to its past and therefore to its bilateral history with Afghanistan:
archaeological missions, French secondary schools Esteqlal and Malalaï, teach-
ing of law and medicine. It is moreover because of this pre-existing framework
that France engaged, together with Germany, in setting up a training pro-
gramme for magistrates, which concerns more the concrete implementation of
principles than their declaration. This action also implied intra-European
competition, since the lead nation in the reconstruction of the justice system is
Italy and the European Commission has pledged to support the lead nation in
these areas (European Commission 2007a: 22).
An analysis of the amnesty law crisis should help to hone the distinction
between the various types of actors, their common attachments and their specific
interests.

A case study: the amnesty law

The amnesty law passed by the Afghan parliament in February 2007 provoked a
strong reaction among the international community. Whereas at the Bonn con-
ference Afghanistan had accepted the principle of a transitional justice system to
try the crimes perpetrated during the civil war, a majority of deputies – eager to
preserve their safety – agreed to vote for an amnesty. This law was particularly
poorly designed, since it proclaimed, for example, the obligation to respect
‘freedom fighters’ but did not specify the specific forms of immunity that this
implies. This law was considered by the donors as a retreat from the Bonn
arrangements and from international agreements and conventions signed by
Afghanistan, the respect of which is imposed by article 7 of the constitution. The
strongest reactions to the amnesty law did not come from the US but from
Europe, even if they varied from one country to the next.
France adopted a cautious and moderated stance, suggesting that a demarche
might be envisaged with the head of state, but it did nothing concrete in this
 Democractic promotion in Afghanistan 141
direction. Countries such as Denmark and Holland, on the contrary, proved to be
very active, encouraging and conveying protests among civil society. Poland,
newly present in Afghanistan, seemed to consider the Afghan parliament sover-
eign in its decision on the question. What is interesting is that the Europeans
who were strongly against the amnesty law hoped that the President Karzai
would not endorse it, but had he not, this would have been tantamount to a coup
d’état. The ideological stand according to which good behaviour is worthy in
and of itself also implies that bad behaviour should be punished, the context
notwithstanding. Nevertheless, the context is not reducible to an ideological
stand. It was not possible to force the President not to endorse the law voted by
his supporters (the parties to the Bonn agreements), also because the Western
protests gave rise to a large-scale demonstration in support of the amnesty. The
law was therefore passed after a cosmetic change restating the individual rights
of victims without modifying any other of the law’s provisions.
The moral of the story is fairly clear and can be summarized as follows:

1 The setting up of democratic institutions does not necessarily produce the

virtuous behaviours that are meant to strengthen them. On the contrary,
democratic institutions can easily facilitate behaviour that substantially con-
tradicts democratic principles. In fact, institutions depend on the context and
the local actors as well as their intentions and their expertise. Therefore,
nothing guarantees that a democratically elected parliament will respect
constitutionalism more than the majority rule or norms more than the power
of numbers.
2 From this point of view, even the democracy promoters do not consider the
respect of institutions as their priority, since some of them do not consider a
democratic choice acceptable if it violates their norms. Coherent supporters
of democratic process should have accepted the amnesty law. Here we see
the same contradiction as for Palestine, and Europe seemed inclined to
adopt the same attitude: our ‘supra processual norms are more important
than our processual principles. This dual normativity is difficult to justify
for the norm-takers.
3 All the Western actors do not share the same conceptions. Actually,
democratization conceptions strongly depend on current foreign policies.
Americans are more attached to institutional aspects not only out of convic-
tion but also because they dramatically need an Afghan state as a partner.
Some Europeans prefer substantial principles: they are the ones whose
foreign policy is more linked to the existence of political blocks or a norm-
ative community (EU, NATO). France on the contrary wishes to develop an
independent foreign policy (even if in the case of Afghanistan it is not very
active), and so France prefers to avoid confrontational systems and situ-
ations. It thus seems to be better adapted to complex contexts, because it is
more willing to support change within them (if it finds willing partners)
than to provoke it.
4 Finally, the limits on the effectiveness of a normative community depends
142 J.-N. Ferrié
on the cohesion of its members and the risks inherent in completely substi-
tuting norms promotion for bilateral arrangements among states or the
acceptance of states of fact. In the Afghan situation, the head of state
depends both on his external and his domestic support and this dual depen-
dence also partly explains his weakness. Therefore, head-on opposition to
the amnesty law implied putting the head of state in a very difficult position
for his own stability. The choice of affirming disturbing principles without
imposing them in reality has revealed to be a no-win decision, since norms
have not been respected and Europeans generated dissatisfaction among
Afghan political actors.

Conclusion
If we consider the Afghan situation, it is clear that the creation of democratic
institutions cannot be planned independently from the context. Voluntarism
seems more to be the consequence of their underestimation than the manifesta-
tion of an ambition. From this point of view, the idea that democratic change in
Eastern countries and the globalization of the democratic reference imply a
global democratic opportunity is a mistake. It is not possible to ignore local con-
ditions, i.e. the power relationships and the actors’ ideas of what they can and
cannot do.
It is not even possible to ignore our own substantial conceptions of demo-
cracy since, if they are not respected, this provokes a reaction in us that can lead
to actions in contradiction with the promotion of democratic institutions. Having
acquired the habit of thinking of norms as universal, we end up forgetting that
this universal character is a construction and not a spontaneously shared tran-
scendental norm. Moreover, this construction is an historical one, made up of
our institutions, our debates and our values. In this context, the affirmation of a
norm always consists in addressing a new public while playing for an existing
audience. This duality of audiences is a source of tension.
It is therefore clear that our democratic convictions lead us, I dare say, to
make mistakes, to believe in the supreme virtue of institutions and to believe in
the superiority of universal norms without paying attention at the specificity of
the contexts. Yet, contexts remain decisive and our own beliefs and strategies
depend on our own contexts of action, on our plans, on what we can tolerate and
on what seems normal to us. The globalization of a reference is, from this point
of view, nothing less than the universalization of a related system of actions. In
this sense, the promotion of democracy would benefit more from active pes-
simism than from messy and chaotic optimism.
10 The European Union, China and
human rights1
Richard Balme

The European Union’s China policy relies on a strategy of ‘constructive engage-

ment’ with China in world affairs. In the words of the EU website:

The commitment of the EU to the strengthening of its political dialogue

with China is notably based upon recognition that China, as a UN Security
Council member, a growing economic and political power, and an increas-
ingly assertive member of the international community, can exert a signific-
ant influence on a wide series of issues of global concern.

A broad EU–China political dialogue was formally established in 1994, through

an exchange of letters, ‘in recognition of China’s status as an emerging power
on the international scene’. This dialogue has grown into a regular series of
meetings at several levels (Balme, forthcoming). The scope of the dialogue has
gradually broadened over time to cover issues ranging from non-proliferation to
the security situation in Asia, from global warming to the fight against illegal
migration and trafficking in human beings. The 2003 policy paper defined con-
crete and practical action points for the implementation of EU policy towards
China for the ensuing two to three years: in particular, an enhancement of polit-
ical dialogue through better focusing of the existing mechanisms and systematic
inclusion of global and regional governance and security issues; more results-
oriented dialogue on illegal immigration and launching of negotiations to sign a
readmission agreement; ways of improving the efficiency and impact of the
human rights dialogue were also specified. On 13 October 2003 China released
its first ever policy paper on the EU. At the EU–China Summit in the Hague on
8 December 2004, a joint declaration on non-proliferation, agreements on peace-
ful nuclear research, customs cooperation and the prolongation of the Science
and Technology Agreement were signed. Four cooperation agreements were
also concluded. Both parties stressed the importance of further deepening their
relationship, turning it into a ‘strategic partnership’.
More recently, the Commission issued a communication entitled ‘EU-China:
Closer Partners, Growing Responsibilities’ (Commission of European
Communities, 2006), accompanied by a trade policy paper setting out the
challenges of trade and investment relations in more detail. The tone of the
144 R. Balme
communication is in diplomatic terms slightly more demanding than previous
statements issued with the initial developments of the relations: ‘Relations are
increasingly mature and realistic . . . The EU’s fundamental approach to China
remains one of engagement and partnership. A closer strategic partnership
means mutual responsibilities increase’. The initiative sets out a comprehensive
approach, identifying as priorities support for China’s transition towards a more
open and plural society, sustainable development, including cooperation with
China on energy issues, climate change and international development; trade
and economic relations; stronger bilateral cooperation, including in science and
technology, and migration; and the promotion of international security, both in
East Asia and beyond and more broadly on non-proliferation issues. The
Council welcomed the communication and the trade working paper and
endorsed their recommendations in conclusions adopted on 11 December 2006.
Human rights are intended to be the ‘cornerstone’ of the European Union’s
foreign policy. The Treaty of Nice stipulated that the objectives of developing
and consolidating democracy and the rule of law and respecting human rights
and fundamental freedoms be pursued also in the field of economic, financial
and technical cooperation with third countries (Art. 181a). As a result, the
pursuit of human rights has become a transversal objective of all of the EU’s
external activities. The EU draws on a range of tools to promote human rights
and democratization objectives in external relations. Some of these tools are
instruments of traditional diplomacy and foreign policy, such as declarations,
demarches (through diplomatic representations to third countries), as well as res-
olutions and interventions within the United Nations framework. In addition, the
EU promotes human rights and democratization through various cooperation
and assistance programmes it implements with third countries and through polit-
ical dialogues. In doing so it uses a specific legal basis, a ‘human rights clause’,
which is incorporated in nearly all EU agreements with third countries since
1995. There are now more than 120 such agreements. In the event that those
principles are breached, the EU may take certain measures, ranging from refusal
to grant visas to senior government members to the freezing of assets held in EU
countries. The human rights clause also offers the ultimate possibility of sus-
pending the agreement. However, its principal rationale is to be an incentive for
dialogue and cooperation. The pivotal role of the human rights clause is particu-
larly evident in the Cotonou Agreement, the trade and aid pact linking the Union
with 78 developing countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (the ACP
group). In case of human rights violations, trade concessions can be suspended
and aid programmes reduced or curtailed. The EU asserts that poverty reduction,
the main objective of its overseas development policy, can only be achieved
through democratic consolidation in the long term.
In 2001 the Commission issued a communication to the Council and the
European Parliament stating priorities for human rights promotion (European
Commission 2001). Six guidelines have been adopted by the Council regarding
the death penalty (1998), human rights dialogues (2001), torture and other cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (2001), children and armed
 The EU, China and human rights 145
conflicts (2003), human rights defenders (2004) and promotion of International
Humanitarian Law (2005). The EU also claims to be the largest donor in the
world, accounting for 55 per cent of development assistance, 20 per cent of
which is managed by the Commission. The Commission’s proposal of 13 July
2005 for a new EU Development Policy aimed at reducing poverty in line with
the Millennium Development Goals, and highlighted the importance of the
promotion of good governance, human rights and democracy. This ‘European
Consensus’ is intended to provide a common framework of objectives, values
and principles that the EU supports and promotes ‘as a global player and as a
global partner’. Funding is provided under the European Initiative for Demo-
cracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) established upon the initiative of the Euro-
pean Parliament in 1994, the main aim of which is to promote human rights,
democracy and conflict prevention in third countries. In 2004, the EIDHR
funded projects worth more than 100 million euros in 32 countries.
One of the key concepts of the EU human rights policy lies with ‘main-
streaming’, the process of integrating human rights and democratization issues
into all aspects of public policy decision-making and implementation, including
trade and external assistance. The Commission’s Country Strategy Papers
(CSPs), which are designed to set out a comprehensive overview of important
issues in the EU’s relations with specific third countries and provide the back-
ground for external assistance to those countries, include an assessment of the
situation of human rights and democratization. This assessment must in turn be
an integral element of the assistance strategies adopted, with regular reviews
providing the opportunity for expanding and refining references to human rights.
Likewise, the European Commission uses its bilateral and regional cooperation
programmes to advance ‘good governance’, the rule of law and democratization
and human rights cooperation. Such instruments have been used, for instance, to
support electoral commissions, reform the judiciary, advance the rights of
women and children and work with national human rights institutions.
Accordingly, the last communication of the Commission on EU–China rela-
tions includes a section entitled ‘Supporting China’s transition towards a more
open and plural society’. It states:

The Chinese leadership has repeatedly stated its support for reform, includ-
ing on basic rights and freedoms. But in this area progress on the ground
has been limited. The EU must consider how it can most effectively assist
China’s reform process, making the case that better protection of human
rights, a more open society, and more accountable government would be
beneficial to China, and essential for continued economic growth. Demo-
cracy, human rights and the promotion of common values remain funda-
mental tenets of EU policy and of central importance to bilateral relations.
The EU should support and encourage the development of a full, healthy
and independent civil society in China. It should support efforts to
strengthen the rule of law – an essential basis for all other reform. At the
same time, the EU will continue to encourage full respect of fundamental
146 R. Balme
rights and freedoms in all regions of China; freedom of speech, religion and
association, the right to a fair trial and the protection of minorities call for
particular attention – in all regions of China. The EU will also encourage
China to be an active and constructive partner in the Human Rights Council,
holding China to the values which the UN embraces, including the Inter-
national Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Indeed, human rights have been a critical issue of EU–China relations since the
Tiananmen crackdown of 1989. This tragedy and related attitudes of the Chinese
government would provide the trauma setting the cognitive frame of EU–China
relations on human rights, to a large extent still prevalent today. In the aftermath
of the event, the EU promptly launched an arms embargo against China.
However, this ‘hard’ approach to China rapidly proved untenable and ineffec-
tive, and inappropriate to deal with the gradual and controlled process of
domestic change successfully imposed by Chinese authorities. As a result, the
establishment of a human rights dialogue between the two parties illustrated the
shift, or rather the acceptance of a ‘soft’ approach to China by the EU. With the
growing importance of China as a global player, these relations have gradually
evolved from unilateral pressure to the accepted coexistence of two adjacent
normative systems, allowing for non-confrontational dialogue and gradual
change, but at the cost of accepting a slow pace of transformation of the human
rights situation in China. This situation creates tension between the practice of
European Union diplomacy and its proclaimed values, as well as between the
reality of human rights promotion in China and its understanding by European
public opinion.
This chapter explores the contours and implications of this situation. I first
consider the development of human rights dialogue as the key instrument of the
EU’s China policy on the issue, and the engagement of China in the inter-
national regime of human rights. I then define the main tenets of the Chinese
approach to human rights, before reviewing developments in Chinese political,
civil and social rights, including the death penalty, arbitrary detention, freedom
of expression and labour rights. For each case study I provide an assessment of
the potential impact of the EU policy. The issue of the lifting of the arms
embargo is then considered. The last section is devoted to the impact of China’s
rise on human rights’ promotion in third countries, with a focus on recent devel-
opments in Africa. Finally, the conclusion offers some reflections on the chal-
lenges facing the EU in its human rights policy on the basis of the Chinese
experience.

The policy instrument of soft power: human rights dialogue

Human rights have been a major theme of EU–China relations since the Tianan-
men Square crackdown in 1989. The beginning of the human rights dialogue
responded primarily to the EU’s necessity to restore and develop relations with
China, and to the ineffectiveness of its own regime of sanctions to alter Chinese
 The EU, China and human rights 147
domestic policy. It was also conceived as an alternative to the US approach,
which at the time tried to link trade policy to human rights.2 German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl in 1995 and French President Jacques Chirac in 1997 asserted the
need to take differences in human rights approaches into account. The
EU–China dialogue on human rights (initially distinct from the political dia-
logue) was initiated in January 1996, but was interrupted by China after
Denmark (plus nine other EU member states) tabled a critical resolution at the
1997 United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) session. Later in
1997, China decided to resume the dialogue. Since then, the dialogue has been
held twice a year. For the EU, the human rights dialogue constitutes a platform
to engage China on sensitive issues, and to allow for the channelling of EU con-
cerns directly to the Chinese authorities. The EU seeks to promote a ‘positive’
and ‘result-oriented’ approach through dialogue and cooperation, and intends to
see it connected to decision-making in China so that it brings tangible improve-
ments. The Commission supports the process through its cooperation pro-
grammes. Since 1997, several projects (on village governance, legal
cooperation, promotion of women’s rights, networking on Human Rights
Covenants etc.) have been carried out.
The human rights dialogues on the European side are guided by benchmarks
set out by the Council. The human rights situation in China and the impact of the
dialogue was evaluated by the Council in October 2004, resulting in Council
Conclusions and oral briefings to the European Parliament and to NGOs. The
overall assessment of developments showed a mixed picture of progress in some
areas and continuing concerns in others. On the one hand, the Council acknow-
ledged that China has made considerable progress over the last decade in its
socio-economic development and welcomed steps towards strengthening the
rule of law, while urging China to ensure effective implementation of such
measures. On the other hand, the Council expressed concern that, despite these
developments, violations of human rights continued to occur, these including
restrictions on freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly
and association, a lack of progress in respect for the rights of persons belonging
to minorities, continued widespread application of the death penalty, and the
persistence of torture (European Communities 2006). The Council considered
the dialogue a valuable instrument and an important element of overall
EU–China relations, and endorsed proposals for improving the dialogue and the
accompanying expert seminars aimed at encouraging tangible results on the
ground. Subsequent dialogues held in 2005 and 2006 were accompanied by pre-
ceding meetings at the political level during which the EU raised a number of
key concerns, stressing in particular the release of prisoners connected with the
1989 events in Tiananmen Square, respect of religious freedom, speedy ratifica-
tion and implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR), reform of the re-education through labour system (RTL) and
the importance of allowing for greater freedom of expression, including on the
Internet. The EU handed over a list of individual cases of concern, to which
China replied in writing.
148 R. Balme
The ‘net impact’ of the dialogue in terms of direct consequences would be
impossible to assess precisely (Dejean de la Batie 2002). Indeed, Chinese
authorities claim a different conception of human rights, enlarged to social and
economic well-being, and tend to minimize the importance of political and civil
rights, at least in the assessment of the current situation. The understanding of
‘improvements’ therefore varies substantially on both sides. Other dialogues are
also conducted between China and the US, Japan, Canada, Australia, Norway,
Switzerland and, within the EU, Germany, the UK and Hungary. In 2001 the
Swiss government initiated with the Berne process a multilateral dialogue
grouping the UK, the US, Canada, the EU, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands,
Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Chinese authorities never establish any
formal link between bilateral dialogues (even less so sanctions) and human
rights developments, if any. Therefore changes in the human rights situation in
China need to be attributed to the conjunction of bilateral dialogues, intermittent
international public pressure, and above all to domestic political considerations.

China’s engagement in multilateral institutions

Undeniably China’s engagement in multilateral human rights institutions has
progressed substantially since the early 1980s. China has signed and ratified the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW, 1980), the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Dis-
crimination (ICERD, 1981), the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel
and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT, 1988), the Conven-
tion on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1992) and its optional protocol on the sale
of children, child prostitution and child pornography, and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, 2001). It also
signed but has yet to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR, 1998), and the CRC optional protocol on the involvement of
children in armed conflicts. China is also active in the international human rights
regime in submitting reports to treaty bodies, participating in the drafting of new
instruments, and hosting a number of multilateral conferences. In November
2006, China held a ‘Human Rights Exhibition’ showcasing human rights
achievements in China. To date (June 2007) China has participated in 15 UN
peacekeeping missions including in East Timor, Bosnia, Liberia, Afghanistan,
Kosovo, Haiti and Sudan (Kornberg and Faust 2005). It signed a memorandum
of understanding with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, initiating
some forms of cooperation, and Chinese authorities agree to receive lists of indi-
vidual cases in bilateral dialogues and to provide answers, although on an infor-
mal basis. China also allowed a limited number of visits from international
rights monitors, including the special rapporteurs on torture, freedom of religion
and the rights to education, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the
US Commission on International Religious Freedom. Finally, China was an
active promoter of reforms of the Human Rights Commission, and supported the
newly established Human Rights Council, although membership in the Council
 The EU, China and human rights 149
is both more selective and more demanding for countries with poor rights
records (the US was among the few countries to vote against the reform).
The engagement of China in the international regime of human rights,
however, is both gradual, as can be seen with the duration of the process, and
selective. The main reason for the delay in ratification by China of the Inter-
national Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) lies with the reform of
the judicial process required to limit arbitrary detention (see below). China also
took no action on the CAT optional protocol, seen as too demanding in terms of
international visits to prisoners, perceived as an infringement upon its sover-
eignty. It also abstained from any action on the International Convention on the
Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families
(CMW), and expressed a reserve on union rights when the Covenant on Eco-
nomic, Social and Cultural Rights was ratified (Choukroune 2005). Finally,
China opposed the International Criminal Court along with the United States,
Israel, and a few other countries.
This attitude whereby China’s engagement in the human rights regime is
subject to its domestic interest is frequently denounced as instrumental behavi-
our seeking respectability while avoiding responsibility, and overall as a lack of
genuine commitment. There is little doubt that China has learned the rules and
how to play with them in dealing with UN human rights organs. Compliance
with international norms, particularly those dealing with rights, is more easily
procedural than substantial. The implementation of substantive norms can also
be subject to genuine cognitive interpretation, or to self-interest calculation.
China indeed seems to engage in compliance when it can, and when it sees it as
being in its national interest (in other words when expected gains outweigh
potential costs perceived as low), and to resist otherwise (then using procedural
battles, political and economic pressure, and normative arguments). There is no
evidence, however, that this behaviour substantially differs from those of other
countries (Kent 1999; Foot 2000).
The major limitation of the EU human rights dialogue lay with its link to the
UNHRC. The existence of the dialogue does not preclude as such the EU from
publicly expressing its concerns about human rights violations in China. In 2001
and 2002, the EU Presidency expressed serious concern about the human rights
situation in China in its opening statements to the annual UNHRC sessions.
Demarches were also made, including at the highest level, to express European
concerns whenever necessary. As exemplified by previous practices and by
Sino-US relations, the dialogue nevertheless remained unofficially linked to the
absence of a resolution against China at the UNHRC. Every year at the annual
session China proposed a ‘motion of non-action’, in order to exclude draft reso-
lutions concerning China from the agenda. EU member states agreed to oppose
this motion of non-action, arguing that all cases brought to the Commission
should be discussed, but not to initiate cases against China. In 2001 they clari-
fied their strategy and indicated that they would later support a resolution
passing through the motion of non-action, which has never occurred so far.
Through these diplomatic contortions, China arguably negotiated the existence
150 R. Balme
of bilateral dialogues against its own respectability in the UN institutions. Such
a situation was clearly not satisfying from the perspective of promotion of multi-
lateralism in human rights issues at the global level. But it was part of the excess
of political compromises marshalled to prevent the UN Human Rights Commis-
sion from openly functioning as a court against non-Western and developing
countries, hollowing its own procedures and resulting in its general discredit.
Whether the UN Human Rights Council established in 2006 will be able to
avoid similar pitfalls in the future remains to be seen.

Universal enjoyment of human rights demands greater efforts to promote

dialogue and cooperation . . . One of the lessons drawn from the Commis-
sion on Human Rights is that power politics runs contrary to democratic
principles, and that confrontation will not give rise to the culture of human
rights . . . We believe that the Universal Periodic Review should be con-
ducted in accordance with the principle of justice, fairness, objectivity and
non-selectivity with a view to promoting a constructive dialogue rather than
allegations and accusations among nations on issues of human rights.3

When both bilateral and multilateral relations are considered, China overall
adheres to the international regime and is part of the international community on
human rights. Progressive and selective as it may be, the trend has been toward
more cooperation, not confrontation, with Western countries and international
organizations on this issue. China officially subscribes to the idea of universality
of human rights as defined by the United Nations. Rights have been largely
entrenched in domestic political discourses and institutions. Although claims
based on the exhaustive enumeration of rights defined by the 1982 constitution
are generally not justiciable, numerous laws and regulations have been passed to
specify and give legal effects to most of them. From a procedural perspective,
China is currently revising its criminal code. In 2004, the constitution was
amended to assert that ‘The state respects and safeguards human rights’. Obvi-
ously this is no guarantee of effective realization. But given the doctrine of the
regime, its disrupted political transition and rising power, such a semantic
change is a political move worth noticing. The ‘constructive engagement’ of
China definitely deserves some qualifications and criticism, but is closer to a
moderate success than to an absolute failure. It can be seen as the external side
of the incremental development of constitutionalism in Chinese domestic poli-
tics (Peerenboom 2002; Cai 2005).
Nevertheless, most of this progress was accomplished slowly over a long
period starting in the 1980s. The launch of the EU–China dialogue in the mid-
1990s corresponds to the signature of the ICESCR and ICCPR during the same
period. But few demonstrable improvements have occurred in more recent years.
Moreover, the rare liberations of dissidents by Chinese authorities related to the
international context, if any, are generally linked to the development of Sino-US
relations, or interpreted as such. This does not mean that the EU–China dialogue
on human rights is ipso facto ineffective. But it needs to be understood as one
 The EU, China and human rights 151
element among others, including other bilateral and multilateral dialogues, the
rising international status of China, and primarily domestic change, supporting a
long and gradual change of approach to human rights policy by the Chinese
leadership.

A Chinese conception of human rights?

Chinese engagement in multilateral institutions does not come without signific-
ant changes at the domestic level. The constitutional amendment of March 2004,
both proclaiming and committing the state to respect and safeguard human
rights, is indeed a strong departure with regard to the previous distance with
what was seen as a bourgeois and counter-revolutionary notion, potentially dan-
gerous and alien to the working class power. China now hosts official think
tanks, websites, exhibitions and international meetings on human rights, and
makes use of the notion to communicate and to promote its own political devel-
opment. The government White Paper Building of Political Democracy in China
includes a chapter on human rights (www.china.org.cn/english/features/
book/145926.htm (21/6/2007)).
Although propagandist accents are far from absent in these different state-
ments, at least they attest that the Chinese government does not simply ignore or
campaign against the idea of human rights at the domestic level. Quite the
opposite, it fully embraced the notion as part of its own political rhetoric, and
intends to promote it within Chinese culture and society. In doing so, Chinese
authorities also assert a number of tenets in their approach to human rights
promotion as part of socialist democracy. The latter include:

1 continuity of the regime: human rights development is presented as a con-

tinuous process underway since the foundation of the PRC in 1949;
2 the legitimate universality of human rights must be adapted to the specific
situations and levels of development of different countries;
3 human rights include political, economic and social rights, individual as
well as collective rights;
4 the right to subsistence and development is the most important of human
rights;
5 human rights development involves rights as well as duties for citizens;
6 stability is the precondition, development the most important aspect, and
legislation the guarantee of human rights development;
7 human rights are fundamentally a domestic issue; and
8 dialogue and cooperation are the only ways to effectively promote human
rights at the international level. (www.humanrights-china.org/index.asp)

Some differences immediately appear with the conception of human rights

prevalent in Europe. While China subscribes to the principle of universality, it
also clearly prioritizes development over other rights, and expects its own per-
formances to be judged accordingly. The European view acknowledges that
152 R. Balme
different levels of development inevitably affect access to economic and social
rights, but also asserts the intangibility of civil and political rights. In other
words, social and economic rights can be relative, while civil and political rights
are absolute rights. In this sense the latter are more fundamental than the former.
On another crucial aspect, it is easy to understand how the contemporary history
of China, devastated by colonialism, shapes Chinese leaders’ attitudes, prefer-
ences and claims for sovereignty before any other issue, not without popular
support on the matter. Again, Europeans, and indeed the whole international
human rights movement, are at odds with Chinese authorities on this question,
as they share the idea of a duty to fight human rights violations as attempts to
fundamental rights precisely resulting from sovereignty abuses or failures. In
other words, human rights transcend borders, and cannot be left to the sole
appreciation and benevolence of national governments protected by the respect
of sovereignty. Finally, European public opinions, and to a lesser extent their
governments, expect China’s commitment to human rights to be demonstrated
by a rupture with the past, in particular with the silence surrounding the tragedy
of Tiananmen and with the toned-down official history of the Mao years. For
almost two decades, the Chinese leadership nevertheless sent no signal in that
sense whatsoever. Unsurprisingly, such a rift between these different visions and
approaches leave major gaps in the possible accomplishments of EU–China
cooperation on human rights.

Promoting civil and political rights in China

The usual assessment of the human rights situation in China describes a twofold
implementation gap, denouncing both the non-ratification of some of the inter-
national covenants and treaties reviewed above, and the deficit or absence of
reform at the domestic level. International non-governmental organizations
(NGOs), influential on Western public opinion, paint a dark picture of civil and
political rights in China, according to which Chinese authorities continue to
detain political prisoners, restrict religious freedoms, exert brutal repression in
Tibet and Xinjiang, and suspend full democratization in Hong Kong. EU inter-
ventions in favour of North Korean refugees fleeing into China have been to no
effect. The death penalty is widely used and Chinese authorities remain reluctant
to communicate data about it. China still denies the International Red Cross
access to political prisoners. Critics particularly denounce the lack of progress or
aggravation of the situation in view of China’s engagement in the international
community, with its accession to the WTO and its hosting of Olympics in
Beijing in particular (Gallagher 2002; Amnesty International 2007).
Such a picture is embarrassing for EU institutions and member state govern-
ments. To a large extent, bilateral dialogues at the EU or national levels echo
human rights activism of European civil societies. The EU in particular
addressed the rights of ethnic minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang; the abolition and
application of the death penalty and the need to obtain statistics on its use. The
allegation of organ transplants from executed prisoners was raised for the first
 The EU, China and human rights 153
time by the EU in 2006. Reform of the Re-education Through Labour (RTL)
system and similar institutions without judicial overview used for misde-
meanours; prevention and eradication of torture and rights of prisoners;
independence of judges, the right to legal counsel and a fair and impartial trial;
protection of human rights when countering terrorism, the principle of ‘non-
refoulement’ to North Korean refugees in China in line with China’s inter-
national obligations were also raised. The European Parliament occasionally
issues positions on human rights in China,4 and visits by Chinese officials to
Europe are usually punctuated by activist demonstrations, which are irritating
for the Chinese leadership. NGOs are also critical in their assessment of the dia-
logue itself (Human Rights in China 2004), denouncing the lack of transparency,
the exclusion of NGOs, the absence of real benchmarking to assess results, and
the way it affects human rights issues at the UN. European leaders are some-
times more openly vocal on human rights when they visit Beijing, in accordance
with their constituencies (German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer for
instance). But in the absence of a major crisis, European public opinion is less
sensitive to the human rights situation in China than to the trade issue.
As part of the dialogue, the Chinese side informed the EU of a number of
legislative reforms taken or underway, including a review by the Supreme Court
of all death penalty cases, a special court for minors, regulations on interrogation
and detention and rights of prisoners in the context of a nationwide campaign to
prevent and eradicate torture, planned reform of the RTL system and the new
regulation on organ transplants coming into effect on 1 July 2006. Information
was also provided on a series of new regulations regarding, inter alia: legal
assistance to vulnerable sections of society, measures to promote democratic
governance at the village level and new regulations in the field of criminal pro-
cedures. China also gave updates on progress made towards ratification of the
ICCPR. The Chinese side informed the EU on the implementation of the recom-
mendations of the report of UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, following his
visit to China in 2005, and on the follow-up to the visit of the UN High Com-
missioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour. ‘Familiar replies’ were given on
questions relating to freedom of expression, the Internet, freedom of religion and
belief including Falun Gong, and freedom of association and the role of NGOs.
China raised concerns about racism and xenophobia in the EU. Discussion on
the rights of persons belonging to minorities was reported to show ‘little
common ground’. The visit of the European Troika to Xinjiang allowed for
meetings with a wide variety of representatives, including of the Muslim minor-
ity, but largely confirmed EU concerns (European Communities 2006).
The following sections are devoted to the situation concerning some civil and
political rights in China, and to the possible impact of the EU policy on the
matter. We successively consider the death penalty, arbitrary detention and
freedom of expression.
154 R. Balme
The use of the death penalty
Until 1983, death penalty cases were reviewed by the Supreme Peoples’ Court.
The development of a nationwide crime wave following the reform policy,
however, led Deng Xiaoping to shift appellate authority on death cases to
provincial high courts, thus resulting in a fast-track criminal justice system.
Capital defendants were tried in a lower level court, and the province’s high
court handled both the appeal and the final review. China since then has gained
the dubious reputation of imposing more capital punishments than any other
country, and indeed than the rest of the world combined. Beijing does not
release official figures, while human rights organizations usually estimate that
China executes several thousand inmates a year. Observers also suggest that
figures have significantly dropped since Beijing was awarded the Olympics. On
1 January 2007, China also reinstated review of capital cases by the People’s
Supreme Court. The later reported the number of executions markedly declining
for the first five months of 2007 (although exact figures were not released),
reflecting a more prudent approach by local courts (International Herald
Tribune, 9–10 June 2007).
Clearly China so far remains committed to the death penalty, as opposed to
the values proclaimed by the EU and human rights NGOs. But Chinese authori-
ties also took action to improve their records, and to appear more moderate in
the use of a punishment perceived as legitimate. The growing exposure of
Chinese domestic affairs to international media and the public blaming avoid-
ance of Chinese authorities probably provide a significant incentive to this evo-
lution. The EU also supports a cooperation programme on the death penalty
involving seminars in China and study tours in Europe for academics, lawyers
and judges, while the issue is also discussed as part of the dialogue, at the offi-
cial and non-official levels. If progress has been slow to materialize, it can nev-
ertheless be argued that human rights dialogue and cooperation between the two
parties accompanied a change of attitude of Chinese authorities. Domestic and
international rights activists now focus on the reduction in the number of crimes
subject to capital punishment.

Arbitrary detention
More than the death penalty as such, indeed used by a number of democracies
outside the EU, arbitrary detention is a crucial element both for the characteriza-
tion of the Chinese regime and for the promotion of human rights in international
affairs. It is often unduly identified with the Laogai, or ‘reform through labour’,
the system of labour camps widely used under the Mao era (Wu 1992; Domenach
1992), progressively abandoned under the reform era and officially ended with the
Criminal Law of 1996. In practice, remaining detainees have been transferred
under jurisdiction of the Laojiao under the new system (see below).
China today employs several types of administrative detention, some of them
existing in other countries, ranging from detention up to two weeks under the
 The EU, China and human rights 155
Security Administrative Punishments Regulations, Re-education Through
Labour (RTL, Laojiao), detention for the education of prostitutes and their
clients, compulsory drug treatment, forced detention in psychiatric hospitals,
detention of juveniles in juvenile centres or work–study schools, and proceed-
ings whereby suspects may be detained for questioning for up to 48 hours.
Under Chinese law, administrative detention is intended to emphasize rehabilita-
tion for minor offences and to be a lighter punishment than would be the case
under the more punitive criminal system (Peerenboom 2007).5 The long list
above, however, is probably sufficient to indicate the extent of the problem.
One of the major issues involved lies with the failure to provide prompt judi-
cial examination of the detention decision, in violation of Art. 9(4) of the
ICCPR. This is still the main obstacle for China to ratify the Convention. The
UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has objected to RTL because only
an independent judicial body can deprive people of their personal liberty (UN
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention 1998). Under PRC law, an administra-
tive committee made up of civil affairs officials, labour officials and senior
public security officials, take the decision. Although Chinese citizens cannot
immediately contest the initial detention decision, they theoretically can appeal
at later stages through administrative litigation or supervision, and through a
system of letters and visits whereby they can solicit government or party official
intervention. However, detainees are most often ignorant of their rights and
subject to abuse when they try to assert them. Procedures are also both lengthy
and costly, even though litigation fees have been reduced substantially as of
October 2007, and therefore socially unfair. To address these concerns, the
government adopted new regulations effective January 2004 clarifying the rights
to challenge public security decisions, but these new measures were not enough
to ratify the ICCPR. Providing the right to dispute an administrative decision
shortly after detention occurs is desirable from a legal and human rights
perspective, and would bring the Chinese legal system closer to international
standards. However, given rising crime rates, the regime’s emphasis on social
stability and the severity of judges, it is highly questionable whether it would
result in more clemency in the number and extent of sentences.
Another major issue with both administrative detention and criminal process
lies in the length of pretrial detention and the lack of due process rights. The
PRC’s legal system is closer to a civil law than to a common law approach, by
default providing longer initial detention periods and more limited defence
counsel at this stage, and therefore places China at a distance from British or
American standards. The Supreme People’s Prosecutor took action in 2003 to
limit extended detention violating the already long deadlines provided by crimi-
nal law, introducing a higher level review for the extension of detention, as well
as email and telephone lines for filing reports on abusive detention. Detainees
may nevertheless still be legally detained for extended periods of time. More-
over, many of the due process rights provided by the criminal procedure law are
not honoured in practice. One of the policy options would be to abolish or
significantly limit administrative detention and to place offences under the
156 R. Balme
criminal process. The latter, however, is largely overloaded, and most cases
would be subject to a simplified and fast-track procedure introduced in the crim-
inal system on the principle of plea bargaining used in other countries, where
confession comes in exchange for leniency, arguably to the detriment of rights
and procedural protection.
Peerenboom (2007: 97) argues that administrative and criminal detentions are
rarely arbitrary in the sense that legal substantive grounds would be absent for
arrest and conviction. This naturally raises the issue of the motives for detention,
and particularly of political and religious freedoms in the PRC. RTL is seen in
the West as a remnant of Maoism and the Cultural Revolution, and frequently
denounced as an instrument of massive repression of political and religious
expression. With all due respect to the suffering of imprisoned dissidents and
members of religious communities, as well as to those defending their cause, it
is important to underscore the following. First, the purpose of RTL and other
forms of administrative detention has changed over time. While counter-
revolution was a frequently invoked charge in the Mao era, accounting for up to
60 per cent of crimes in some years, the motive of endangering the state today
represents, according to some estimates, less than 0.5 per cent of crimes (Munro
2000). Notwithstanding the difficulties in providing these estimates, observa-
tions converge to show that administrative detention in China is used in the
immense majority of cases to deal with petty criminality (Chen 2002). Second,
the total number of political prisoners, including those arrested in relation to the
Tiananmen events (and although they are usually detained under criminal rather
than political charges), is actually unknown. NGOs usually mention a few
hundred, while the US State Department Report gives the highest estimate, with
2,000. Falun Gong claims 20,000 prisoners of conscience. During its 2004 visit
to China, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention requested information
on the cases of 63 detainees. It was able to meet five of them and obtain
information on 43 others (UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention 2004).
Whatever the difficulties in estimates, the number of distress situations and
abuses in detention in violation of international rights is undeniably large. But,
in order to be properly assessed, these figures need to be put in perspective with
a total prison population of two million. Lastly, China’s incarceration rate does
not significantly exceed those of other countries, and is even lower than in the
US (184 per 100,000 in China versus 59 in Denmark, 100 for France, 139 in the
UK, 217 in average for OECD countries, and 497 for the United States).6 In no
way could this minimize the concerns for the large number of individual cases
of undue and frequently brutal detention in violation of basic human rights
standards, nor the dire need for improvement of judicial procedures. These
figures show, however, that the primary role of administrative detention is no
longer political, and that the control of the population by punishment exerted
through the administrative and judicial systems, in other words the imposition of
the social order by punishing behaviour, is no more severe in China than in
many other countries. Indeed, the Chinese population suffers more from a deficit
of justice, rooted in poor administrative capacities and widespread corruption,
 The EU, China and human rights 157
than from active state repression. When questioned on the slow pace of progress
and absence of significant change on arbitrary detention, China reasserts its will-
ingness to reform RTL and its commitment to ratify the ICCPR. The Chinese
government announced in March 2007 its intention to abolish RTL. The pro-
posal includes the removal of fences surrounding the camps, renaming them cor-
rectional facilities, limiting the maximum term to 18 months, shifting the
emphasis from labour to moral education, and allowing for a judicial review of
the detention decision.
The EU and its member states are particularly active in judicial cooperation
with China. Numerous programmes have been supported to favour the reform of
the Chinese legal system, including training programmes for judges and prose-
cutors, exchanges of lawyers, forums and seminars parallel to the drafting of
specific legislations. The EU allocated over 13 million euros for the EU–China
judicial cooperation programme in 2000–2005, and 6.8 million euros to the
‘Governance for Equitable Development’ programme for the period 2007–2012,
more focused on access to justice, strengthening of professionalism of the judi-
ciary, addressing judicial corruption and favouring transparency during the legal
process. In 2007 the EU also launched a call for projects to establish an
EU–China Law School in Beijing, parallel to the EU–China Business School
already set up in Shanghai. Changes in the Chinese legal system are slow but far
from irrelevant from a human rights perspective. They are clearly supported by
EU–China human rights dialogues and cooperation, where expertise and mutual
respect are conditions for the possibility of persuasion.

Freedom of expression
Political discussion in China today is commonplace among urban elites, and
citizens, easily vocal about privileges, corruption and inequalities, do not hide
their feelings about the regime in private conversations. Academics and news-
papers regularly publish essays critical of the state of the new society, the ori-
entations of changes and the deficiencies of public policy. Calls for reform,
more occasionally for democracy, from intellectuals sometimes close to power,
are not infrequent.7 These debates are active within the CCP as well. In any
case they are sufficiently vivid to motivate the Chinese leadership to take initi-
ative, and now to flag democracy as one of its objectives. Speaking to provin-
cial governors at the Central Party School in June 2007, Hu Jintao mentioned
the term democracy (Minzhu) 14 times.8 Rather than political liberalization in
the Western sense, democracy here refers to general reforms needed to develop
government accountability, possibly including the introduction of elections
within the Party. Nevertheless, the move is significant in that it indicates that
the Chinese leadership is changing its rhetoric, at least not to leave the demo-
cratic register wide open to critics and potential opposition movements. Volens
nolens, the Chinese government today operates in an increasingly pluralistic
society.
It is clear, however, that freedom of expression remains severely limited and
158 R. Balme
controlled. This increased tolerance is largely unpredictable in the long run and
arbitrary in the short term, subject to different criteria depending on time, place,
motives and means of expression. State security, social stability and CCP leader-
ship draw the red lines of what is permissible, but their interpretation by Chinese
authorities is subject to a wide range of variations according to circumstances. Non-
official collective action, the constitution of movements on a large scale, and rela-
tions with foreign organizations are in most cases beyond the limits of tolerance.
Worship is restricted to the five authorized religions and their affiliated
organizations and to registered places of worship, and proselytism by foreigners
is not allowed. Restrictions on religious freedoms are justified in the Chinese
perspective by a series of motives ranging from the rise of Muslim fundament-
alism in Xinjiang, activism of Buddhists in Tibet in their loyalty to the Dalai
Lama, the lack of diplomatic ties with the Vatican due to its relations with
Taiwan, and dangerous activities of sectarian movements such as the Falun
Gong, officially banned since 1999 when over 10,000 of its members suddenly
encircled the government district in Beijing Zhongnanhai (Palmer 2007). Illicit
movements are repressed, frequently with brutality and serious due process vio-
lations. NGOs report many cases of torture and deaths in detention.
Suggestions to authorities and complaints for violation of law by government
entities are acknowledged by the constitution and indeed widely used by
Chinese citizens. Beijing for instance hosted until 2007 a ‘petitioners’ village’
(Dong Huang), indeed a neighbourhood where a few thousand residents dis-
missed in local and provincial courts gathered, and frequently ended up, in
search of appeal for their case at the People’s Supreme Court, or at the Bureau
of Letters and Visits of the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The annual parliament
session in March attracted a new wave of petitioners every year, while the same
phenomena was replicated in many provincial capitals. Judicial action and
appeal to upper levels and then to the central government has been a crucial:
although poorly effective means for powerless people to try to fight misconduct
by local officials, to open up new channels of participation and to negotiate the
frontiers of the permissible through ‘rightful resistance’ (O’Brien and Li 2005,
2006). Most frequently, uprisings at the local level are associated with situations
of expulsion, unpaid wages, unlawful taxation, extortion and corruption, and
come after judicial action or political appeal at the upper levels failed to redress
torts. Eruptive movements then violently confront local authorities and are
severely repressed by security forces frequently provoking casualties, occasion-
ally including journalists. According to data published by the Chinese govern-
ment between 1993 and 2003, the number of mass incidents increased from
10,000 to 60,000, and the number of participants from 700,000 to over three
million. The number of incidents rose to 74,000 in 2004, and then to 87,000 in
2005 (Fewsmith 2006). The government requires approval for all demonstra-
tions, but most of the above of course are not legal in that sense.
Contentious politics in China not only includes mass protest at the local level,
but also numerous individual cases of activists, journalists, lawyers and human
rights defenders detained for various forms of criticism of the government, as
 The EU, China and human rights 159
reported by international NGOs. The rationales for protest vary substantially
from case to case and from one repertoire of contention to the other. They all
involve the defence of citizens’ rights, and in a number of instances use the
limited tolerance and concern for social stability of the regime to successfully
promote their cause. Too frequently, however, the absence of channels of
expression other than those controlled by the government for citizens to voice
their grievances on the one hand, and the impossibility to openly contest the
leadership of the CCP on the other, end up in confrontational situations
promptly repressed by Chinese authorities in the name of social stability or state
security, most often in violation of rights by international standards.
Freedom of assembly is not, however, totally absent in China. Modernization
and social change resulted in a boom of voluntary organizations in a number of
sectors such as professions, business, homeowners, academia, leisure groups,
foundations, healthcare, Aids, and so forth. In 1989 the State Council promul-
gated a first regulation imposing registration of all associations with the Ministry
of Civil Affairs (MCA), on recommendation and official sponsorship of a party
or state agency. As a result of this double control, the number of registered
associations under the MCA’s jurisdiction initially dropped from around
200,000 in 1989 to 110,000 in 1991 (Wang and He 2004). Associational
activism quickly resumed however, in the early 1990s, to come back to its
former levels. In 1998, the regulation for registration was tightened again, pro-
voking a new movement of oscillation. By the end of 2004, China had 153,000
associations registered under the MCA (Ministry of Civil Affairs 2007). The
new regulation also required ‘private non-enterprise units’, providers of non-
profit social services (private schools, day-care centres, elderly homes and so
forth) to register toward the MCA. Most of these institutions were previously
owned by the state or associated collectives before being privatized, or have
been newly established to meet needs and demands of the new political
economy. There were 135,000 ‘private non-enterprise units’ altogether in 2004
(Ministry of Civil Affairs 2007). To these categories should be added 892
foundations registered in 2004, the quasi-governmental organizations linked to
the CCP (among which trade unions, youth leagues branches, women’s associ-
ations, science and technology associations, federation of industry and com-
merce), estimated at more than five million groups, and grassroots associations
such as literary circles, choirs, amateur sport clubs, elderly associations and the
like, estimated at 758,000 (Wang and He 2004).
To bring a comparative insight on these data, the number of registered associ-
ations in France is estimated at 800,000. These figures attest to a quickly devel-
oping third sector, if not a full-fledged civil society, in China. Associational
activism remains strictly controlled, but increasingly distant from the past
corporatist organization. Moreover, observations converge to establish that a
large number of voluntary groups are not registered, either because they fail to
register with the MCA, or because they register with other government bodies,
particularly under the Ministry of Commerce, or because they operate under
the wing of a host organization to avoid the lengthy and onerous process of
160 R. Balme
registration. From the 1990s onward, associational development has entered a
new phase. This new phase is characterized, first, by the emergence of a new
stratum of organizations not confined to intellectuals, professionals and busi-
ness, but concerned with the interests of groups marginalized in the process of
reform (women’s groups, legal counselling, prisoners’ wives groups, rural
development organizations, associations for people living with HIV/AIDS, self-
help cancer groups, poverty alleviation, community groups opposing eviction,
environmental protection groups and the like); and second, by the development
of institutional forms aiming to circumvent state restrictions on association,
therefore working as ‘projects’ affiliated with existing organizations rather than
through the creation of new associations (Howell 2004).
Within this organizational grey zone in between the state structure and cit-
izens, dissidence has evolved significantly from the democratic movement ini-
tiated in 1978 calling for a change of regime, to today’s defence of
marginalized interests within the existing legal framework. The rights protec-
tion movement (Weiquan) operates in a decentralized manner within the inter-
stices of a loose but active network of collective action, subject to limited
tolerance rather than full recognition (Balme 2005). The development of
social movements on a national scale, action against the CCPs’ leadership and
relations with foreign organizations is closely supervised and repressed. Spe-
cific circumstances offering opportunities for mobilization such as commemo-
ration of the Tiananmen event or Zhao Ziyang’s death, with the 17th Party
Congress in 2007 or the Olympics in Beijing in 2008, regularly lead to stricter
control.
Freedom of the press is also seriously limited by tight controls on publica-
tions, media and internet activities. Topics listed as sensitive and requiring prior
approval vary from time to time, while enforcement is more or less strict and
usually erratic. Chinese newspapers and websites widely report social, environ-
mental and policy issues, including corruption cases, in a critical manner some-
what surprising to visitors. Banned publications largely circulate undercover,
and students claim to easily circumvent limitations in Internet access in their
ordinary activities. Technological changes as well as market reforms driving
newspapers, television stations and publishers to compete for consumer
demands have resulted in an unprecedented wave of expression in China.
However, the work of journalists, although substantially improved for foreign
correspondents, remains subject to control and is frequently repressed. In June
2007, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress nevertheless
proposed new legislation allowing the media to report on public emergencies
without prior government authorization ‘in a bid to improve transparency’
(China Daily, 25 June 2007). Journalists in general face serious risks when they
report on hotspots of industrial or environmental scandals, corruption cases and
social unrest, and numerous cases of abusive detention or violence, sometimes
lethal, perpetrated by security guards or henchmen against journalists are
reported. The circulation of images is particularly controlled, and access to the
association Reporters without Borders’ website is blocked (as of 5 July 2007).
 The EU, China and human rights 161
The use of the Internet is also restricted, filtering in particular information about
Tibet, the Falun Gong and Taiwan, and blocking access to international human
rights NGOs’ websites. Service providers Yahoo, Microsoft’s MSN and Google
have agreed to censor specific content of their websites. Yahoo has been accused
by human rights NGOs and international media of delivering sensitive user
information to authorities, leading to some arrests. Overall the media sphere and
public space appear paradoxically more open to expression than ever, in this
sense more pluralistic, and nevertheless subject to persistent controls intensify-
ing in some areas.
From the above it can be seen that significant progress in individual freedoms
with the introduction of more liberal legislations regarding marriage, circulation,
residency of migrants with the partial reform of the resident permit (Hukou)
system, the introduction of some pluralism with competitive elections at the
village level since 1988, and in 2007 the property law, are not matched with a
full-fledged freedom of association and expression.
Again, freedom of expression issues are addressed within the EU–China Dia-
logue as well as in bilateral meetings, while cooperation programmes integrate
support to civil society as one of their key components, or directly aim at the
promotion of rights, the rule of law and development of an open and participa-
tive society. The ‘EU–China Village Governance Training Programme’ mobil-
ized over ten million Euros between 2001 and 2006 to support the introduction
of competitive elections at the local level through capacity building of the Min-
istry of Civil Affairs, the China Civil Affairs College and provincial level train-
ing centres, training provided to over 15,000 public officials to organize and
manage elections, and a number of public events to promote public awareness of
the reform. Under the EIDHR micro-projects programme, four projects were
selected for the 2007–2008 period for a total of 800,000 euros, including train-
ing of policy-makers for implementation of CEDAW and Women’s Law,
promotion of villagers’ political and social participation in ethnic minority
regions, legal aid on women’s labour rights, and NGOs capacity-building. Each
of these projects is implemented by local and/or international NGOs and fre-
quently academic institutions in cooperation with Chinese authorities. Their
accomplishments at the grassroots level are remarkable. But there is no evidence
of the capacity of both dialogue and cooperation to influence the Chinese
government agenda on these issues.
On all the matters previously analysed, EU policy and more generally diplo-
macy toward China is of little ‘direct’ effect, if we mean by this concessions
obtained through pressure or bargaining. These issues are seen as domestic
affairs by Chinese authorities, whose perceived core legitimacy is to protect
national sovereignty and to resist foreign interference, particularly coming from
former colonial powers and the US. Moreover, in a number of cases reforms are
more easily said than done. The transformation of the legal system underway is
in particular a process of institution-building for a generation-length period of
time, which involves passing new laws, reforming codes and procedures,
training cohorts of judges and justice officers, providing courts with building
162 R. Balme
facilities, personnel and computers, and eradicating corruption in an environ-
ment flooded with new private money. Cooperation from the EU and other
powers on these issues probably makes the most significant difference because it
is long-term oriented, not controversial, and not subject to much media expo-
sure. Finally, publicly addressing issues related to freedom of expression is at
odds with the slow and discreet work of cooperation programmes from this point
of view. These issues are politically sensitive for Chinese authorities who fear
that the current pluralization of society and relative opening in expression will
result in a ‘coloured revolution’. Support or claims by Europeans in defence of
civil society, freedom of the press, dissidents, or competitive elections, are seen
as a source of interference nourishing social unrest to destabilize political
leadership, and are thus ignored or promptly rejected by Chinese authorities. A
thin line separates the legitimate need to question the Chinese government on
these issues from the risk of provoking irritation and further tension among
moderates and hardliners within the regime. European powers express their con-
cerns on these issues, but to their own acknowledgment without much signific-
ant result, with the occasional but noticeable exception of some of the individual
cases they address.

Social and economic rights: the case of labour law

As mentioned above, Chinese authorities place great value in the economic and
social dimensions of human rights, and legitimately underscore China’s accom-
plishments in the last decades with this respect. A number of tremendous chal-
lenges nevertheless seriously threaten the Chinese path to development,
including rising inequalities, access to education, environmental justice, dis-
crimination against migrant workers and labour rights (UNDP 2005). Large seg-
ments of the population, possibly the majority, remain excluded from the
benefits of reform, while the poor suffer most from market liberalization and
associated unemployment, exclusion from social services and welfare, severe
environmental degradation, brutal urban development and extreme working con-
ditions. These realities are part of everyday life in China and hardly disputable.
They are also largely acknowledged by the Chinese government, far from
inactive on these issues. Indeed one of the hallmarks of the Hu Jintao–Wen
Jiabao leadership, in comparison with the Jiang Zeming era, is precisely to claim
social inequalities, rural development and poverty reduction as priorities to
address on its political agenda. In a demonstrative move in March 2006, for
instance, the government decided on the abolition of taxes for farmers, and one
year later the reduction of litigation fees for the whole country.
It is, however, tempting to see from a human rights perspective the repressive
nature of rights as a set of policy instruments designed to coerce the majority of
the population to the benefit of the regime’s elite, and a growing, but still tiny,
middle-class. At the core of both the ideology and the new political economy of
China, labour rights provide a test case for this argument.
Market reforms initiated at the end of the 1970s gradually eroded workers’
 The EU, China and human rights 163
individual rights they enjoyed under state socialism. Workers’ rights in State-
Owned Enterprises (SOEs) largely evaporated, leaving them defenceless in the
face of policy changes. Migrant workers employed in the new private manufac-
turing sector became one of the most victimized social groups in China. To
respond to changing labour relations, the government attempted to redefine
workers’ rights through legislation, in particular with the Labour Law enacted in
1995 codifying individual rights, labour standards, wages, rest and vacation,
occupational safety, training and dispute settlement (Chen 2007). Further legis-
lation and regulations were adopted to cover a variety of issues such as occupa-
tional diseases, industrial injury, unemployment insurance, minimal wages,
pensions, medical insurance, maternity leave and the like. Lay-offs (xiagang)
were introduced in the mid-1990s. The All China Federation of Trade Unions
(ACFTU) and 11 state agencies later issued administrative fiats specifying
workers’ transitional rights and entitlement to compensation, as well as meas-
ures assisting their re-employment or encouraging them to start their own busi-
ness. The current labour legislation also provides workers with the possibility to
seek redress for their grievances, opening the way to a large number of legal
procedures (Chen 2004, 2006, 2007; Gallagher 2005, Thireau and Hua 2005).
However, the enforcement of these rights remains extremely difficult. Breaches
of contracts, unpaid wages, excessive overtime, extreme working conditions,
child labour, industrial injuries and abusive management are extremely frequent
in the private sector where migrant workers are the main workforce. Chinese
media regularly report tragic industrial accidents and outrageous ignorance of
safety regulations, particularly in the mining sector. Policy regulations regarding
lay-offs are often ignored or distorted by enterprises and local authorities pushed
to give priority to economic efficiency.
Moreover, collective rights, if not fully absent from Chinese legislation, are
severely limited and deficient. The communist constitution and ideology of the
regime largely obliterates the possibility of worker self-organization. Indeed the
interests of the state and those of workers are assumed to be identical. Organ-
izing workers is a function of the state performed through the ACFTU. Legally,
workers’ rights to organize voluntarily is recognized both in the Labour Law and
in the Trade Union Law, subject to the party leadership on union activities, and
to affiliation to the ACFTU. Nevertheless the new political economy led to a
retreat of the state from the economy and to a wave of decentralized labour dis-
putes in the new enterprises. Attempts by workers to form independent unions
when the ACFTU is absent or does not support their cause, as well as activism
to promote workers’ rights to organize, are systematically and severely
repressed (China Labour Bulletin 2006). In light of the Polish experience with
Solidarnosc, Chinese authorities remain highly suspicious of independent
unionism.
The right to strike was initially acknowledged when the PRC adopted its
second constitution in 1975, although no specific legislation was later adopted
on this matter. ‘Freedom to strike’ was, however, removed from the 1982
constitution which is still in effect, at the time probably as a move reminiscent
164 R. Balme
of the Cultural Revolution against ‘ultra-leftism’. The ACFTU in 1988 submit-
ted a proposal on union reform including the right to strike, but the CCP secre-
tariat ruled it out for fear it would fuel industrial conflicts rather than help to
contain them (Chen 1999, cited in Chen 2007). As a result the Trade Union Law
passed by the NPC in 1992 does not mention the right to strike. This does not in
itself explicitly prohibit strike actions, and industrial conflicts in China indeed
regularly result in various forms of collective action including demonstrations,
work stoppages, petitioning and the like. But these activities are not protected by
the law, and authorities can make use of the 1989 Law on Assemblies, Proces-
sions and Demonstrations to repress them when deemed necessary. It also pro-
hibits the ACFTU from initiating, joining or supporting them.
Finally, collective bargaining is formally recognized with the existence of
collective contracts initiated and experimented in 1992. But collective contracts
cover a limited part of the workforce and are logically implemented top-down in
the context mentioned above. Without the right to organize and act collectively,
workers are indeed structurally powerless in the face of company management.
Labour unrest, however, can sometimes be virulent enough to obtain
favourable outcomes in local industrial conflicts, and more generally to prompt
the government to take action on labour issues. In 2002 the government speeded
up implementation of the urban minimal social insurance programme. In June
2007, China’s legislature passed a new Labour Contract Law, enacted by the
Standing Committee of the NPC, requiring employers to provide wage-earners
with written contracts, in the vast majority of cases absent in the current situ-
ation, restricting the use of fixed term jobs, and tightening conditions for lay-offs
(International Herald Tribune, 30 June–1 July 2007; Baker and McKenzie
2007). The expected legislation was passed shortly after the media revealed the
widespread use of slave labour in brick factories and small coal mines in Shanxi
and Henan provinces, provoking a national wave of emotion in face of testi-
monies by families whose children had been abducted. Labour abuses, particu-
larly with migrant workers, are so widespread and outrageous that they indeed
nourish eruptive social unrest, and mobilize close attention by the Chinese
leadership. As a response to these tensions, and to prevent the development of
uncontrolled and independent labour mobilization, the new Labour Contract
Law to come into effect in 2008 also empowers ACFTU to engage in collective
bargaining on wages and benefits.
Noteworthy from the perspective of this chapter, foreign firms and their busi-
ness organizations were consulted during the drafting of the legislation. The
American as well as the European Chambers of Commerce in China, although
less vocally for the latter, expressed their concerns about the rigidity in employ-
ment and rising production costs the legislation would introduce, and the pos-
sible delocalization of industrial plants in the context of globalization. The bill
was slightly amended to take their views into account, without profound alter-
ation to its content. Foreign firms, including European, are key actors of the
export-led growth economy, with the majority of exports operated by foreign
joint ventures. Multinational companies indeed find in China a low-cost and
 The EU, China and human rights 165
highly flexible labour market, compensating for a poor legal and bureaucratic
environment, and a competitive but hardly predictable domestic market. While
driving globalization, they also are subject to its own pressures, and naturally
resist rising labour costs and labour market protection. Most of these companies
subscribe to the principle of corporate social responsibility, and argue that they
offer more decent conditions for employment than domestic firms, which is true
in many cases. But their practices recently tended to be questioned in China.
Wal-Mart in particular, the large American retailer operating in China since
1996, had to give way to the ACFTU in August 2006, and to let unions organize
in its superstores around the country, as opposed to its own practices in North
America. American fast food chain stores also came under scrutiny for allega-
tions of underpay. European firms operate with more generous social legislation
in their homelands, but their Chinese branches relevant economic environment
in terms of production costs and market access is global, ranging to all emerging
countries. Their attitude toward the progress of labour legislation in China is
therefore extremely cautious (Polansky 2007).
European business interests can also rightly claim that labour protection in
Europe and China is by no means equivalent, and that empowering the ACFTU as
a response to labour unrest and public opinion sensitivity comes close to govern-
ment intervention, and possibly to manipulating the conditions for economic
competition to the detriment of foreign firms. This is once again related to the
absence of independent unionism, and to the collusion between the ACFTU, the
CCP and the government, in practice fully articulated at the local level. More
generally, Chen (2007) convincingly argues that the huge deficit in implementation
of labour rights in China does not come from insufficient individual rights, indeed
largely acknowledged and further developed by successive legislations. Rather, it is
the absence of real collective rights (organization, strikes and collective bargaining)
that prevents individual rights from becoming more effective. Without progress on
these issues, rights can probably be somewhat improved ‘top-down’ through relat-
ively pro-labour legislation. However, their implementation remains highly con-
strained by the usual collusive arrangements between local government officials,
firm managers, ACFTU leaders and judges, all under control of the CCP, which
cannot be circumvented by unlawful ‘bottom-up’ mobilizations. It can easily be
seen that the reasoning can be extended to civil and political rights as well.
The European Union is normatively committed to promoting a high level of
social standards within its member states as well as abroad. In particular, the
EU currently has underway for the 2006–2010 period a 40 million euro
EU–China cooperation project on social security reform. The project covers the
areas of retirement, health and unemployment. It aims at sustaining both policy
development through legislation and policy management with improved cover-
age, administration of benefits and financial sustainability. But the above analy-
sis shows that the different EU actors operating in China – member-state
governments, the EU institutions, NGOs and promoters of human rights – and
multinational companies do not necessarily share the same interests or the same
view about the social situation in China.
166 R. Balme
The arms embargo: up and down with hard power
The lifting of the arms embargo levied in 1989 has become a major issue in
recent years. It is easy to understand how accession to the WTO, the develop-
ment of political and human rights dialogue, the absence of resolutions against
China at the UNHRC justified such a request on the Chinese side. Since the
Deng Xiaoping’s southern China tour in 1992, the reform and opening policy
has been considered by the Chinese leadership as confirmed, and has been pro-
gressively implemented and expanded in its own style and pace. Consequently,
Chinese foreign policy is currently conceived as instrumental in securing a
domestic policy for the development of productive capacity, economic growth
and social prosperity. This international reputation (the Olympics in 2008 and
World Expo in 2010) and respectability are part of this project, and being listed
with Myanmar and Sudan among countries on which the EU is applying sanc-
tions is definitely perceived as an offence.
On the European side, the arms embargo is equally perceived as outdated, as the
EU adopted a more restrictive ‘Code of Conduct’ in 1988, more in conformity with
international covenants, although not legally binding. In any case selective arms
sales to China from the EU, as well as from the US despite a more restrictive regula-
tion, were not fully stopped, and have significantly increased in the last years.
Opponents of the lifting of the embargo (particularly the US) invoke the possibility
of boosting the arms race across the Taiwan strait. Chinese and EU authorities deny
the intention to buy and sell more weapons for the time being, and underline the
need to lift an ‘obsolete’ measure that is discriminatory for China. Strategic implica-
tions are probably more in the medium and long term, and depend on the diversifi-
cation of arms suppliers to China, both in technological and political terms
(Godement 2005; Shambaugh 2004, 2005; Shao 2005).
Chinese authorities pressured the Commission and member states on the
issue in 2003 and 2004. France promoted the initiative among the EU and after
Paul Rueda’s report was issued in November 2004, member states engaged in
negotiations for a tightening of the ‘Code of Conduct’ that would justify lifting
the embargo in the eyes of European public opinion and the US. Chinese author-
ities expected the lifting to be announced for the celebration of the 30th anniver-
sary of EU–China relations in 2005. However, the momentum was disrupted by
US opposition to the measure, and by the anti-secession law passed by the
Chinese National People’s Congress authorizing the use of force to stop Taiwan
from seceding. An informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg
agreed to delay the measure once again.
As exemplified by the clash in timing between the embargo issue and the
anti-secession law, Chinese authorities made absolutely no connection between
the two issues, and, as expected, ‘domestic’ politics (Taiwan) prevailed by far
over EU–China relations, even when it came to arms sales or lifting of sanctions
considered as discriminatory. Although the motive of US pressure was not offi-
cially invoked by the Europeans, the suspension of the decision was largely
understood as one obvious limitation to the EU’s foreign policy independence.
 The EU, China and human rights 167
From the above narrative it is clear that the strategy of offering human rights
improvements in exchange for access to advanced technologies for military
industries is at best outdated, and has produced no tangible results when applied
to China. The EU arms embargo has indeed been ineffective from this point of
view, and European chancelleries have long ceased to link political and human
rights dialogues to possible sanctions on trade or security issues. To a significant
extent, European diplomacy is on this point facing a gap with the perception
conveyed by Western media and human rights activists. The EU also revealed
both a deficit of consensus among its member states and a lack of independence
in failing to implement its own decision. In such a context, bilateral relations, at
least with large member states, tended to gain in influence in the most recent
period. Probably more relevant than the arms embargo, both in terms of past and
future evolution, is the convergence of China and the EU on non-proliferation of
WMD, their mutual support of their roles regarding North Korea and Iran, and
their commitment to international covenants.

China’s rise and human rights in third countries: the case of

Africa
China’s dramatic economic development does not come without deeply affect-
ing its position in international affairs (Keith 2005; Saunders 2006). The emer-
gence of the country as a key player in globalization means that the economies
of the EU and the US are now in a situation of dependence with China’s own
domestic growth, and vice versa. As a result, mutual influences have been
deeply transformed. On the one hand, as illustrated above, a policy of sanctions
on the Chinese government runs the risk of formal or informal economic retalia-
tion against foreign investment and market access. WTO regulations are from
this perspective easy to manipulate or to distort in implementation. On the other
hand, Chinese growth is similarly dependent on the state of the economy in
developed countries, where signs of recession quickly prompt reactions on pro-
duction and exports from China. Unsurprisingly, despite some litigation within
the WTO framework, noticeably with textile exports in 2005, economic interde-
pendence favours politically cooperative relations, overall largely prevailing.
The position of China as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, as
well as its general commitment to multilateral institutions, also imposes and jus-
tifies dialogue as the dominant figure of relations.
But China is also increasingly influential beyond its own borders in the Asia-
Pacific and in other regions, and is developing new relations with Russia and
emerging powers such as ASEAN countries, India, or Brazil, contributing to the
more general trend of development of South–South relations. In doing so, China
is primarily driven by the dire and growing need for raw materials and energy of
its economy. Political concerns including isolating Taiwan, limiting Japan’s
international role, and coalition-building to promote its interests in multilateral
institutions, particularly the UN, is also naturally important. They sometimes
come close to rivalry with Western countries when China’ influence in third
168 R. Balme
countries introduces a wedge in former North–South relations, with some clear
implications for human rights issues. Africa is particularly illustrative of the
case.
In November 2006, China hosted the Beijing Summit of the China–Africa
Cooperation, where Hu Jintao announced a doubling of aid to African countries
for the 2006–2009 period. China will provide three billion USD in loans and two
billion USD in export credit, establish a China-Africa Development Fund and
cancel all the interest-free government loans to impoverished African countries
that were due at the end of 2005. Meanwhile the least developed countries will
be allowed to increase substantially the number of items they may export to
China. Three to five trade and economic cooperation zones will be established in
Africa over the next three years. China plans to train 15,000 African profession-
als, provide Chinese experts and medicine, and build an African Alliance Con-
ference Centre, 30 hospitals, 30 malaria prevention and treatment centre and 300
rural schools. While developing its presence in Africa, China also asserts itself
as a contributor to the UN Millennium Development Goal. Testifying to the
development of business relations, Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) to
Africa also rose from 14.5 million USD in 1993 to 428.9 million USD in 2004
(Saunders 2006). China now receives one-third of its oil from Africa.
Whatever the generosity of motives behind this policy, implications for
human rights promotion in Africa are important in two aspects. First, in dealing
with bilateral relations, the Chinese government claims to follow a ‘hands-off’
policy, where domestic political issues are excluded from consideration. Sover-
eignty is the proclaimed primary concern of Chinese diplomacy, both in exclud-
ing countries entertaining relations with Taiwan, and abstaining from
intervention in third countries’ domestic affairs. This conception is an external
projection of the general Chinese approach on the issue, where human rights are
acknowledged subject to respect for sovereignty, in contradiction to the largely
transnational nature of the human rights movement. Second, Chinese policy in
Africa comes in contrast with the practice of conditionality and good gover-
nance followed by the EU and its member states, the US and international
organizations. It effectively promotes a conception of human rights as relative,
depending on culture, level of development and national situations, where civil
and political rights come after economic rights. In a number of cases, it also
leads the Chinese government to support regimes perpetrating the most serious
violations of human rights, and to hamper the strategies of isolation pursued by
Western countries and the UN.
Chinese diplomacy in Africa attracted media attention by cultivating strong
ties with Sudanese president Omar-al-Bashir, despite the civil war and mass
slaughter in the Darfur region, that has left several hundred thousand dead and
displaced millions over Sudan’s borders with Chad and the Central African
Republic. China is reputed to buy the largest portion of Sudan’s oil exports and
to sell military weapons to the government, while the regular army is largely
involved in the killings (Kampf 2007). Under pressure from Western powers,
China’s support to Khartoum was, however, curtailed, first during the Beijing
 The EU, China and human rights 169
summit of 2006, then with the intervention of China’s UN Ambassador, Wang
Guangya, in Addis Ababa in November 2006 to secure Sudan’s agreement,
albeit temporary, to replace the African Union contingent with a larger, hybrid
African Union–UN force. Furthermore, President Hu Jintao’s visit to Khartoum
in February 2007 firmly pressured al-Bashir to bow to the deployment of a UN
peacekeeping force, delivery of humanitarian aid and achievement of a compre-
hensive ceasefire. China also agreed to participate in the Conference on Darfur
held in Paris in June 2007 (Kleine-Ahlbrandt and Small 2007).
Sudan is not the only country where China is involved in situations seriously
detrimental to human rights. Through economic assistance and military support
to Zimbabwe, China props up Robert Mugabe’s autocratic government, respons-
ible for a disastrous economic situation starving the population of its most basic
needs and cruel repression of opposition movements. While obtaining deals in
mining, communications, power and transportation, China sold military vehicles
and jets and technology to monitor electronic communications to the regime
(Kampf 2007). With growing exposition in Africa, China will also inevitably
face the challenges other powers face on the continent. Anti-Chinese riots
occurred in Zambia following the September 2006 elections in which the
Chinese Ambassador threatened to sever relations if the opposition candidate,
Michael Sata, won. Sata campaigned on anti-Chinese sentiment, including issues
of low wages, lack of safety standards and Chinese workers taking local jobs.
Although he lost the election to incumbent Levy Mwanawasa, his Patriotic Front
won many seats in key municipalities. Hu’s itinerary during his February 2007
trip was curtailed due to anti-China demonstrations, and the visit to a Chinese-
run copper mine and stadium construction site had to be cancelled. In Nigeria,
the recent kidnapping of Chinese nationals also revealed the difficulties for
Chinese interests to operate in the local context. Foreign workers, especially in
the oil industry, have long been targets of armed militants protesting against
environmental devastation and severe poverty in the Niger Delta, while oil com-
panies make tremendous profits in extraction. In January 2007 the government-
owned Chinese National Petroleum Company office in the Nigerian state of
Bayelsa was stormed and nine Chinese employees were abducted. The hostages
were released a few weeks later when Hu visited the country. In another incident
in southern Nigeria’s Rivers State, five Chinese telecommunication workers
were kidnapped and returned within two weeks (Kleine-Ahlbrandt and Small
2007).
China’s presence in Africa is therefore far more complex than a mere support
to autocratic regimes in opposition to Western states’ policies favouring
democratization. The Chinese economy is in need of resources and opportunities
available on the African continent, while the Chinese government doctrine
applies its own standards for rights, both on the economic and political front,
frequently on the legacy of ancient relations established with former Marxist
regimes. However, the Chinese approach, occasionally praised by some African
leaders, is not necessarily welcomed by Africans. As Chinese authorities and
interests intensify their presence, they are necessarily increasingly involved in
170 R. Balme
local situations, voluntarily or not, and the proclaimed ‘hands-off’ approach is
but a mirage. Indeed, one important aspect of globalization precisely tones down
the importance of state-to-state and intergovernmental relations to the benefit of
transnational relations. This is so much the case that Chinese authorities, prob-
ably contrary to their intention, are today involved with the fate of Darfur
refugees and with the violence of the Niger Delta militias against Chinese com-
panies.
In its last policy papers toward China, the European Union addressed and
expressed its concern on the promotion of human rights at the global level and in
third countries.9 Combined with other pressures and invitations, it resulted in a
significant change of attitude on the part of the Chinese government. Whatever
the Chinese responsibilities in the difficulties of the present situation, Beijing
agreed in 2006, after a long delay, to serve as a broker between the international
community and the Sudanese government. This change of attitude has been
decisive in the limited evolution of the situation. This position of broker,
equivalent to the one held by China in the six-party talk with Korea about
nuclear disarmament, is typical of its new power and mode of influence in the
current context. Realizing its own interests in stability in developing countries
and the potential for image-grooming, China also engaged in growing support
for UN peacekeeping operations, particularly in Africa. In June 2006, during a
UN Security Council visit to Addis Ababa, China’s UN Ambassador took the
lead in supporting the deployment of peacekeepers in Somalia. It was the first
time China took the lead in promoting a foreign intervention in a non-Asian
country. These moves can be interpreted as positive signs for the promotion of
human rights in developing countries. From this point of view, much will indeed
depend on China’s attitude in the coming years, not necessarily ill-intentioned,
but unlikely to be more virtuous than others.

Conclusion
The developments of EU–China political relations over the last two decades are
illustrative of very significant trends in international relations. They can be char-
acterized by the liberalization of trade and its growing impact on political rela-
tions, the associated emergence of a major new global player in Asia, and the
relative decline of cleavages inherited from decolonization and the Cold War.
The different aspects of this situation rendered the use of a strategy of sanctions
and rewards toward China ineffective.
During the period, the EU asserted itself as an actor in world affairs, and with
China in particular, not without revealing the weaknesses in integration and
independence of the Common Foreign and Security Policy. With the growing
importance of China as a global player, these relations have gradually evolved
from unilateral pressure to the accepted coexistence of two adjacent normative
systems, allowing for non-confrontational dialogue and gradual change, but at
the cost of accepting a slow pace of transformation of the human rights situation
in China.
 The EU, China and human rights 171
Substantial developments have occurred through political dialogue and coop-
eration, and the close relations established today between China and European
member states and institutions should in no way be underestimated, particularly
in a long term perspective.
Changes in the human rights situation in China result from a long and gradual
change of approach by the Chinese leadership. Domestic social change in China,
engagement in multilateral regimes, and bilateral relations are the operators of
this transformation. On a number of cases (judicial reform and probably the
death penalty), EU policy has been quite effective. Growing international expo-
sure and domestic change provide the incentives for reform, while cooperation
brings expertise, experience and arguments for the elaboration of new cognitive
frames resulting in a change of policy preferences by the government. However,
Chinese authorities have a different interpretation of human rights. They make
use of the extensiveness of the definition of rights to underscore China’s record
in economic rights and to justify the limited change in civil and political rights.
They also place sovereignty as a key element and indeed a condition for human
rights. Finally, they acknowledge but fall short of allowing collective rights,
therefore leaving a considerable deficit in the implementation of individual
rights. In the absence of proactive collective action, rights cannot be promoted
and defended bottom-up. The government capacity to guarantee individual
rights top-down through legislation is severely limited by the absence of
freedom to act collectively, and by the lack of an independent judiciary. As a
result, authorities face a continuous growth of individual complaints and erup-
tive social unrest. Despite the pressure of international exposure, noticeably with
the Olympics in 2008, dialogue and cooperation have had no effect so far to
alter the leadership’s view on these matters, anchored to the monopoly of
the CCP.
Other aspects of EU–China relations on human rights are worth noticing.
With cooperation prevailing over conflict, human rights are subject to policy
sectorization or containment, to a large extent de-linked from other policy issues
such as security or trade in bilateral relations, somewhat in contradiction with
the principle of mainstreaming human rights advanced as a major objective of
the EU external policy. In the Chinese case, this conception of human rights
policy was in the long run unable to produce tangible results through intergov-
ernmental bargaining, and in practice foregone in the early 1990s. However, the
human rights dialogue and cooperation projects do not exclusively rest with high
level contacts channelled through chancelleries. On the contrary, they involve
large segments of administrations on both sides, ranging from civil affairs,
police, justice, education, environment, to social affairs and women’s rights, and
engage academics, professionals and NGOs. This transgovernmental mode of
operation, despite its limitation to selective policy networks, ensures a relatively
large diffusion of human rights issues and public policy. Mainstreaming there-
fore practically lies more within the implementation of programmes than
with the unrealistic linkage of issues during policy elaboration through grand
diplomacy.
172 R. Balme
A significant gap exists between the reality of these relations and the expecta-
tions regarding the EU’s human rights policy toward third countries prevalent
among public opinions, civil society organizations and parliaments, particularly
with the European Parliament. Briefly stated, it can be said that human rights
promotion viewed from Europe largely differs from what is actually feasible and
accomplished through European diplomacy. Dialogue also comes in that case at
the cost of considerably stretching the conception of human rights, up to the
point where the conditions for political liberalism, if not excluded from of the
picture, are considered by the Chinese side as secondary (to economic rights),
relative and progressive, therefore far from fundamental rights in the Western
sense. Europe faces here a major contradiction between its aspirations for plural-
ism in world politics, and the promotion of its core values thought of as univer-
sal.
Finally, globalization deeply affects human rights bilateral relations. To a
large extent it makes the classical distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power
obsolete. Economic exchanges at the heart of contemporary international rela-
tions, by favouring cooperation, cultural exchanges and the diffusion of ideas,
are a powerful vehicle of soft power. But they also entail stiff competition for
investments, resources, profits and jobs. National economies are inextricably
linked by a dense set of relations both cooperative and competitive, leaving
winners and losers in each country. The policy package adopted by national
governments in external relations directly affects their domestic political
economy, the legitimacy of their leadership and the prospect for international
influence of their country. Such a game can be interpreted as a peaceful version
of the ‘hard’ interstate competition for sovereignty depicted by realist and neo-
realist theories. This context of intense competition has two major con-
sequences. First, labour rights, as a parameter of the game, are no longer
confined to a domestic issue. Their local standards are used by economic agents
as opportunities or constraints in the global competition. Multinational com-
panies operating in China naturally resist potential increases in production costs
associated with a better labour protection, even though they generally offer
better conditions to wage-earners than local companies. Labour rights can also
be locally manipulated to distort economic competition between foreign and
domestic firms. They have become a crucial aspect of globalization, and their
promotion depends as much on competition between multinational companies
from developed and developing countries than on governments’ ideologies.
The other consequence of globalization on human rights is that, as exempli-
fied by China’s presence in Africa, South–South relations are quickly intensify-
ing. As a result, emerging countries like China, in great need of resources and in
search of overseas investments, interfere in the previously predominant relation
between Western powers and poor countries. The new involvement of China in
Africa comes with some difficulties, some of which are not at odds with the
experience of European governments and companies. But as a result of its own
doctrine, China has also been involved in a number of situations undermining
the credit of its human rights engagement. The position of broker China has
 The EU, China and human rights 173
adopted in some critical cases, when the need for stability was strong enough
and when its own reputation was at stake, has marked a positive and significant
change. It is too early to assess if it will durably help to alleviate the heavy toll
the deprivation of human rights takes on populations in the poorest countries.

Notes
1 I wish to thank Feng Wei for her efficient research assistance.
2 In 1993, US President Bill Clinton threatened not to renew the status of Most Favoured
Nation (MFN) to China, unless there were substantial improvements in the human
rights situation. Congress often pressures the US administration on human rights in
trade policy. With the accession of China to the WTO, however, China has benefited
from ‘normal trade relations’ with the US on a permanent basis since January 2002.
3 Statement by Liu Zhenmin, Deputy Permanent Representative of the PRC to the
United Nations, 3rd Committee of 61st Session of the General Assembly on Human
Rights, October 2006.
4 The European Parliament:
regards the Dialogue as a valuable instrument and an important element of the
overall strategic dialogue between the EU and China, in which human rights must
be treated as a priority concern; calls on the Council and the Commission to
undertake strenuous efforts even if these can bear fruit only in the medium term
. . . stresses that an increasingly positive trade relationship must be contingent on
human rights reforms.
(European Parliament 2005)
5 Peerenboom (2007, particularly Ch. 3 and 4) provides an extensive and detailed review
of the situation of rights in the PRC we largely borrow from.
6 Sources: for China, Peerenboom (2006: 98). Other data were graciously provided by
the Institut des Hautes Etudes sur la Justice, Paris, from US Department of Justice
www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs, EUROCHIPS, and Council of Europe, Yearly Criminal Stat-
istics, 2005–2007.
7 In October 2006 Yu Keping, head of the Office for Translation, closely supervised by
the Central Committee of the CCP, published Democracy is a Good Thing, a book
largely circulated and commented on by the media.
8 Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily), 26 June 2007.
9
China has traditionally described its foreign policy as one of strict non-
interference, but as it takes on a more active and assertive international role, this
becomes increasingly untenable. The Chinese government is beginning to recog-
nize this, and the international responsibilities commensurate to its economic
importance and role as a permanent member of the UN Security Council as illus-
trated by its increasingly active diplomatic commitments.
(Commission of the European Communities 2006: 3)
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Index

Abdulkarim, Ahmed 128 arms sales: to Libya 131

absorption capacity 46, 65–6, 104 Ashdown, Paddy 59, 74, 76–7, 79–80
accession criteria 12–13; see also Asia: and perception of European Union
Copenhagen Criteria 11
Aceh 34 associational activism 159–60
ACFTU (All China Federation of Trade asymmetric interdependence 106–7
Unions) 163, 164, 165 asymmetrical integration 54
ACP (Africa, Caribbean, Pacific group of Australia 28
states) 2–3, 26, 138, 144 Austria 28, 57
activist movements 28 authoritarian regimes 59, 122–3
Adamkus, Valdas 113 authoritarianism 134
Adler, Emanuel 38 ‘axis of ego’ 37
Afghan Independent Human Rights
Commission 138, 140 the Balkans 16, 57–61, 70–80
Afghanistan 27, 135–42 The Balkans in Europe’s Future 71
Africa: and China 167–70, 172 Barcelona Process 133n1
Africa, Caribbean, Pacific group of states al-Bashir, Omar 168, 169
(ACP) see ACP Baudrillard, J. 75, 81–2n10
African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) Beck, Ulrich 106
35 Belarus 7, 17, 31, 56, 64, 89, 95–6, 98
Agip (oil company) 126 Belgium 28
agricultural protectionism 2 bilateralism 16
agriculture: and GMO use 6–7 Bildt, Carl 59, 82n12
Ahtisaari plan 58–9 biosafety 6–7
aid policies: and security 3, 27 Birkelbach Report 67n2
air transport investment: Libya 130 Björkdahl, Annika 32
Algeria 7, 14, 17, 118, 122, 126–7 Blair, Tony 124, 132
Algerian civil war 123 Bolivia: CLS 31
All China Federation of Trade Unions Bonn Agreement 135
(ACFTU) see ACFTU border control 110
AMIS (African Union Mission in Sudan) borders 62–3, 66, 105, 106
see African Union Mission in Sudan Borrell, José 113
amnesty law: Afghanistan 140–1 Bosnia 57–8, 59–60, 70, 74–8, 96
Anglo-Japanese agreement 43 Braudrillard’s framework 68–9
anti-secession law 166 Brazil 10–11, 27
Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) 118 Bretherton, C. 30
arbitrary detention: China 154–7 Bulgaria 55, 56, 65
Arbour, Louise 153 Bulgarian nurses’ case, Libya 127
arms embargo: China 146, 166–7 Bulgarian Socialists 54
194 Index
Bull, Hedley 45
Burma see Myanmar
Camau, Michel 134, 140
Canada 28, 97
capacity of absorption see absorption
capacity
Caplan, R. 136
Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety 6
CAT (Convention Against Torture and
Other Cruel and Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment) 148, 149
CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women) see Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women
CEEC (Central and Eastern European
countries) 12
censorship 160–1
Central African Republic 26
Central and Eastern European countries
(CEEC) see CEEC
Central Europe 54–61
Cerutti, Furio 44
CFSP (Common Foreign and Security
Policy) 78
Chakrabarty, Dipesh 46
‘change-maker’ role 84, 100
Charter of Fundamental Human Rights of
the Union (2000) 24
Checkel, Jeffrey 43
chemical products 8
Chen, F. 165
China: and Africa 167–70, 172; arbitrary
detention 154–7; arms embargo 146,
166–7; assessment of human rights
152–3; conception of human rights
151–2; death penalty 154; freedom of
expression 157–62; HRC 97–8; human
development 26; human rights dialogue
146–8; labour rights 162–5; legal
system 157, 161–2; multilateral human
rights institutions 148–51; and rights
issues 87; social security reform project
165; and UN 83
China policy: EU’s 143–4, 145–6
Chirac, Jacques 124, 147
CHR (Commission on Human Rights) 90,
91, 93
Churchill, Winston 44
civil society 73, 138, 161
civilization, standard of 45
climate change 5
Clinton administration 86, 125
Clinton, Bill 173n2
CLS (core labour standards) see core
labour standards
CMW (Convention on the Protection of
the Rights of All Migrant Workers and
Members of their Families) 149
coercion, instruments of 5, 18n5, 32
collective bargaining 164
Colombia 31
‘colour’ revolutions 64; see also Orange
Revolution
Commission on Human Rights (CHR) see
CHR
Common Foreign and Security Policy
(CFSP) see CFSP
competitiveness 3
conditionality 52, 55, 56
Constitution for Europe 24
Constitutional Framework for Provisional
Self-Government 60
Convention Against Torture and Other
Cruel and Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment (CAT, 1988)
see CAT
Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW, 1980) 148, 161
Convention on the Protection of the Rights
of All Migrant Workers and Members of
their Families (CMW) see CMW
Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC, 1992) 148
Copenhagen Criteria 12–13, 52, 53, 54–5,
66
Copenhagen Declaration (1973) 24
core labour standards (CLS) 1, 5, 7, 29–31
core principle of justice 39
corruption 5, 57, 121–2
Costa Rica: CLS 31
costs: of democratization 52
Côte d’Ivoire 26
Cotonou Agreement (2000) 25, 26, 144
Council Resolution (1991) 24
Country Reports 17
Crawford, Beverly 38
CRC (Convention on the Rights of the
Child) see Convention on the Rights of
the Child
Cremona, Marise 30
crisis, EU 38
crisis management 32–6
Croatian HDZ 54
Cuba 93, 98
 Index 195
Cyprus 65 enlargement policies 1–2, 12
ENP (European Neighbourhood Policy)
Darfur 35, 96, 168–9 14–18, 63, 90, 103, 104–6, 120, 122,
DATA One campaign 28 132
Dayton constitution 58 ENP Actions Plans 17
death penalty 154 environmental standards 1, 6–7
debt cancellation 26 EPA (Economic Partnership Agreements)
debt relief 27, 28 25
decisionism 109 equality: normative principle of 29–30
democracy promotion: Afghanistan 136; ESDP (Security and Defence Policy) 33,
worldwide 83 34, 35
democratic globalization 134 ethnic nationalism 59
democratic institutions 135–7, 141 EU development assistance 26
Democratic Republic of Congo 26, 89; EU EU Special Representatives 78–9
involvement 33 EU strategies: at UN 83–4
democratization: from above 57–61; the EUBAM (European Union Border
Balkans 71–80; benefits 52–3; in Assistance Mission to Moldova and
Central and Western Europe 54–61; Ukraine) 110
costs 52; and democratic globalization EU–China dialogue 143
134; processes 52; through enlargement EU–China Summit (2004) 143
51–4, 61–5, 66 ‘EU–China Village Governance Training
Denmark 28 Programme’ 161
development aid 26–8 EU–Moldova Action Plan 107
development policy: and normative power Euro-Indian free-trade agreement 6
25–6 Euro-Indian relations 11
Dew-Becker, Ian 24 Euro-Med agreements 16
Diez, Thomas 33, 38, 42 Euro-Mediterranean Partnership 118, 120,
discrimination 29 121
Doha Conference 7 Euro-pessimism 38
Doha Declaration 6 Europe/European Union distinction 41–2
Duchêne, François 38 EuropeAid Annual Report (2005) 27
European conflict resolution preferences
e-waste 8 31–6
Eastern Europe 54–61 European Defence Agency on Europe
ECHO 33–4, 35 report 10
Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) European economic preferences 24–8
see EPA European Initiative for Democracy and
Ecuador 31 Human Rights (EIDHR) see EIDHR
Eder, Klaus 66 European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP)
Egypt: Action Plan 18 see ENP
EIDHR (European Initiative for European Network European Network on
Democracy and Human Rights) 145 Debt and Development 28
El Salvador 31 European norms: as a concept 1
elections: China 161 European preference for norms 3–9
electrical equipment 8 European Security Strategy (2003) 33, 63
Eliasson, Jan 92 European social preferences 28–31
Elster, John 136 European Strategy Paper (2004) 17
emerging markets 3 European Union Border Assistance
‘empire’ metaphor 106 Mission to Moldova and Ukraine
Energy Charter Treaty 109 (EUBAM) see EUBAM
enlargement: and democratization 51–4, EU–Ukraine Action Plan 107
61–5, 66; discussion 44; or ‘empire’ EU–UN agenda: human rights 83
question 71; problem of 42, 45–6 EU–UN cooperation mechanisms 83–4
‘enlargement fatigue’ 53, 104 ‘Everything but Arms’ (EBA) initiative 25
196 Index
Falun Gong 158, 161
family rights 24
Faust, Jörg 27
FDI (foreign direct investment): Libya
128–31
Fedotov, Yury 81n9
Ferrero-Waldner, Benito 27
Finland 28
Finnemore, Martha 39–40
‘first circle’ (EU members) 2
Fischer, Joschka 11, 153
foreign direct investment (FDI) see FDI
Foreign Ministers Declaration (1986) 24
France 28, 124–5, 139–40
Free Aceh Movement (GAM) 34
free-trade agreements 15–16
freedom of expression: China 157–62
freedom of the press: China 160
frontiers 62–3, 66; see also borders
‘frozen conflicts’ 107, 111
G-8 summits: Heiligendam 5
GAM (Free Aceh Movement) see Free
Aceh Movement
gas supply: Algeria 126–7
Gazprom 130
General Assembly resolutions: human
rights 89–90
Georgia 31
Germany: aid 28; and Libya 125; and
Poland 62; ‘Russia-first policy’ 112
Glasius, Marlies 33
global norms 4
globalism 43
globalization: and human rights 172
GMOs 6–7, 8
Goldwyn, David 129
Gong, Gerrit 45
Gordon, Robert 24
governance: definitions of 139–40
Greece 28
greenhouse gas emissions 5
Guantanamo Bay: human rights abuses 93,
101n19
Guatemala 31
Haider, Joerg 57, 124
Hakkerup, Hans 60
health and social security rights 24
Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC)
initiative 26
Herzegovina 59, 96
High Representative for Common Foreign
and Security Policy (CFSP) 78
Hilpold, Peter 25
Hix, Simon 39
Honduras 31
HRC (Human Rights Council) 90, 92, 95,
99, 148
Hu Jintao 157, 168, 169
human development 26
human rights: assessment in China
152–62; and China 146–8; Chinese
conception 151–2; and ENP 16–18; EU
and UN 85–90; EU guidelines 144–5;
General Assembly resolutions 89–90;
and globalization 172; Guantanamo Bay
abuses 93, 101n19; Libya 132–3;
Moldavia 17; norm-development 97;
promotion 83; Ukraine 17; violations
138, 147
human rights clause 144
Human Rights Council (HRC) see HRC
Human Rights Council Advisory
Committee 98–9
human rights institutions 148–51
human security 33
hyperreality 69, 70, 72, 73–4, 80
ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights) 148, 149, 150, 153,
155, 157
Iceland 28
ICERD (International Convention on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination) 148
ICESCR (International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights)
148, 150
ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia) 79
identity: of EU 42, 45–6, 66, 104–5
identity crisis 44–5
Iliescu, Ion 54
ILO (International Labour Organization) 7,
31
Independent Human Rights Commission
138, 140
India: and core labour standards 7; free-
trade agreements 6, 16; human
development 26; and perception of
European Union 11; and rights issues
87; and UN 83
Indonesia: debt 27; and RRM 34
inequality: levels of 24
instability importation 62–3
institution-building 72–3
institutional reconstruction: Afghanistan
135–7, 141
 Index 197
integration 2, 39, 44, 45–6 liberal democracy 39
integration capacity 64, 65–6 Libya: embargo 118; and ENP 17, 120,
International Convention on the 122, 132; EU and 7; FDI 128–31;
Elimination of Racial Discrimination human rights 132–3; migration flows
(ICERD) see ICERD 131–2; military spending 130–1; oil
International Covenant on Civil and production 128; oil rent 122–3; oil
Political Rights (ICCPR) see ICCPR sector 123–7; transition process 127–8
International Covenant on Economic, Liechtenstein 94, 95
Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) Lippert, Barbara 55
see ICESCR Lithuania 113
International Criminal Tribunal for the Liu Zhenmin 150
former Yugoslavia (ICTY) see ICTY Lomé Convention 26
international identity 44–5, 45–6, 46 Lucarelli, Sonia 32
International Labour Organization (ILO) Luif, Paul 85
see ILO Lukasenko, Alexander 56
the Internet: China 160–1 Lukes, Steven 42
intervention 61, 63, 71 Luxembourg 28
Iran 89, 98 Lynn, K. Terry 123
Iraq 26, 27, 123
Ireland 28 Macedonia 32, 58
Islamism 17 Maghreb states: corruption 121–2; and
Italy 28, 126 democracy 118; and ENP 120, 122; and
the EU 118; regional integration 16; see
Japan 28, 29, 43 also Algeria; Libya; Morocco; Tunisia
Johannesburg sustainable development Mahmoudi, Baghdadi 128
goals 27 Maier, Charles 45
Johnson, Ailish 31 Make Poverty History 28
Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt 28 Mandelson, Peter 11, 18n4
Juncos, Ana 32 Manners, Ian 38, 42
justice: core principle of 39 Mansouri, Muhammad Saleh 130
Justice and Development Party (PJD) see Matsunaga, Yasuyuki 122
PJD MDGs (Millennium Development Goals)
26, 27, 145
Kaldor, Mary 33 Mead, Walter Russell 40
Kant, Immanuel 10 means of influence 9
Kenya 26 MEAs (multilateral trade agreements): and
Knutsen, T. 41 WTO 6
Kohl, Helmut 147 Meciar, Vladimir 54, 55
Kosovo 58, 59, 60–1, 70, 74, 89 MEDA programme 17
Kuchma, Leonid 117n8 Medvedev, Alexander 130
Kwasniewski, Aleksander 113 Menotti, Roberto 32
Kyoto Protocol 4–5, 6, 109 Messner, Dirk 27
Meunier, Sophie 30
labour rights 162–5, 172 Mexico 27
labour standards 1, 5, 7, 29–31 Michnik, Adam 56
Laïdi, Zaki 42, 43, 81n10 migration 3, 107, 131–2
Lamy, Pascal 4, 6 milieu goal policy 15
Latin American countries 96, 98, 99–100 military spending: Libya 130–1
Lebanon 15 military strategy 10
legal system: China 157, 161–2 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
legitimacy 61, 75, 116 see MDGs
Lesotho 26 Milosevic, Slobodan 56
leverage 5, 6, 53, 56 Moldova 31, 105–6, 107, 109–10, 111
Lewis, M. H. 44 Mongolia 31
198 Index
Montenegro 58 OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference)
Monterrey process 25, 27 92
Morocco 118, 126 oil market: Libya 123–7
Moroz, Oleksandr 115 oil rent 122–6
Mugabe, Robert 169 Orange Revolution 62, 64, 110, 112–15
Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) Orbie, Jan 25, 30, 31
26 Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC)
multilateral human rights institutions: and see OIC
China 148–51 Ortega, Martin 133n1
multilateralism 11
multinational companies 164–5 Palestine 33, 34–5, 98
Mwanawasa, Levy 169 Panama 31
Myanmar 7, 31, 89 Paris Declaration on aid Effectiveness 27
Partnership and Cooperation Agreement
NAM (Non-Aligned Movement) 92–3, 98 (PCA) see PCA
nation-state building 57–8; see also state- Patten, Chris 104, 119–20
building PCA (Partnership and Cooperation
nationalist populism 57 Agreement) 107–8
‘Near Abroad’ concept 108 Peace Implementation Council (PIC) see
neighbour: concept of 105–6 PIC
neo-eurasianism 108 peacekeeping 10, 31–6, 46
neo-liberalism 29 Peerenboom, R. 156
New Zealand 28, 29 People’s Court: Libya 132
NGOs: and human rights 17 perception: of European Union 10–11, 43
Nicaragua 31 Peru 31
Nicolaïdis, Kalypso 30 pharmaceutical industry: and GMO use
Nigeria 26, 169; debt 27 6–7
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) see Philippines 11
NAM PIC (Peace Implementation Council) 79
norm-development: human rights issues 97 Pisanu, Guiseppe 132
norm life cycle 40 PJD (Justice and Development Party) 119
norm-setter role 8 Poland 57, 112, 113; and Ukraine 62
norm-takers 4, 16 populists 57
normative conflict preferences 31–6 Portugal 28
‘normative hegemon’ 106, 107 possession goals 19n22
normative power: assessment 36–7; crisis postcolonialism 46
management 32–3; and development Pouligny, B. 136
policy 25–6; historicity of 38–47; poverty reduction 144
overview 23–4 power: Braudrillard’s view 68–70; of EU
normative preference: concept of 3; Special Representatives 78–9; hard 4–5,
European 4–9; and geopolitics 14–18; 10; and responsibility 75; soft 9–11,
and political asymmetry 12–13 146–8; see also normative power
normative social preferences 28–31 ‘The Precession of Simulcra’ 75
norms diffusion 103, 106, 115–16 preference for norms 3–9; conflict 31–6;
norms, European 3–9; concept of 1 economic 24–8; social 28–31
norms reception 103 Prodi, Romano 104
North Africa 118–19 Product Red 28
Norway 27, 28 protectionism 2, 30
Novitz, T. 30, 31 protectorates 59–61
protests 158–9
Oasis Group 123 Putin, Vladimir 81n9
Office of the High Representative (OHR)
mandate 59–60 Qadhafi, Muammar 123–7, 124
Ohrid constitution 58 Qadhafi, Saadi al 130
 Index 199
Qadhafi, Seif el Islam 124, 127, 128 Schimmelfennig, Frank 55
Schmitt, Carl 9, 109
Rapid Reaction Mechanism (RRM) see Schuman Declaration (May 1950) 46
RRM Schuman, Robert 32
Re-education Through Labour (RTL) see Schüssel, Wolfgang 57
RTL ‘second circle’ (Western developed
REACH (regulation, registration, countries) 2
evaluation and authorisation of security: and development aid 27; human
chemicals) 8 33; migratory pressure 3
realpolitik: Japan treaty 43; and preference Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) see
for norms 9 ESDP
reception 106–7 Serbia 56, 58
referenda (May 2005) 44 Shalgam, Abd al-Rahman 128
reform plans (Ashdown) 79–80 Shevchuk, Yevgeny 111
regional integration 16 Shukri Ghanem government 129
regulation, registration, evaluation and Sikkink, Kathryn 39–40
authorisation of chemicals (REACH) simulation: EU’s 71–2; politics of 68–70;
see REACH of power 75
Rehn, Olli 63 ‘Singapore issues’ 5
reinsurance 53, 64, 65 Slovakia 28, 54, 55, 110
religion: China 158 Smirnov, Igor 111
rentier states 122 Smith, Karen 85
representation 76, 78, 79 ‘social embeddedness’ 115–16
restrictions on the use of hazardous social exclusion 25
substances (RoHS) see RoHS social movements 160
rights 24; see also human rights social preferences 28–31
rights protection movement (Weiquan) 160 social security reform project: China 165
Rio Declaration 6, 27 social solidarity 24, 26, 28–31
Robertson Research International Ltd 129 social welfare 28–9
RoHS (restrictions on the use of hazardous ‘soft conditionality’ 109
substances) 8 ‘soft imperialism’ 106–7
Romania 55, 56–7, 65 soft power 146–8
‘Rose Revolution’ 64 Solana, Javier 58, 78, 83, 110, 113
Ross, Michael L. 123 Solana report 9, 10
Rossi, Rosa 119 solidarity: economic 24–8; social 24, 26,
RRM (Rapid Reaction Mechanism) 33, 34 28–31
RTL (Re-education Through Labour) 153, South Korea 16
155, 156, 157 ‘sovereign democracy’ 109
Rueda, Paul 166 sovereignty 11, 13, 37, 74, 75, 108–9,
Russell-Johnston, Lord 131 152
Russia: debt 27; and ENP 14, 107–9; HRC Spain 28, 125
98; and Libya 130; relations with 64; Special Representatives (EU) 78–9
and rights issues 87 SPLM (Sudan People’s Liberation
‘Russia-first policy’ 112 Movement) see Sudan People’s
Ryabchuk, Oleg 110 Liberation Movement
Sri Lanka 31
SAA (Stabilization and Association stability exportation 62–3
Agreements) 16, 59 Stabilization and Association Agreements
Safranik, Yuri 130 (SAA) see SAA
Saleh, Behir 130 standards: environmental 1; European 1;
Samar, Simar 138 labour 1, 5, 7, 29–31
sanctions 123–5, 127, 130 state-building: the Balkans 71–5; see also
Sata, Michael 169 nation-state building
Schily, Otto 132 Storey, Andy 25
200 Index
Strategy Paper (2004) 17 UN forums 85
strike action, right to 163–4 UN sanctions: against Libya 123–5
Sudan 168–9 UN Security Council 37, 85
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement UNHRC (United Nations Human Rights
(SPLM) 35 Commission) 147, 149–50
Sudanese crisis 35 unionism 163
superpowers 37 United Nations Human Rights
Surkov, Vladislav 109 Commission (UNHRC) see UNHRC
suspension 56, 64 universalism 45
sustainable development 6, 27 ‘universality’: of set of rights 99–100
sustainable peace 31–6 USA: and Afghanistan 136–7; aid 28; and
Sweden 28 core labour standards 7; and
Switzerland 28, 29, 97, 125 harmonisation 2; and Human Rights
Syria 17 Council 92, 95, 99; human rights
resolutions 87–9; as a normative power
Tarasyuk, Borys 112 40–1; and REACH 8; and UN 83
tariff barriers 2 US–Japan security treaty 43
Al-Tereiki, Ali Abdel-Salaam 131 US–Libya Business Association 129
territoriality 9 Uzbekistan 89, 98
terrorism 33, 121
the Netherlands 27, 28, 29 van den Hoven, A. 30
‘third circle’ (developing world) 2–3 Venezuela 31
Tiananmen Square crackdown 146, 152 Venice Commission 60
Tilly, Charles 113 violence: and oil rent 123
time–space framework 40–1 ‘virtuous circle’ 136, 137
Tiraspol 111–12 Vogler, I. 30
Tortell, Lisa 31 voluntary organizations 159
trade agreements 15–16 voting patterns: UN 85–90
trade policy 2, 15
trade unions: and core labour standards 7 Wal-Mart 165
Transnistria 107, 111–12 Wang Guangya 169
transparency 5 Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment
treaties 5 (WEEE) see WEEE
Treaty of Nice 144 Watson, Adam 45
tripolar world system 11 Wæver, Ole 106
tsunami 34 Weber, Cynthia 82n11, 82n14
Tunisia 15, 118, 120 WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic
Turkey: accession 12–13, 42, 44; and Equipment) 8
democratization 62; and intervention Weiquan (rights protection movement) see
63–4; social welfare 29; suspension of rights protection movement
negotiations 56, 64 Wenaweser, Christian 102n22
Turkmenistan 89 Western Balkans 57–61
Tymoshenko, Yulia 114 Whitehead, Laurence 52
Wider Europe (later European
UK 27, 28 Neighbourhood Policy) see ENP
Ukraine: and accession 42; action plan Wigen, K. 44
107; and democracy 64; and ENP 14, Wilson, Woodrow 40
16, 109–10; human rights 17; Wolfers, Arnold 19n22
intervention 63; Orange Revolution women’s rights 138
112–15; stability 62 Woods, Ngaire 27
UMA (Arab Maghreb Union) see Arab workers’ rights 24
Maghreb Union WTO: European strategy 5–6
UN: human rights 83, 85; voting patterns WTO Conferences: Cancun 6;
85–90 Singapore 7
 Index 201
Yahoo 161 Zambia 26, 169
Yanukovych, Viktor 114–15 Zielonka, Jan 106
former Yugoslavia 57 Zimbabwe 26, 169
Yushchenko, Viktor 112 Zorgbibe, Charles 46