Enlargement of the European Union and effective implementation of its rules

Abstract:

The European Union has made a firm commitment to admit new members. At the same time, the EU has made it clear to prospective members that progress in the negotiations depends on the incorporation by the candidate states of the acquis, i.e. the body of EU rules, in their national legislation and especially on their capacity to implement and enforce it. Although the concept of effective implementation of the acquis communitaire has assumed a pivotal role in the process of enlargement of the EU, there is no consensus as to the meaning of that concept. This book seeks to define it and assess the implications of its use as a criterion of entry into the EU.

The book identifies six stages of policy implementation, five steps for establishing effective implementing capacity and four basic components that together constitute the inputs for developing effective capacity. The book warns that there are no simple prescriptions on how to develop that capacity.

In one chapter, telecommunications are used as a case study in order to highlight the difficulties encountered by existing Member States in complying with the requirements of EU policy on telecommunications. The main findings in this chapter are that in a complex area such as that of telecommunications, it is very difficult to devise binding legal rules concerning the desired outcome and for this reason there has been a growth of informal benchmarking techniques and other comparative performance evaluation.

This book is the first in a series on the general theme of 'Capacity Building for Integration'. This and the forthcoming books present the results of a research project on how to build sufficient administrative capacity for effective implementation of the acquis.