Chapter 6 from Soft Law to Hard
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Durham E-Theses Surpassing the Leaders - Laggards gap? Conditionality, Compliance and Europeanisation viewed from Romania and Bulgaria in the post-accession period FOLESCU, CORINA,ANDREEA How to cite: FOLESCU, CORINA,ANDREEA (2016) Surpassing the Leaders - Laggards gap? Conditionality, Compliance and Europeanisation viewed from Romania and Bulgaria in the post-accession period, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11772/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Surpassing the Leaders - Laggards gap? Conditionality, Compliance and Europeanisation viewed from Romania and Bulgaria in the post-accession period By Corina Andreea FOLESCU Supervised by Dr. Christian SCHWEIGER Dr. Gidon COHEN Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the School of Government and International Affairs 2016 1 Table of Contents Chapter 1 ....................................................................................................................................... 11 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 11 1.1. Research Background ......................................................................................................... 11 1.2. Research Question.............................................................................................................. 13 1.3. Rationale and significance of the research ........................................................................ 14 1.4. Research design and methods............................................................................................ 15 Chapter 2 ....................................................................................................................................... 20 Literature review on Transposition and Implementation of European legislation ....................... 20 2.1. Defining Compliance........................................................................................................... 20 2.2. Qualitative studies .............................................................................................................. 22 2.3. Quantitative Studies ........................................................................................................... 24 2.4. Mixed Methods Studies ...................................................................................................... 27 Chapter 3 ....................................................................................................................................... 29 Conceptualising the impact of institutions upon actors’ behaviour: of institutions-as-constraint, path-dependency and isomorphism ............................................................................................. 29 3.1. Dimensions of the Europeanisation process: location, nature and consequences of change ................................................................................................................................................... 31 3.1.1. Defining Europeanisation ............................................................................................ 34 3.1.2. Europeanisation through hard and soft law ................................................................ 43 3.1.3. Hypotheses regarding Modes of Governance ............................................................. 49 3.1.4. ‘Mismatch’ as a trigger for Europeanisation ............................................................... 50 3.2. Institutions all the way down – Rational Choice, Historical and Sociological approaches . 51 3.2.1. Rational Choice Institutionalism (RCI) ......................................................................... 53 3.2.2. Sociological Institutionalism (SI) .................................................................................. 63 3.2.3. Historical Institutionalism (HI) ..................................................................................... 70 3.3. Potential outcomes of the Europeanisation process ......................................................... 89 Chapter 4 ....................................................................................................................................... 92 2 Securing the momentum for reforms beyond accession - An analysis of Romania and Bulgaria’s track record under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism ............................................... 92 4.1. Structure of the argument.................................................................................................. 94 4.2. At the crossroads between substantive and incremental change ................................... 102 4.3. Judicial independence and the fight against corruption – understanding the units of analysis, exploring the emergence of an EU rule of law framework ....................................... 113 4.4. Understanding the past, anticipating the future? ............................................................ 148 4.5. The Transition to Democracy. The Long Road Back to Europe. ....................................... 154 4.5.1. Bulgaria’s pre-accession story ................................................................................... 154 4.5.2. Romania’s pre-accession story .................................................................................. 178 4.6. Post-Accession Europeanisation? Impact of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism in Bulgaria and Romania .......................................................................................................... 186 4.7. Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 193 Chapter 5 ..................................................................................................................................... 194 Laying the path for European prosperity and social cohesion? Analysing Romania and Bulgaria’s performance under the objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy ............................................... 194 5.1. Mapping distinctions between EU modes of governance ................................................ 196 5.2. Shifts in softer modes of governance – the transition from Lisbon to the Europe 2020 Strategy ................................................................................................................................... 211 5.3. Evaluating Romania and Bulgaria’s progress towards “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth” – focus on social policies ........................................................................................... 216 5.3.1. Bulgaria ...................................................................................................................... 216 5.3.2. Romania ..................................................................................................................... 237 5.4. Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 253 Chapter 6 ..................................................................................................................................... 255 From soft law to hard law – evaluating Romania and Bulgaria’s compliance track records ...... 255 6.1. Non-compliance with EU laws – Romania and Bulgaria’s track records in a larger context ................................................................................................................................................. 260 6.2. Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 282 Chapter 7 ..................................................................................................................................... 284 Conclusions .................................................................................................................................. 284 7.1. Empirical contributions .................................................................................................... 284 7.2. Theoretical and methodological contributions ................................................................ 285 3 7.3. Limitations of the study .................................................................................................... 289 7.4. Future research avenues .................................................................................................. 289 Annex 1 ........................................................................................................................................ 290 Interview List ..............................................................................................................................