EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND FOREIGN POLICY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE: THE CASES OF HUNGARY, SLOVAKIA AND ROMANIA by SORIN !TEFAN DENCA A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Centre for Russian and East European Studies School of Government and Society College of Social Sciences The University of Birmingham August 2010 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis examines the impact of Europeanization on the foreign policy of the new member states of the European Union, using as case studies Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. It asks what the extent of Europeanization of foreign policy is and whether and to what extent there has been divergence in the way in which the new member states have responded to the similar constraints and opportunities of the European integration. Insofar as divergence can be identified, a third research question asks why there is policy divergence. It argues that the governmental politics and the politics of national identity play a key role as mediating factors for the Europeanization of the system of policy making, the process of elite socialization and the conduct of foreign policy itself. Three critical international events are used as sub-case studies in order to asses the extent of Europeanization of foreign policy of the CEE counties: the US-led war in Iraq in 2003, the NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia in 1999 and the Kosovo declaration of independence in 2008. The study’s findings suggest that the pressures of Europeanization leads to convergence in some policy areas, but domestic factors such as governmental and national identity politics offer a more convincing explanation of divergence. Overall, Europeanization is uneven not only across issue-areas, but also across countries. The limits of convergence as an outcome of Europeanization and the persistence of diversity are therefore best accounted for by the diversity of domestic factors. i Acknowledgements I am grateful to my supervisors, Dr. Derek Averre and Dr. Nathaniel Copsey for their patient guidance, permanent support and advice, without which this thesis could not have been completed. I am thankful not only for the academic direction, but also for their friendship. I am grateful to all the public officials and policy experts from Hungary, Slovakia and Romania who gave up their time and shared with me their thoughts, providing the most valuable material of this study. While I am tremendously thankful to all of them, I would like to show my appreciation to Dr. Péter Balázs,, Dr. Eduard Kukan and Dr. Vasile Pu!ca! for their time and extremely interesting discussion we had in Budapest, Bratislava and Cluj- Napoca. This research project, including the extensive fieldwork in Brussels, Bratislava, Bucharest and Budapest, would not have been possible without the generous funding granted by the Romanian Government Special Scholarship, the University Association for Contemporary European Studies, the University of Birmingham, the National Scholarship Programme of the Slovak Republic, the Open Society Institute and the Ratiu Family Foundation in London. The Institute of European Studies and International Relations of the Comenius University in Bratislava offered the institutional support during the research fieldwork in Slovakia. I would like to extend my gratitude to Prof. Silvia Mihalikova and Andrej Findor for their helpful and amiable support. I thank the Slovak Foreign Policy Association in Bratislava for allowing me to carry on my work in the library and to access the library resources. I extend my thanks to András Rácz and Zoltan Kantor of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs for the enriching discussion we had in Budapest. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers to the articles I published in the Journal of Contemporary European Research in 2009 for their thoughtful comments which helped me to extend and adjust some of the arguments of this thesis. I benefited greatly from the comments to the presentation of the partial results of my research to the Romanian and Moldovan Studies Research Group at University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, UACES Annual Conference in Edinburgh in 2008, and EUSA Biennial Conference in Los Angles in 2009. I extend my thanks to Dr. Tim Haughton from the University of Birmingham for his general support throughout the years. For their useful comments, I would also like to thank Dr. Liliana Pop from London Metropolitan University, Dr. Oana Mocanu from the European Institute of Romania and Dr. Lisbeth Aggestam from the University of Bath. I am grateful to all people who provided me with moral, intellectual or other type of support while undertaking this research, I show my greatest appreciation to Patricia Carr, Marea Areas and Veta Douglas, the invaluable administrative staff of the European Research Institute and the Centre for Russian and East European Studies for their constant support and kindness. The University of Birmingham provided an excellent setting not only for developing good quality research, but also for interacting with other doctoral students, research fellows, visiting scholars. During the years, the programmes of conferences and seminars run by the European Research Institute, Centre for Russian and East European Studies and the Department of Political Sciences and International Studies offered a prolific environment of keeping track with new research, exchanging ideas and learning. On a personal note, I would like to thank my wife Irina for her constant moral support and my daughter Diana, whose joyful character helped me forget the hardships of all kind ii encountered during the years of conducting this research. I dedicate this work to my second daughter, Maria, who came to the world at the time of defending this thesis. iii Table of contents Ch. Title Page Abstract i Acknowledgements ii Table of Content iv List of abbreviations vi List of tables, illustrations and maps ix 1. Introduction 1 2. Europeanization of Foreign Policy: A Literature Review 2.1. Introduction………………………………………………………………... 16 2.2. Literature on the Europeanization of foreign policy………………………. 17 2.3. The literature on the domestic impact of European integration in Hungary, Slovakia and Romania………………………………………………………….. 22 2.4. Conclusions………………………………………………………………... 28 3. Institutions, Identities and Interests: A Systemic Framework for Studying the Europeanization of Foreign Policy 3.1. Introduction………………………………………………………………... 31 3.2. Europeanization of foreign policy between foreign policy analysis and theories of European integration……………………………………………….. 33 i) Europeanization of Foreign Policy and International Relations………... 35 ii) Europeanization of foreign policy and the study of European integration…………………………………………………………………. 38 3.3. Europeanization of foreign policy: a systems approach…………………… 48 3.4. Three Dimensions of Europeanization…………………………………….. 56 i) Europeanization as institutional change………………………………… 56 ii) Europeanization as socialization of identities and interests……………. 60 iii) Europeanization of foreign policy action……………………………… 65 3.5. Summary…………………………………………………………………... 68 4. Linking Theory to Empirical Data 4.1. Research Strategy………………………………………………………….. 69 4.2. Research Design…………………………………………………………… 79 4.3. Methods and data collection……………………………………………….. 82 4.4. Summary…………………………………………………………………... 87 5. Europeanization of Foreign Policy-Making 5.1. Introduction………………………………………………………………... 89 5.2. Initial legal-institutional choices…………………………………………... 90 5.3. The Europe Agreements (Pre-accession) stage……………………………. 95 i) Hungary (1990-1998)…………………………………………………… 100 ii) Slovakia (1993-1999)…………………………………………………... 104 iii) Romania (1990-1999) ………………………………………………… 107 5.4. The integration stage………………………………………………………. 112 i) Hungary (1997-2008)…….……………………………………………... 114 ii) Slovakia (1999-2008)….……………………………………………….. 119 iii) Romania (1999-2008) ………………………………………………… 122 5.5. The changing role of the Permanent Representations to the EU…………... 126 5.6. Conclusions………………………………………………………………... 132 6. Europeanization of National Identities 6.1. Introduction……………………………………………………………….. 135 6.2. The Politics of National Identity…………………………………………... 139 iv 6.3. The European Identity Discourse………………………………………….. 151 6.4. Socialization, learning, and power………………………………………… 156 i) Learning………………………………………………………………… 157 ii) Norm entrepreneurs or merely agents of national interest?..................... 167 6.5. Conclusions………………………………………………………………... 174 7. Europeanization of Foreign Policy Conduct 7.1. Introduction………………………………………………………………... 178 7.2. Early foreign policy choices. Continuity and change of foreign policy before EU accession…………………………………………………………… 182 7.3. CFSP and national foreign policies……………………………………….. 187 7.4. The redefinition of the national interest after EU accession……….……… 193 7.5. The 2003 Iraq war: the first test case for the Europeanization