The politics of EU conditionality: the norm of minority protection during and beyond EU accession

Abstract The norm of minority protection is often singled out as a prime example of the political impact of European Union (EU) conditionality on the ethnically diverse states of Central and Eastern Europe. The EU's 'minority condition' is best understood as a political and social construct rooted in European security concerns. As such, it has had very 'real' effects, both intended and unintended, and direct and indirect. This article extends the study of EU conditionality by including the post-accession period, and by concentrating on the politics surrounding conditionality. As the cases of Latvia and Estonia demonstrate, high-intensity EU involvement during the accession process did generate a rationalist momentum for legislative change, and formal compliance gave rise to a perception of behavioural change. However, socialization effects can point in the opposite direction of the rationalist momentum that informs formal legal change and thereby 'lock in' deeper structural problems and contradictory behavioural trends. Keywords: Behavioural changeEstoniaEU conditionalityLatvialegal changeminority protectionsocialization ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Rachel Epstein, James Hughes, Kalypso Nicolaïdis, Mitchell Orenstein, Ulrich Sedelmeier, Sherrill Stroschein and two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on this article. Notes 1 Author's interviews with officials from the Country Desks in DG Enlargement, the Horizontal Co-Ordination Unit and the Legal Service, Brussels, 12–13 January 2004. 2 Author's interview with a Commission official, DG Enlargement, Brussels, 12 January 2004. 3 Author's interview with a Commission official in the Horizontal Co-ordination Unit, 13 January 2004. 4 Statistical data allowing for an assessment of ethnic employment and discrimination are rare and inconclusive. What is most striking is the lack of minority representation in certain sectors and institutions (local government and administration, most state institutions with the exception of the Ministry of the Interior, prison administration and the police) resulting from the Soviet era ethnic division of labour, the consequences of the citizenship and language policies, and a degree of self-segregation on the part of both the majority and the minorities (especially in educational institutions and small private companies) (see Pabriks Citation2002). 5 Compared to 22. 4 per cent and 12. 5 per cent of Latvia's and Estonia's resident population respectively before accession; see European Commission (Citation2002a, Citation2002b). 6 The Council Directive 2003/109/EC has been interpreted to include all non-EU citizens irrespective of their citizenship or statelessness. 7 Amendments to Estonia's Law on Citizenship entered into force in March 2004, providing for the state to reimburse the fee for Estonian language training for persons who have passed the naturalization examination. The overall naturalization process has been shortened, and persons born before 1930 are now exempt from the written examination component, though the obligation to pass the oral language examination remains; see https: //wcd. coe. int/ViewDoc. jsp? id = 1163131#P106₄925). 8 In his last report (2003) on Latvia, the Council of Europe's High Commissioner also urged that 'the state should do even more to bring those populations into its fold, as a forthright demonstration to them of their place in Latvian society' (https: //wcd. coe. int/ViewDoc. jsp? id = 112881&Site = COE&BackColorInternet = 9999CC&BackColorIntranet = &BackColorLogged = FDC864). He recorded 'that the communities concerned often perceive the positive changes as very slow and that there is a consequent danger that they may fail to achieve their purpose and thereby aggravate certain tensions between the minorities generally (non-citizens in particular) and those of Latvian stock, who frequently feel misunderstood despite all the efforts that have been made', and concluded that it was clear that 'the naturalizations have not achieved their objective in that the numbers naturalized are still on the low side and the tendency in the last two years (2001 and 2002) has been downwards. ' 9 See http: //conventions. coe. int/Treaty/Commun/ListeDeclarations. asp? NT = 157&CM = 8&DF = 4/19/2006&CL = ENG&VL = 1 10 http: //www. mfa. gov. lv/en/news/press-releases/2005/May/27-3/? print = on 11 Vladimir Socor, 'Council of Europe's biased rapporteur overruled on Lativa', see http: //www. jamestown. org/edm/article. php? articleᵢd = 2370534 12 In Estonia's 2007 elections the Social Democratic Party obtained 10. 6 per cent of the vote and was easily accommodated as part of a centre-right governing coalition with the liberal Estonian Reform Party and the conservative Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica (http: //www. valitsus. ee/? lang = en). 13 Author's interviews with members of the Latvian parliament, Riga, September 2005. 14 The removal of the 'Bronze Soldier' monument from the centre of Tallinn in early May 2007 triggered violent clashes, partly orchestrated by the Kremlin-sponsored Russian youth movement 'Nashi', and a political crisis in Estonian–Russian relations.