“Russian invasion in 2022 created a major changes in EU policy"

“Russian invasion in 2022 and the threat that it poses not only to Ukraine, but also other countries in the East, that has really created an urgency to do as much as the EU can to keep these countries in its own camp and to deny Russian influence. And I think that is the major change”.

Interview with Frank Schimmelfennig

 

Dr. Frank Schimmelfennig is the prominent scientist in the feild of European Studies and European Integration theorist. His academic background is diverse, with studies in Political Science and History across several universities including Mainz, Dijon, Tübingen, and Tufts University's Fletcher School for Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Massachusetts, USA. Today, Prof. Schimmelfennig leads the European Politics Research Group at ETH Zurich and is a key member of the Center for Comparative and International Studies.

His thesis "The EU, NATO and the Integration of Europe. Rules and Rhetoric," published by Cambridge University Press in 2003, was recognized with the Best Book Award for 2003 and 2004 by the European Union Studies Association.

His contributions to the field of European politics and international relations are well-recognized and hard to overestimate.

 

O. Kandyuk: First of all, thank you for agreeing for the interview, because it was very important for me to start this series of interviews with someone who has this theoretical importance in the field as you and your works.

And just to start, to understand that we are on a common ground, Do you believe that after the events of 2022, the EU enlargement will happen anyway, sooner or later, or whether it's a possibility that it ain't going to happen?

F. Schimmelfennig: Well, I think it's still an open question. So, I think there's clearly a renewed commitment on the part of the EU. I mean, if you had asked me that question before 2022, I would have said, well, I don't see anything happening anytime soon.

And also this time, there's on the one hand, clearly a new commitment and a new urgency, and it has reinvigorated the whole process. But I think it's an open question when it's going to happen. And I think one also need to be clear, it's also a question of “if”.

The process is well on the way now. Important political decisions have been made, but they have been made before with regard to the Western Balkans and Turkey, and we see what has happened.

O. Kandyuk: Yes, so you think the “if” is still there?

F. Schimmelfennig: Yes, I think there's a general commitment, but I think there's also on the part of many actors, the feeling that they really couldn't say “no” but who have very important reservations and really, really hedge their bets and say: “Ok, let's put the process on track, but then let's see how it goes”. And I don't think any final decisions have been made yet. I think the process is still very much open-ended.

O. Kandyuk: So let's go to the theory more or less. In some of your work in 2004 and 2005, I think, after this Big Bang enlargement, you wrote that the post-accession, Europeanization of new member states could slow down and stop, or could even move in reverse when the external incentives disappear. So do you think that it is the case nowadays, is that what we're witnessing? And if so, why do you think it's happening to these countries? Why Hungary and Poland? Why, for example, not Bulgaria, which was basically one of the underdogs of the enlargement?

F. Schimmelfennig: Yes, I think the first thing to keep in mind is that this process of Europeanization broadly defined which includes democratization, the transformation of institutions and policies. The most important conditions for all of these processes are domestic.

So the EU basically has a role to play, but it's not the most important one. So with all of these things, I think it's mainly a domestic politics decision. And the EU can tilt the balance a little bit in favor or against this happening. So I think this is always to keep in mind. I mean, the EU is not that all-powerful external actor. And I think there are, in all of these countries, there are important domestic legacies. There are institutional legacies. And I think the role of the EU in tilting the balance in one or the other direction is a small and important one. Indeed, it creates incentives. But in the end, it's up to the domestic actors, whether they use these incentives to drive the reform agenda forward or whether also for domestic political reasons they choose not to use these incentives. But our starting point was, if the EU has to play any role at all, it can only do so by providing strong external incentives. That means the incentive of membership. And also this incentive of membership has to be credible.

But then we've seen once countries are in the EU, of course the membership incentive is gone. And there's no way in which the EU can normally expel any member state.

So this incentive is lower. I think it has become a bit stronger now because the EU has found ways at least to deprive member states of some of the benefits if they violate basic norms and values of the EU. But this has been a very slow, very cumbersome and up to now not very effective process.

This is why the EU's incentives, once countries become members, are really low. And then it almost completely depends on the domestic politics. And in some cases we say the EU has been lucky because the domestic forces have been strong enough to keep momentum going and in other cases there have been domestic reversals that were not expected at the time of accession.

O. Kandyuk: But why do you think the EU is not that powerful in this transformative politics? For example, why is the EU not using the Article 7 yet? Is it only the problem of unanimity or is there maybe something else?

F. Schimmelfennig: I think of course there are extremely high formal hurdles which make it almost impossible. Across all member states there's also a bit of caution to use that instrument. Some of the member states, even if they are abiding by the general norms and rules, they configure a situation in which it could happen to them.

So that makes it difficult. Also the EU is still very much an international organization where you respect the sovereignty of member states to a large extent. I think the formal hurdles are the most important thing but there's also a general reluctance to lower these hurdles and to make your own state vulnerable to collective action by the EU.

O. Kandyuk: Speaking about differentiated integration. You emphasized that differentiated integration in many ways the key to the success of the 2004 expansion. Among other things, horizontal differentiation was an important aspect. You were thinking that differentiation has become a core feature of the EU that is likely to persist in the years to come. Do you think that differentiation will also help in the future enlargement, given that the gap between the applicant countries is bigger this time? Don’t you think it brings the risk of discrimination?

F. Schimmelfennig: Well, These are a couple of questions.

The first thing is, generally you could say the less wealthy new member states are and the more there are doubts within the old member states about whether the new member states are fit for membership; the more we see this kind of differentiated integration in accession. That has always been the case. It's nothing new. And because for the 2004-2007 enlargement, this gap has been larger than before, there were also more differentiated policy areas. So if we extrapolate that to the future, we can say, since for the current accession candidates, this gap is again larger than it was before.

This is not Switzerland or Norway joining. I think it's quite obvious that we will see more differentiated rules or policies when and if these countries join. So I would say that's quite a safe prediction.

To some extent it's the price that accession candidates pay in order to overcome the doubts and reservations among the old member states. I think it gives the old member states some level of confidence that the immediate effect of enlargement on the policies of the EU can be mitigated by introducing these transitional periods. So it's a bit of a deal.

For the candidate countries, it definitely facilitates the accession because without these transitional periods many of the old member states would be willing to push the accession date even further into the future. So that's what the accession candidates gain. And the old member states gain, let's say, they basically buy a bit of time.

And that also is important to build confidence among the old member states once the new countries have joined, that they will function well and policies will not be overwhelmed and so on.

Now, is it discrimination? I think it becomes discrimination, when the full participation in the EU's policy is pushed into the future for reasons that have little to do with the policy itself. In the past, we can see that the discriminatory effect has been rather low because most of these differentiations during the accession process ended in the first five to ten years of membership. So it was clear that they would end at some point. And so I think for the new members, it was a reasonable price to pay that for a couple of years they wouldn't fully benefit from European integration or membership.

But we've also seen some warning signs. If you think, for instance, of Bulgarian and Romanian Schengen membership, which has been pushed into the future for a long time and for reasons that often had nothing to do with how really fit they were for the policy. The Commission had said for a long time, that they can actually give them full Schengen membership and then there were always individual members that could block the process. That's also an issue, that for these policies, each individual membership can block full accession and that can basically make the new member states hostage for political reasons that have nothing to do with the policy itself.

So I think, yes, we will have differentiated accession and membership for any new members and probably in a more pronounced way than it had been before. But I think the EU needs to make sure that the conditions of this differentiated membership do not lend itself to that kind of discrimination. So, I mean, there needs to be clearly defined targets and there needs to be a process in which individual member states can take the process hostage.

O. Kandyuk: So, in that case, what about these old differentiation concepts, like the “multiple speed Europe”? Could it be applicable in a new round of enlargement?

F. Schimmelfennig: Yes, I think enlargement has always been multi-speed Europe. But, I mean, the idea of multi-speed Europe is that there are different timelines for different member states, but at some point we will all come together and it's just multiple speeds but not multiple ends.

Of course, there are also ideas now that would reverse that. So, there are, for example, durable forms of “membership light”, but that's not what the EU enlargement process has been so far. And I also don't see that there is a consensus on moving in that direction.

There is a lot of thinking now about differentiated, about multi-speed integration in the new enlargement. There are these ideas coming from СEPS and others on staged accession that you might have come across. There are also ideas in the Commission of, let's say, offering candidate countries participation in some policies, entry into the single market before they become members.

And then there are also ideas, that the countries can be members, but even if they join, they cannot immediately participate in all of these policies. So, there is a lot of thinking now on this multi-speed membership and I think it is definitely going to happen. To some extent, it has become a durable feature also of European integration that countries have opt-outs or have different timelines in participating in policies.

So, there is nothing inherently problematic about it. And I think one also has to understand that without these ideas of multi-speed and differentiated accession, it will be very hard to have any accession at all.

O. Kandyuk: You also have some works on Europeanization beyond EU. How would you evaluate the success of European strategies in this respect? I mean the neighbourhood policy and in particular the Eastern Partnership. Could it be more successful than it was?

F. Schimmelfennig: In our studies over a long period, we have always argued that there are limits to success of Europeanization if you don't offer a country full membership, if you don't promise that in a credible way. Because there are always domestic hurdles to Europeanization.

I mean, Europeanization basically means that you transform your own country so that it moves closer to the EU norms with regard to democracy, rule of law, human rights, but also with regard to how specific policies are regulated. And of course, if it was in the interest of the major political actors in each country, they would do it on their own. So, these external incentives in Europeanization, that kicks in when these processes meet domestic hurdles, when there are high costs, when there is domestic resistance by certain interest groups, parties, political actors.

This is when it becomes important. In order to overcome these domestic hurdles, you need to offer these actors that incur costs, something. And the best thing you can offer to them is to say: “Look, if you do this, you have a good chance of becoming a member with all the benefits that come with it”.

Still, you will always find domestic actors that think, that it is advantageous to be authoritarian, powerful party, to have that clientelistic policy and have state capture rather than membership. And we see it in Serbia, Georgia, to a large extent. Political actors make that calculation, but in the end say: “Ok, the domestic power I have is more important to me than EU membership”. And this is when the EU loses power, unless it can mobilize other actors against these powerful actors. And that’s where the accession process loses its realism.

The other thing that we've also seen a lot in the Europeanization process, before these countries got a membership perspective, is that to some extent there's a lot of “window dressing”. We see lots of legislative proposals that look like the EU policies. But then when you look at the actual implementation, it has been very limited.

Again, it's something that also happens inside the EU. But there at least you have courts, you have the Commission, you have monitoring. And that's much weaker, of course, for non-member states.

O. Kandyuk: Speaking about External Incentives Model. Already in 2019 you wrote that In the CEE and SEE pre-accession contexts, the EU offers the same (high) rewards, but their credibility has diminished significantly. Do you think that situation changed nowadays? Do you think that credibility is restoring? Or it is still just a question of political rhetoric?

F. Schimmelfennig: No, I think that there is a major change. I mean, first of all, that enlargement in the eyes of policymakers has become a lot more urgent. So, in the pre-2022 Western Balkans, you would say, things were pretty much stable, I mean, not perfect, but it's a small region. It doesn't create many economic or security problems for the EU. So the EU could well afford to keep these countries in limbo. And there was no urgency to really move ahead with enlargement.

And I think the Russian invasion in 2022 and the threat that it poses not only to Ukraine, but also other countries in the East, that has really created an urgency to do as much as the EU can to keep these countries in its own camp and to deny Russian influence. So, I think that is the major change. So, it has become a lot more credible on the EU side.

Also, I think it has united the EU.  For a very long time, with the exception of Hungary, of course, the EU has been extremely united on this policy, and that has not been the case on the Western Balkans. So, I think one important issue for credibility is how united are the member states behind this policy. This unity has been very strong after 2022. How long it will last we'll have to see. But I think it has become more urgent. The EU has become more unified on enlargement. The EU clearly understands, it has to do something in its Eastern neighborhood. And I think enlargement is still the most important thing the EU can do for non-member states that share its norms and values. And so, I think that also explains the renewed emphasis on enlargement.

So, not all the credibility issues are gone. I think it's still an open question; there are member states that can block the process. I mean, the way the enlargement process is organized, Hungary has the possibility to block it basically every half a year. And there might be other member states that might join.

Besides the domestic situation in the member states is still a bit of an open issue. I mean, how united will the domestic public remain behind this policy? And what kind of changes in government we might see in the member states? I think these are open questions that might undermine the credibility going forward.

O. Kandyuk: You are tending to be the supporter of intergovernmentalism or an intergovernmental approach in explaining European integration. But this approach itself implies a lot of obstacles in further integration and deepening of the integration. So, in this case, do you believe in the future of “ever closer union”? And if so, in what way?

F. Schimmelfennig: Well, this linear progress towards “ever closer union” I think is not realistic and it's also not what we have seen in recent years.

We have definitely in all of the member states a shift towards more Eurosceptic forces in the party spectrum. There's also very little Euro enthusiasm among the population. There's solid support to maintain European integration but there's also not a lot of appetite in turning that into a federal entity.

The domestic situation speaks against – parties that are Eurosceptic are, on the whole, getting stronger. But I think what we've also seen in the past decade -15 years is when the EU is in crisis and the survival of core policies of the EU or the EU itself is in question, that actually mobilizes support both among the member states and among the population as well. I mean, there's little appetite in moving backwards either.

So what we've seen is when there's a strong crisis and individual member states are unable to deal with that crisis on their own the EU can actually mobilize resources as it has done in the Euro-crisis with the European Central Bank and the funds in the COVID pandemic with Next Generation EU and other support schemes. Also now, with the Ukraine issue there has been a lot of mobilization in terms of providing resources but it has not really led to a centralization of powers in the EU. So I think we have to keep that apart.

Ever closer union, meaning in terms of crisis, mobilizing solidarity and joint resources that has worked, but it has not necessarily worked in terms of transferring powers from the nation state to the European Union strongly empowering the European Parliament or the European Commission.

These are two separate things, and I think it's quite unrealistic to assume that “ever closer union” means turning more into a federalist polity, or whether it means, let's say, joining resources in times of crisis – there I'm much more optimistic.

O. Kandyuk: So you don't think that a more centralized EU is a plausible scenario in this field?

F. Schimmelfennig: No, I don't think so.

O. Kandyuk: And what do you think will be the influence of possible enlargement? I mean, do you think that enlargement is an antonym for deepening in this case, or can they develop in the same plane?

F. Schimmelfennig: If we look at the past, we often see that deepening and widening have gone hand in hand. And so it's not that the two are antagonistic in some way. But I think it's also plausible to say with a European Union of 35 countries, structures need to be reformed.

If we look at this from a political or institutional perspective, that seems to be obvious. But I don't think that there's a strong appetite among the member states for doing this. So there are some member states who say, that in the process of enlargement, we also need to think about internal reform, reforming our decision-making process, abolishing veto, strengthening the rule of law.

That's all fine, and it makes a lot of sense. But I don't think it's going to happen. So if you insist on these things to happen before enlargement, I'd rather think we will not have enlargement rather than having that internal reform, because that needs a consensus, and I don't see where the consensus is.

So probably if enlargement is going to happen, it's going to happen mainly within the current structures. There's no legal need for internal reform before enlargement. It can happen within the current institutions and within the current rules.

And we've also seen after the 2004-2007 enlargement that for quite a number of years it had actually worked quite well. It started to become more problematic after the domestic changes in Hungary and Poland, which then undermined the decision-making process. But this is again outside of the reach of the EU.

So EU could legally and institutionally enlarge without major institutional reforms, just some adaptations. And if member states, and that's also the case a little bit with France and Germany, if they really insist on internal reform in the process of enlargement, I think this will definitely slow down the enlargement process and might actually stop it.

O. Kandyuk: This was actually one of my next questions about the consequences of enlargement. Will this bigger EU be manageable? And what kind of tools do you see to make it more manageable in the context of the general discussion about unanimity and more powers for Brussels?

F. Schimmelfennig: It has all been very much discussed. It is clearly for the EU, foreign security policy will become more important. And I think that veto system limits the ability of the EU to become a relevant foreign policy actor. So, sure, if I were to make a decision, I would abolish the veto and just introduce some kind of qualified majority. But I don't see this happening.

So I think we have to live with these institutional settings. Despite, it also means there's with each veto opportunities, there are opportunities for throwing sand into the workings and makes decisions more difficult.

Also, we have a crisis of leadership in the EU. I think the traditional leaders, Germany, France, their role has become weaker. Also, their leaders, the country leaders are weaker. And so that also limits the strategic capacity of the European Union.

And having 35 members also means the membership is going to be much more heterogeneous. It is 35 countries from different regions with different needs, different levels of wealth and democracy. Clearly this EU will be more difficult to manage.

But then I think this is exactly where I see an opportunity for differentiated integration. For instance, at least we could say that for some time maybe the new member states should not have a veto. And I think many of the current candidates would be happy to say: “Okay, the most important thing is we get in and we happily give up our veto”.

Thus at least the situation will not be worse. Some of the policies might become very costly – agriculture, cohesion policies. But, as it has been done before, we can just slowly phase in agricultural subsidies. And Ukraine actually doesn't need them. It is powerful enough on the world market.

There are also problems with policies, with decision-making processes. So let's at least for the new countries have a certain time period in which there's no veto.

And then over time we'll see that many of the new member states have been very successful in catching up economically. Usually growth has been stronger in new member states than in old member states. So over time that will reduce the gaps.

It's also a chance to build confidence among the member states. And so I think it will be very difficult to reform the EU for all member states. It will be much easier for the new member states to introduce some institutional policy reforms that will make it easier for them to join.

The price will be differentiated integration and that the new member states will at least for some time not have the same rights and benefits as the old member states.

O. Kandyuk: Recently you wrote, I quote: “Even now, EU enlargement is not an efficient ‘realist’ response to the Russian military threat but an act of community building and demarcation”. What do you mean by that? What makes you think so?

F. Schimmelfennig: European integration has from its beginning been a process of community building, community building through economic and policy integration. So that has also been the story of enlargement.

I mean, as the liberal democratic community of European countries has expanded through a number of revolutions, first in southern Europe, then in eastern Europe, this community of underlying norms and values has expanded. And the major reason for enlargement was to bring these countries into the regional community and also strengthen their transformation and build European integration on the basis of these common values and norms. Now that we see that these fundamental norms and values are under attack that has strongly motivated the EU to put a stronger emphasis on enlargement in order to help and protect those countries that commit themselves to the values of the EU and try to resist basically Russian dominance and dictatorship. And so I think that demarcation is that the EU has increasingly included those countries through association and now the accession process. At the same time, it has excluded or stopped expanding relations with those countries that went in the other direction.

Turkey first, Russia now, Belarus, and let's see what happens in Georgia after the elections. So this demarcation means that in our integration process we draw a line between those countries that share our values and norms and those that don't, and we intensify relations and institutional arrangements with those that share our values and we exclude those that do not. That's the demarcation. And that's what the EU basically does. It uses its policies, its markets, its economic and institutional power, but it does not have military power to protect. So in that respect, I think there are limits. When the security of its prospective community members is threatened by an outside power, the EU itself cannot decisively do something. In my view, it has to be NATO that has to step in. It has to give security guarantees. And what we've seen, of course, in the past in Eastern Europe is typically NATO membership first, then EU membership. Now, for a number of reasons, this is not happening in Eastern Europe, but I think at some point it needs to happen for this process to be successful.

That is, for instance, Ukraine can only be a functioning and safe member of the European Union if it has strong and preferably NATO security guarantees. Otherwise, I don't see how this is going to work.

O. Kandyuk: In his book Crises of European integration Lucas Schramm distinguishes four crisis outcomes for the EU polity: transformation, adaptation, stagnation, and regression. What kind of future is the most probable for EU from the today’s perspective?

F. Schimmelfennig: This is a typology of how the EU deals with crisis. It's not a typology on how the EU develops. And, of course, he points out under what conditions we find one or the other.

O. Kandyuk: But we know more or less the prerequisite what kind of crisis we have now.

F. Schimmelfennig: And, of course, there are different crises. So, I mean, if we analyze the Russia’s war against Ukraine crisis, one of the conditions that he [Lucas Schramm] strongly makes is Franco-German unity and leadership. I think that this condition is definitely there because I think there's not a major divide between the two countries.

O. Kandyuk: At least with unity.

F. Schimmelfennig: Yes, the proactive leadership is, as we said before, is not quite strong at the moment. Then there's this issue of interdependence that he mentions, symmetrical interdependence. I think that's also there to a large extent. There's some kind of a common European threat perception. Of course, the issue is different for Portugal and for Latvia.

But still this symmetrical interdependence of European countries and the common threat perception, that's definitely something that is quite strong to this day. I mean, we see quite a bit of variation among the European countries. But, there has been a huge shift in this perception of Russia as the major threat in the past years in all of the member states.

It's not that you have a majority of people in the member states that say Russia is our friend and ally and partner. On the other hand, if you take enlargement as a kind of transformation, then I think it's clearly a transformative crisis.

O. Kandyuk: Hopefully. And finally, I cannot help but address the issue of scenarios. I understand that any expert prefers to avoid giving forecasts or scenarios, but since I am working on a project with scenarios, I cannot help myself but ask. If you were asked to outline possible scenarios for Ukraine's integration into the EU, which 2-3 options would you describe?

F. Schimmelfennig: From the European perspective, let's say, that there's a worst-case scenario, which means that U.S. support for Ukraine goes down. There's going to be some kind of shady deal with Putin that will leave Ukraine, first of all, divided and unsafe without any strong Western security guarantees. And that might be a scenario in which there's not going to be membership and the EU will basically put its efforts on keeping the Ukrainians in a kind of gray zone as a kind of buffer for other states.

So, that's one scenario. Now, let's assume there's going to be continued U.S. support and European support. It's not enough for Ukraine to live, but too much for Ukraine to die, basically.

I do think that at some point there will be some kind of arrangement or deal, but I think it only makes sense if it comes with, say, a massive commitment of NATO and the European countries to defend whatever is left of Ukraine at this point. Hopefully a lot, but probably not all of Ukraine. And under this condition, I think the enlargement process can move forward and can be successful at some point, provided that would be the third scenario that, say, the domestic situation in Ukraine also remains stable and committed towards democratization, fighting corruption, making sure we have a rule of law. I mean, I also think this is not guaranteed, depending on how the situation is.

But, I mean, the domestic situation is not guaranteed, which would mean that then the accession of Ukraine might not work out and it will remain in some kind of Serbia situation or Western Balkan situation that we had before, or Turkey situation. Unfortunately, that is still a scenario. I think we can think of these scenarios. We can also discuss of the conditions under which one or the other scenario is likely, but I find it very hard to predict which condition will happen, right?