The MAX­CAP Working Pa­per No. 5 “The Ef­fects of the Eas­tern En­lar­ge­ment on the De­ci­si­on-Ma­king Ca­pa­ci­ty of the Eu­ro­pe­an Uni­on” by Di­miter Tosh­kov has been pub­lis­hed. You can down­load the Working Pa­per here.

The pa­per in­ves­ti­ga­tes the im­pact of the Eas­tern en­lar­ge­ment on the de­ci­si­on-ma­king ca­pa­ci­ty of the Eu­ro­pe­an Uni­on. On the ba­sis of new data on the num­ber and ty­pes of le­gal acts pro­du­ced by the EU (1994-2014) and on the time bet­we­en the pro­po­sal and adop­ti­on of le­gis­la­ti­ve acts (1994-2012), the pa­per argues that en­lar­ge­ment has had a rat­her li­mi­ted im­pact on le­gis­la­ti­ve pro­duc­tion and du­ra­ti­on, and that it is ext­re­me­ly hard to di­sentang­le this im­pact from other con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous in­sti­tu­ti­o­nal and so­cio-eco­no­mic de­ve­lop­ments. On the ba­sis of ana­ly­ses of ex­pert-ba­sed coun­try po­si­ti­ons in EU ne­go­ti­a­ti­ons and on vo­ting data from the Coun­cil of Mi­nis­ters of the EU, it is argued that en­lar­ge­ment has pos­sibly ad­ded a new di­men­si­on of con­testa­ti­on in EU le­gis­la­ti­ve de­ci­si­on-ma­king, but one that con­cerns a re­la­tive­ly small sha­re of all ne­go­ti­a­ti­ons in few po­licy fields like en­vi­ron­ment. The pa­per also re­views se­con­da­ry sour­ces on the more vi­sib­le in­flu­ence of en­lar­ge­ment on the mo­des and cul­tu­re of EU de­ci­si­on-ma­king and its ef­fects on the or­ga­niza­ti­o­nal as­pects of the main EU in­sti­tu­ti­ons. Ad­di­ti­o­nal­ly, the pa­per pre­sents a de­tai­led qua­li­ta­ti­ve over­view of the ma­jor chal­len­ges and re­spon­ses the EU has had in the pe­ri­od 2004-2013, but finds litt­le in­di­ca­ti­ons that the ac­ces­si­on of the post-com­mu­nist coun­tries has left a di­rect and sig­ni­fi­cant im­print on the ma­jor de­ve­lop­ments that sha­ped the cour­se of Eu­ro­pe­an in­teg­ra­ti­on sin­ce 2004. All in all, the­re is no evi­dence that the Eas­tern en­lar­ge­ment has led to the in­sti­tu­ti­o­nal grid­lock, loss of prob­lem-sol­ving ca­pa­ci­ty and inabi­li­ty to ma­na­ge that the pub­lic, many po­li­ti­ci­ans as well as some aca­de­mics have fe­a­red.

It is the ob­jec­ti­ve of the MAX­CAP Working Pa­per Se­ries to dis­se­mi­na­te the re­search re­sults of the re­search con­sor­ti­um to a wide au­di­ence, in­clu­ding the aca­de­mia as well as the ge­ne­ral pub­lic. Thus, all Working Pa­pers can be down­loa­ded free of char­ge from our websi­te.