EU Membership Criteria Evaluation Dissertation

EU social station Criteria Evaluation Dissertation rescindThe purpose of this thesis is sacrificeing a new social rank mechanism for the europiuman confederacy (EU). As the EU struggles with different kind of issues those showed up lately payable to its social rank mechanism, the demand for a new social status governing body arises. The thesis follows five musical notes to come up with a new solution. First step covers in seduceation of the period rank musical arrangement. back up step refers particular problems closely related with rank organisation. In third phase the frame make for of the recommended constitution is built up considering the problems. at bottom the fourth step, the new st driftgy applied on mentioned problems to manipulate how it effects certain situation in theory. Fin each(prenominal)y, the self-criticism on the recommended constitution and the parity between recommended and reliable social station mechanism is done in the fifth part.To un derstand the necessity of a new social station strategy at least the existent structure with its historical background shall(a) be know. As much as knowing well the inception of problems, analyzing problems separately is in addendum demand to perform a solution. In the same way to come up with a solution, the establishment of the system shall be based on arguments those proveed step up during the examination of the current social rank system. While settling the new system, required elements were inspired from different disciplines of the social science. To check the functionality of the new system, it is applied to related problems. More specific explanations or so the system argon held during this checking dish. counterbalance if it sounds well surgical operation in theory, in that location might be rough points to criticize in the new system since the perfection of a system is hard to achieve in social topics. The farthest thing to decide intimately whether choos ing the recommended system or not is comparing the system with the current one according to their advantages and disadvantages.All in all, the thesis claims that the European Union is going to behave a propellent portionship mechanism which provides more efficiency in genus Phallusship activities. As a result, the EU can solve its problems and gain its structural solidity. In former(a) words, the unification of member states whitethorn process faster than before.INTRODUCTIONThe AssumptionThe European Union is NOT a sacredly organise structure un comparable it is suspected and conspired as a Christianity Union by close to governmental scientists.1.2 The EU and necessity of a new membership systemEurope has achieved a very stunning build up in unification so far. However the mind bending motility Does the unification make anything break off for all of the EU countries? unflurried doesnt have a clear answer. From 1952 Paris agreement until 2007 the last expanding upon, the European Union (EU) enlarged fifth times and each enlargement separately came with some pros and cons. It has been joust that how come a positive and beneficial work on could create drawbacks and be harmful rather than helpful. Even though the ideology behind the establishment of the European Union is basically covers mutual beneficial agreement, in some way enlargements make some members current social and economic situation worse. Besides, there ar as well as some debates on whether enlargements should continue or not. After considering long-term cost-benefit analysis of enlargement attempts some doubts justifiably wound up about necessity of enlargement. The answer of these kinds of questions and results of these arguments go out be as well as provided if the dilemma of enlargement is solved. It is easy to point out the problems and backwards of enlargement observing the social and economic fluctuation in the EU countries. However, home run the initial cause and f undamental reason of these problems and to find exact solutions, as much as the source of problems argon different and varied and cannot be solved without major regulations, the enlargement structure should be examined per se. Thus, to watch the main stream of enlargement problems, essentially focusing on the enlargement progress is necessary.As the question aroused about the enlargement progress, the membership process that the skeleton of enlargement is so important to essay and scoot after the basic reason of problems in the EU with cost-benefit perspective. It can be said that the membership process whitethorn actually the origin of the problems which can be monitored in the EU. To see how membership process affects the Union badly, a comparison of social and economic indicators between current and previous situations is truly required. In other words, analyzing from the big bang of the EU till current situation by looking at enlargement results gives some clues to underst and how problematic the membership process is. Additionally, the current social and economic situation of the EU members and the EUs relations with other states are also helpful indicators to recognize the problem in membership process. Furthermore, during the analysis it can be observed that in some cases the legal and written rules of the EU come short to cover the legal loophole at the current membership process.After reaching the cobblers last of analysis about the membership process, the system can be regulated and may be re-create according to the results those show us whether the system should be changed. Although if the results objectively refer the moderate performance of membership process, a new prospectively designed system testament good-tempered be suggested to optimize the system and increase efficiency. Because by having a flashback to the establishment of the ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community) it can be seen that the main scheme of the EU was created to improve and support efficiency among countries. Thus if there is a more efficient and beneficial system which helps the EU to get rid of its problems curiously, it should be preferred to current membership process due to ideologic background of the EU, even though the current system works with difficulties. Besides, the recommended system will compromise with the current system by adapting most of its features.Mostly, membership systems are thought so strictly binding with members and rules of membership are not energizing to adopt with a new unknow situation. But the recommended membership system which will be designed and tested can bring dynamism into the EU structure. The structure of membership process is bases on the framework of dynamic systems. As the ideology and motto of the new system, it can be said the whole world changes and differs every second to form adjustment with each items in it, systems also should be so dynamic that adopt with every sort of situation. In ot her words, the life is dynamic by itself. Therefore, a dynamic system for the EU membership mechanism is more realistic than a static membership model. Even in social sciences much(prenominal) as economics a dynamic analysis of providence is more explanatory than a static analysis and it also has more condition results.This thesis follows on five steps those will give us an understanding of change and the disagreement of new membership system. First of all, the current membership system and enlargement activities will be mentioned to observe the current situation. Secondly, the inter field, social and economical problems caused by current membership system will be mentioned specially. The current problems and the lack of solution method against them will be shown in this part. Thirdly, the difference and requirements of new recommended membership system will be introduced. Furthermore, the occupation of the new membership system will be tried out with problems which would have been mentioned on the second step. Lastly, the conclusion to make an overall analysis and self-criticism of nominated membership system emphasizing advantages and disadvantages of both membership systems will be pointed out. At the beginning of the thesis, the assumption is placed in the middle of the first page without any additional script to emphasize it very strongly. Because the whole thesis is bases on the assumption that the European Union is just a union tries to increase common benefits of all countries in Europe without any discrimination. Otherwise, if it was not said so and the European Union was a religiously established union, there would be no need to improve efficiency of the membership process because the solely one membership criterion that would have been looked for would be the Christianity of the applicant countries. Hence, the thesis would be smashedingless, the current application of non-Christian countries as well. The assumption also helps to set the borde r of this thesis. During the thesis, the focus will just be on objective materials without referring any speculative comments. The dynamic system will be recommended for the EU can also be used as a conflict resolution method on the other unions problem.With beliefs of the EU wants to have a more efficient and beneficial system, and also the EU defends that the unification of economic system and the harmonization of social structures shall be carried forward, a dynamic system will solve most of the problems in the union without getting in any other political debates such as religion.As an psychiatric hospital for drawbacks of the current system, slowdown in economic indicators, rising of nationalist ideology and parties, rejection of the EU constitution, domestic honourable problems in member states such as in Italy, Budget deficit problems in member states like Greece and Spain, lack of common foreign and security insurance, and loosing beliefs of scene states on the EU can be r eferred among gobs of problems.Nowadays, the EU is not in a comparable position with its former strength but the comparison of situations after and before enlargement activities will show that how the current system affects the strength of the union negatively. Thus, it will also explain how a membership system can diminish the power of a union. As simple as in the metaphor about flywheels of a machine, if there is any flywheel that works reversely, it should be gotten out from the mechanism before it blocks the working system. Even if a member state doesnt work simultaneously with the union, the Union may be able to ban the state or hold its membership for a while. Otherwise the whole legal structure doesnt help the system to work properly, this illustrates that the membership mechanism needs to be restored with an efficient one.PART ITHE CURRENT MEMBERSHIP SYSTEM AND amplification ACTIVITIES2.1 The current membership SystemThe current membership system bases on deuce-ace differ ent documents which are The 1992 Treaty of Maastricht (Article 49),The annunciation of the June 1993 European Council in Copenhagen, i.e. Copenhagen criteria, and a document is decided after negotiations about adaptation to acquis communautaire between European Union and medical prognosis state. Lately, all of the membership requirements and its legal structure were combined into the Treaty of Lisbon. This means that all of those three documents are included into the pact of Lisbon with a couple of updates. Especially, the Copenhagen Criteria are the rules that decide whether a coarse is eligible to join the European Union and they are also known as the main detailed source for the membership prerequisites. Firstly, the idea of preparing a legal content for membership carried out with the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht (Article O). In Article 49 (formerly Article O), the geographical criteria and about general policy criteria were settled down. Then, with the 1993 Copenhagen Criteri a, the general policy criteria of membership were described in more details considering three aspects Political, sparing and Legislative. After all those criteria, as a homestretch, measures and regulations decided by negotiations between the European Union and candidate states fulfill the scheme of membership requirement for the EU. Most of these criteria have been confirmed over the last cristal by legislation of the European Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament, as well as by the case law of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights.The mentioned documents provide all requisites to reach a member state of the EU. Thus, criteria can be sorted with sub-categories to understand what the EU demands from candidates particularly regarding to the general policy, geographic, political, economic, and legislative criteria. As a main frame the general policy criteria can be summarized as in the Article O (Maastricht Treaty)Any European S tate may apply to generate a fraction of the Union. It shall address its application to the Council, which shall act unanimously after consulting the Commission and after receiving the give in of the European Parliament, which shall act by an absolute majority of its component members. The conditions of admission and the adjustments to the Treaties on which the Union is founded which such admission entails shall be the subject of an agreement between the 16 Member States and the applicant state. This agreement shall be submitted for ratification by all the contracting States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. (European Commission, 1992a)In addition to the article it can be extensively illustrated by an excerpt from the Copenhagen Presidency conclusionsMembership requires that candidate republic has achieved st efficacy of institutions guaranteeing state, the rule of law, gentleman rights, respect for and protection of minorities, the existence of a functioning merchandise economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces deep down the Union. Membership presupposes the candidates ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union. (Copenhagen European Council, 1993 1)Regarding its acquis and actions, the EU doesnt have certain steady geographic criteria for candidates. The EU refused Moroccos applications a couple of decades ago, in 1987 due to territorial and geographical difference. Besides, even though Turkey has small part of its territory on the European holy and Turkey is on negotiation phase of membership process now, the membership of Turkey is still a huge debate. On the other hand, the speculations about the membership of Israel is considerably spread because of close economic and politic relations between Israel and the EU (Europa, 2007) and new-madely some Prime Ministers of member states individually te ll that they would be happy to see Israel as a member state of the EU soon (Rettman, 2010). Hence, in the legal documents, the geographic criteria briefly demands that the candidate country shall have territory on the European continent and economical, cultural, historical and political ties with other European states as well. On the other hand, in practice, it can be seen so questionable. There is no clear answer for this dilemma. It can be easily illustrated by the circumstance that, before the rejection of Morocco, the EU accepted french Guiana to join the union despite the reality that it is in sulfur Africa. Both countries mentioned in this case have similar background within France. The only difference is irrelevant French Guiana, Morocco is independent right now. However, instead of both countries, only French Guiana is in the EU. As a result, it can be claimed that the geographical criteria are not necessarily applicable within the current membership mechanism.Until 1993 the decision-making process of membership doesnt have clear references. The clear expression of prerequisites is declared with the Copenhagen Criteria. However, when member states agree on criteria in 1993, there was no mechanism for ensuring that any member state was in contour with these criteria. Nevertheless some legal arrangements and sanctions have been imposed to monitor compliance with these criteria. The first victim of this action was the Austrian government of Wolfgang Schssel in early 2000. They have been come across with sanctions of the other 14 Member States governments because of not compensating the membership requisites. These legal arrangements came into effect under the preps of the Treaty of Nice on the first of February 2003. With Copenhagen Criteria three more aspects were added into membership mechanism Political, Legislative and Economic criteria. These criteria are going to be explained particularly as followsAs a crucial part of political criteria the EU ask for a amalgamate democracy from candidate states. According to most political science scholars, the definition of united democracy contains these three steps Competitive elections, Liberties such as freedom of expression, freedom of press and freedom of association, and Consolidation of democracy in society. fused democratic governance requires that all citizens of the country shall be able to participate evenly in the political decision making process at every single governing level. Consolidated democracy also means free and fair elections with a secret ballot, freedom of press, the right to establish political parties without any obstacle from the state rulers, freedom of association, freedom of expression, rule of laws and freedom of standing running play by unbiased free judges. The second political criteria for candidate states is the rule of law which expresses government mandate may only be exercised in accordance with documented and written laws. They should be adopted through with(predicate) an established procedure. In case of arbitrary rulings towards individuals, the principle is supposed to be a safeguard. The third political criterion to join the European Union is respecting the Human rights in every kind of situation. The fall in Nations familiar Declaration of Human Rights is considered the most authoritative formulation of human rights and the EU is also admitted its legitimacy. According to the declaration human rights which every person holds because of their quality as a human being should be protect against all threats. Besides, those rights are inalienable and belonging to all humans. Briefly, if a right is inalienable, that means it cannot be limited, granted, bestowed, bartered away, or sold away. These include the right to life, the right to be prosecuted only according to the rule of laws, the right to be free from slavery, and the right to be free from torture.(Wikipedia, 2010a) The last but not the least political c riteria for EU membership are respect for minorities and protecting their rights. At the beginning there was no clarity in definition of minorities in member states. But in 1995 with the Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (COE) the EU declared minorities in member states and defined their rights with consensus. However, minorities in member states are defined by a consensus deputation which was formed by member states therefore not all minorities could be regarded and defined within the concept. The consensus commission (the Venice Commission) reached the conclusion of the Convention for the Protection of National Minorities which protects minorities by defining them as a group which is low in number than the rest of the population of a State, whose members, who are nationals of that State, have ethnical, religious or linguistic features different from those of the rest of the population, and are guided by the will to safeguard their culture, traditions, religi on or expression (Venice Commision, 2004 1). According to the definition of national minorities, unlike others, recent minorities such as immigrant populations have not been listed by signatory countries in the convention. This can be seen by checking the list of national minorities published by Council of Europe (Council of Europe, 2007).Another issue of the EU membership mechanism which can also be considered as a membership requirement is the economic criteria. As it is obviously known that the free market economy is the main characteristic of the EU. Speaking generally about free market economy, candidate countries shall have a functioning free market economy and the system should not be interfered by government as little as it is possible. Besides, their producers shall have the capability to deal with competitive pressure of free market and market forces within the Union. Nowadays, all economic requirements for membership are carried out with The European Exchange Rate Mechan ism to take candidates into the Eurozone. While debating economic criteria for EU membership, one of the most popular misbelieves is the acceptance of economic criteria which were defined by the Maastricht Treaty as prerequisites for membership. Because the way it is interpreted in the Maastricht Treaty concerns about member states. They mention about neither the necessity of abiding by the treaty for candidates nor obligations on candidate states. However, in practice, fulfilling those criteria is also evaluate from candidate states. The economic criteria defined by the Maastricht Treaty became more concrete with the Protocol on the profuse deficit procedure and the Protocol on the Convergence Criteria Referred to in Article 109j annexed to this Treaty. In the Protocols the desired ratios and rate were announced to member states, regarding to the practical aspect of the Treaty, it is binding for candidate states as well. The economic requisites for membership are sorted with arti cles in the protocol as followsThe reference values referred to in Article 104c(2) of this Treaty are 3% for the ratio of the planned or actual government deficit to gross domestic harvest at market tolls 60% for the ratio of government debt to gross domestic product at market prices.(European Commission, 1992c)The criterion on price stability referred to in the first indent of Article 109j (l) of this Treaty shall mean that a Member State has a price performance that is sustainable and an average rate of inflation, observed over a period of one year before the examination, that does not exceed by more than 1 percentage points that of, at most, the three best performing Member States in terms of price stability. Inflation shall be measured by 30 means of the consumer price index on a comparable basis, taking into account differences in national definitions.(European Commission, 1992b)Lastly, all candidates should regulate and enact their constitutions and juridic systems to consol idate them according to European law which built up over the history of the Union and also known as the acquis communautaire. After all criteria, the negotiations phase is the last step towards membership. During the negotiations with each candidate country, progress towards face-off the Copenhagen criteria is regularly monitored. On the basis of this, decisions are made as to whether and when a particular country should join, or what actions need to be taken before its access become possible. However, even though a country successfully fulfilled the whole bunch of criteria, it is declared that the new member cannot take its place in the Union until it is considered that the EU per se shall have enough absorption capacity for this enlargement. This situation were announced with the excepts in Presidency Conclusions (Copenhagen European Council, 1993) as followsThe Unions capacity to absorb new members, while maintaining the momentum of European integration, is also an important con sideration in the general interest of both the Union and the candidate countries.(Copenhagen European Council, 1993 1)To see the officially declared requirements and explanations it can be better to quote some excerpts from official web-sites of the European Union, and then the criteria can be compared and understood with and without interpretationAccession criteriaIn 1993, at the Copenhagen European Council, the Union took a decisive step towards the fifth enlargement, agreeing that the associated countries in Central and Eastern Europe that so desire shall become members of the European Union. Thus, enlargement was no longer a question of if, but when.Concerning the timing, the European Council states Accession will take place as soon as an associated country is able to assume the obligations of membership by satisfying the economic and political conditions required. At the same time, it defined the membership criteria, which are often referred to as the Copenhagen criteria.Copen hagen European CouncilMembership criteria require that the candidate country must have achievedstability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minoritiesthe existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Unionthe ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic monetary union.capital of Spain European CouncilMembership criteria also require that the candidate country must have created the conditions for its integration through the adjustment of its administrative structures, as underlined by the Madrid European Council in December 1995. While it is important that European Community legislation is transposed into national legislation, it is even more important that the legislation is implemented effectively through appropriate administrative and judicial structures. This is a prerequ isite of the mutual trust required by EU membership. (European Commision, 2010)As opposed to the membership criteria and the EUs Acquis Communautaire, general criticisms are the lack of certainty and elaboration in membership criteria, not mentioning in Acquis Communautaire about cancelling membership in the case of refusing to carry out sanctions and penalties opted by the EU and the slightly existence of flexibility towards extreme case such as a desire of a member state to quit from the Union. In other words, there are sometimes conflicting interpretations in current member states about membership criteria and cancelling membership of an idle member state. On the other hand, the right of quitting form the union is recently added to the EU acquis with the Treaty of Lisbon.Before the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force on 1 December 2009 no provision in the treaties or law of the European Union outlined the ability of a state to voluntary withdraw from EU. The European Constitution did propose such a provision and, after the failure to ratify the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, that provision was then included in the Lisbon Treaty.The treaty introduces an exit clause for members who wish to withdraw from the Union. This formalizes the procedure by stating that a member state may notify the European Council that it wishes to withdraw, upon which withdrawal negotiations begin if no other agreement is reached the treaty ceases to apply to the withdrawing state two years after such notification.(Wikipedia, 2010b)Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.(European Comission, 2007 Article 50)2.2 Enlargement ActivitiesThe European Union enlarged fifth times so far and enlargements with greater amount of candidates mostly occurred through eastern European countries after the definition of the criteria mentioned above. This enlargement process started in 1952 when the European Union was still called as the European Coal and Steel Community. Since then, the EU has achieved to have twenty-seven member states with the most recent expansion to Bulgaria and Romania in 2007.Table 1. The EUs enlargements and its approved membersAccessionApplicantIssuedEnlargements23 July 1952FranceN/AFounding Members23 July 1952(West) GermanyN/A23 July 1952BelgiumN/A23 July 1952ItalyN/A23 July 1952NetherlandsN/A23 July 1952LuxembourgN/A1 January 1973United Kingdom10 luxurious 1961First Enlargement10 May 19671 January 1973Denmark10 August 196111 May 19671 January 1973Ireland10 August 196111 May 19671 January 1981Greece12 June 1975Second Enlargement1 January 1986Spain28 June 1977Third Enlargement1 January 1986Portugal28 March 19771 January 1995Austria17 July 1989Fourth Enlargement1 January 1995Sweden1 July 19911 January 1995Finland18 March 19921 May 2004Cyprus3 July 1990Fifth Enlargement1 May 2004Malta3 July 19901 May 2004Hungary31 March 19941 May 2004Poland5 April 19941 May 2004Slovakia2 7 June 19951 May 2004Latvia13 September 19951 May 2004Estonia24 November 19951 May 2004Lithuania8 December 19951 May 2004Czech commonwealth17 January 19961 May 2004Slovenia10 June 19961 January 2007Romania22 June 19951 January 2007Bulgaria14 December 1995Within the table above the enlargements and candidate countries are sorted according to historical antecedence. On the other side, there are also countries which could not join the EU because of particular reasons. The United Kingdom is vetoed by the French Government in 1961 and Denmark and Ireland