EU’s Conditionality Mechanism in South East Europe – Lessons Learned and Challenges for the Future
EU’s Conditionality Mechanism in South East Europe – Lessons Learned and Challenges for the Future

Summary/Abstract: One may argue that the conditionality mechanism should be considered as one of the most successful tools at the EU’s disposal when assessing the way it affects the transition processes in post-communist countries and contributes to their success and pace in general. At least, it seems to have proven to be efficient in the case of the countries of the so-called 5th enlargement. However, very few analyses about its impact on the transitional processes in the region of South East Europe have been conducted, while the complexity of the situation there highlights the need to do so, indeed. Therefore, this paper will assess the impact of conditionality mechanism on aforementioned processes in that region, trying to analyse EU’s policies towards it before that mechanism was introduced as well, thus opening a space to use the comparative analysis of periods before and after its introduction. Furthermore, it will provide an in-depth analysis of the phenomenon of the conditionality mechanism as such, compare its impact on some countries that have already joined the EU to the impact on various stages of transitional reforms that countries in this part of Europe are currently experiencing. As a conclusion, it would attempt to provide the evaluation of usefulness of the conditionality mechanism in South East Europe up to now, define its major achievements as well as the problems experienced so far, providing some recommendations for improvement.

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