Central and Eastern European transition experience in EU development policy

Szent-Ivanyi, Balazs and Lightfoot, Simon (2015) Central and Eastern European transition experience in EU development policy. [Conference Proceedings] (Submitted)

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Abstract

The ability of member states to exert influence on EU policy making has received much scholarly attention in several policy areas. This paper looks at the influence of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) member states on the EU’s international development policy. Specifically, it examines how successful these states have been in uploading their experience gained from reforming their economies and polities gathered during the transition process, into the EU’s development policy. While there is evidence of successful uploading, this is mainly on the rhetorical level, and there is little to show in practice. The paper argues that this is due to a number of reasons, including the low salience of development policy in the CEE countries, the inability of these states to muster allies and their low capacities. More importantly however the CEE states have failed to convince the older members that incorporating their transition experience into the common development policy is in the Community interest, and many see it as a threat to the poverty reduction agenda of policy area.

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