Nicolaides, Phedon (1998) The Boundaries of the Negotiating Power of the Candidates for Membership of the European Union: Some Theoretical Considerations and Practical Implications. EIPASCOPE, 1998 (3). pp. 1-8.
Abstract
[From the Introduction]. The negotiations for accession to the European Union should be more appropriately called "entrance examinations", rather than negotiations. The candidate countries will have to demonstrate their ability to assume the obligations of membership known as the "acquis communautaire". However, the candidates do have room for manoeuvre in defining the terms of their accession to the Union. The question is how much "bargaining" power do they have and how can they utilise it in practice? This short note is a companion piece to an earlier paper entitled "Negotiating Effectively for Accession to the European Union: Realistic Expectations, Feasible Targets, Credible Arguments". The purpose of this follow-up paper is to delineate the boundaries of the negotiating discretion of the candidate countries. To that end, it attempts to derive relevant lessons by analysing the concept of negotiations. Our analysis suggests that, on the basis of the reasonable hypothesis that the applicant countries have little negotiating power, the best strategy for them is to aim for outcomes that would be close to those preferred by the EU. As already said, this is because in this context, negotiating or bargaining power means the ability to force the other side to deviate from its optimum. The outcomes that would be preferred by the EU are largely those that can be derived from the application of existing rules.
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