Rationales for a Choice

How Substance Enters Formal Law in the „Eastern Enlargement” of the European Union

This paper reports the results of a reverse decision analysis applied to the Summary and Conclusion sections of the Opinions published by the European Union’s Commission about the ten „eastern applicant” states in July 1997.  It finds much redundancy in the application of the Commission’s own political and economic criteria; arbitrary synecdoche metaphors help the Opinions move from abstract to practical concerns; in itself neither the political nor the economic criterion produces the final distribution of five „frontrunners” and five „laggers-behind”.  Meanwhile, the third criterion – the one referring to the transposition and implementation of the EU’s legal output – itself splits the ten cases perfectly.  However, a combination of the political criterion with the economic strength of the applicant also produces a solution that is perfectly congruent with the final result.  Most remarkable, the two perfect solutions are reached in ways that are logically independent of each other. This puts into question the degree to which it is appropriate to describe the evaluation phase of EU-acession as a process of criteria fulfilment.
 

Released: Replika 43–44, 193–220.
Replika block:
Fordította:
Dániel Kodaj