CHAPTER 7 The EU and Its New Members FORGING A NEW RELATIONSHIP Ronald H. Linden After the extraordinary changes of 1989, virtually all of the newly democratizing states of Central and Eastern Europe made overtures to join the three major organizations of what was generally referred to as "Europe": the Council of Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the European Union (EU) (see table 7.1). They wanted to do so for a number of reasons. Some were practical: to allow the people of the region to partake of the prosperity and security that the EU and NATO, respectively, had afforded the West European states since the end of World War II. Some were psychological and symbolic: to heal the division of Europe and return to where they would have been had the Cold War not cut them off, and to be included among the world's democracies. This chapter offers some background on the region's international environment before 1989 and then examines the process undertaken by the Central and East European states to join the EU. A discussion of the challenges the new members and the EU itself face now and going forward follows. The chapter ends with some questions raised for political science and for discussion. As the chapter by Joshua Spero in this volume deals with NATO accession, this chapter does not discuss those issues.1 Eastern and Western Europe before 1989 After World War II, the two parts of Europe moved in different directions, economically and politically. After being prevented by Joseph Stalin from participating in the US-funded Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, Central and Eastern Europe was absorbed into the Soviet-dominated economic and political system and its organizations. All of the Central and East European states (except Yugoslavia) became members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, founded in 1949, and the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet-dominated military alliance, established in 1955. Most importantly, they were bound by bilateral economic, political, and military ties to the Soviet Union. Trade was sharply curtailed with the West and reoriented toward the Soviet Union (see table 7.2). Five-year plans approved by the respective communist parties ruled the region's economies, and private economic activity was reduced to insignificance or eliminated altogether. 171 172 RONALD H. LINDEN Table 7.1. Membership in European Organizations Date of Joining or Status with Organization Country Council of Europe European Union NATO Albania 7/13/1995 Candidate 4/1/2009 Bosnia-Herzegovina 4/24/2002 Potential candidate MAPd Bulgaria 7/5/1992 1/1/2007 3/29/2004 Croatia 11/6/1996 7/1/2013 4/1/2009 Czech Republic 6/30/1993 5/1/2004 3/16/1999 Hungary 11/6/1990 5/1/2004 3/16/1999 Kosovo n/a Potential candidate KFORe Macedonia 11/9/1995 Candidate MAPd Montenegro 5/11/2007 Candidate 7/5/2017 Poland 11/26/1991 5/1/2004 3/16/1999 Romania 10/7/1993 1/1/2007 3/29/2004 Serbia 6/3/2006° Candidate Partnership for peace Slovakia 6/30/1993 5/l/2004b 3/29/2004 Slovenia 5/14/1993 5/l/2004b 3/29/2004 Ukraine 11/9/1995 Association NATO-Ukraine agreement0 Commission Sources: Council of Europe (http://hub.coe.int); European Union (http://europa.eu); European Council, "EU Relations with Ukraine," http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/eastern-partnership/ukraine/; NATO (http://www.nato.int). a Continued membership of state of Serbia and Montenegro, dating from April 3, 2003, b Eurozone member. = A "new generation" agreement providing for political association and economic integration, including a free trade area but not membership, was signed in 2014 and came into effect in 2017. d Membership Action Plan; consultation process with NATO aimed at membership but which does not guarantee membership. 3 Kosovo Force; NATO-led security force in place since 1999, Table 7.2. Reorientation of Trade: Share of Central and Eastern Europe's Trade with Western Europe by Year Country Imports Exports 1928 1989 7995 2002 1928 7989 7995 2002 Bulgaria 61.6 13.7 38.4 51.3 64.5 7.8 38.6 55.6 CZ/SL 54.8 15.4 45.4 62.0 43.9 16.5 45.7 64.2 Hungary 32.4 30.9 61.5 57.5 25.0 24.2 62.8 73.5 Poland 54.5 27.7 64.7 67.5 55.9 30.5 70.1 67.3 Romania 50.2 7.8 50.9 63.9 53.9 17.5 54.5 68.0 Sources: For 1928 and 1989, Susan M. Collins and Dani Rodrik, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the World Economy (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1991), 39,40. For 1995 and 2002, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Transition Report 2003 (London: EBRD, 2003), 86, Data for 1928 and 1989 reflect trade with European countries that became or were members of the European Community; data for 1995 and 2002 reflect trade with members of the European Union. For 1995 and 2002, the average for the Czech Republic and Slovakia was used. As a result, while Western Europe regained economic vitality, established convertible currencies, and began to participate actively in global trade and investment, Central and Eastern Europe did not. The states of the region did recover from the war and did make progress in providing basic goods and services for most of their populations, especially in comparison to the low level of economic development that had characterized most of THE EU AND ITS NEW MEMBERS 173 the region (except for the Czech Lands) before the war. But the region was cut off from the stimulant of international trade competition, was not open to Western investment, and was in fact obliged to render economic support to the USSR, providing an estimated $20 billion worth of technology, machinery, skills, and manufactured goods in the first fifteen years after the war.2 The region remained a marginal global economic actor for the entire period of the Cold War. All of the Central and East European states together provided only 4.5 percent of the world's exports—equal to about one-third of the amount West Germany alone provided. The typical Central and East European state received from the USSR nearly 40 percent of its imports and sent to the USSR more than one-third of its exports.3 None of the region's currencies were convertible, even in transactions among themselves. On the other hand, the region was shielded from sharp jumps in the price of internationally traded commodities like oil because these were provided to the region at the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance "friendship price" (a periodically adjusted fraction of the global price). Thus, the region's socialist economies avoided sharp recession and had little price inflation, but by the late 1970s and 1980s, they also began to show little or no growth.4 The states of the region also received a substantial trade subsidy from the Soviet Union because they were able to purchase energy and other resources at lower than world prices in exchange for "soft" goods (i.e., those not salable in the West).5 When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, he moved to change this "international division of labor" to adjust to economic realities. The revolutions of 1989 intervened, and the Central and East European states found themselves thrown onto the harsh playing field of the global economy without the experience or economic mechanisms to compete. The Courtship of the EU: Toward the "Big Bang" What is today an organization of twenty-eight countries with more than 500 million people began in the aftermath of World War II as a limited attempt to link key parts of the economies of former enemies France and Germany. In 1951, the European Coal and Steel Community was founded by those two countries, plus Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. In the landmark Treaty of Rome of 1957, the European Economic Community was created to complement the European Coal and Steel Community and a new European Atomic Agency. These three were combined in 1965 into the European Community (EC). The members created a parliament and modified other parts of the organization, but over the next two decades, the organization grew slowly in terms of both number of members (adding the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark in 1973, Greece in 1981, and Spain and Portugal in 1986) and areas of policy responsibility. By the time the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the EC still had only twelve members, but it had committed itself (through the Single European Act of 1986) to creating the mechanisms for a single European economy. The Treaty on European Union, referred to as the Maastricht Treaty after the Dutch town in which it was signed in 1992, renamed the organization the EU and began to move the members toward more unified economic functioning as well as stronger common political institutions. Austria, Finland, and Sweden joined in 1995, bringing the number of members to fifteen. In 2002, the common European currency, the euro, was introduced in eleven of the member states. 174 RONALD H. LINDEN After the overthrow of communism, the Central and East European states moved to try to join the EU as soon as possible. Hungary and Poland formally applied in 1994; Romania, Slovakia, and Bulgaria in 1995; and the Czech Republic and Slovenia in 1996. By that time, all had held at least one set of open elections deemed proper by international observers; had created conditions for the exercise of citizens' rights of expression, assembly, and participation; and were seeing the birth—in some cases, explosion—of political parties and interest groups. The states of the region also rejected the idea of recreating the Soviet-era economic or political alliances in any new form in favor of joining the most successful and attractive international organization in history, the EU. That organization had never had to consider such a potentially large simultaneous expansion before. Moreover, in previous enlargements, the candidates for membership were not only functioning democracies but had also established capitalist and Western-oriented economic systems. In Central and Eastern Europe, by contrast, the countries seeking membership were only just starting the process of creating such systems, were much more numerous, and, most importantly, were significantly poorer than even the poorest EU member. Among potential candidates, for example, the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of Poland (the largest) was just over two-thirds that of Greece, the poorest EU member, and only 40 percent of the average of all EU members (see table 7.3). It is not surprising, then, that the EU moved somewhat slowly to establish and implement standard procedures for bringing the Central and East European states into the organization. Along with financial assistance to help these states reform their economies (see below), the EU signed a series of association agreements, called the Europe Agreements, to govern trade with the Central and East European states. At the 1992 European Council at Lisbon, the organization for the first time pledged to help the Central and East European states not just to reform their economies but ultimately to become members of the organization. At the Copenhagen Council in 1993, the EU set forth the basic criteria that the new members would have to meet to be admitted. These criteria included stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and respect for and protection of minorities; the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the union; and the ability to take on the obligations of membership, including adherence to the aims of political, economic, and monetary union.6 To fulfill these criteria, applicants were obliged to accept and pass into legislation the codes, practices, and laws in place in the EU, referred to as the acquis communautaire. Starting in 1998, all of the applicant countries were evaluated annually to assess their progress toward establishing democratic practices, including the rule of law, the exercise of political rights by the population, and the protection of minority rights. Economic assessments judged the countries' movement toward establishing a market economy, including privatization, fiscal and monetary control, and openness to foreign investment. Each applicant's ability to undertake the "obligations of membership" was assessed by measuring the adoption of measures laid out in the acquis, covering, for example, agriculture, transportation, environmental policy, and justice and home affairs (e.g., the countries' legal systems, including courts, police, rights of accused, and use of the death penalty).7 In all, there were thirty-one chapters of standards by which these countries were judged, and only when all chapters had been "closed," or judged satisfactory by the European Commission, were invitations for membership issued. That happened for THE EU AND ITS NEW MEMBERS 175 Table 7.3. Gross Domestic Product per Capita of New and Old EU Members GDP in PPS per Inhabitant. 2001 (EU-15 = 100) Luxembourg 190 Ireland 118 Netherlands 115 Denmark 115 Austria 111 Belgium 109 Finland 104 Italy 103 France 103 Germany 103 Sweden 102 United Kingdom 101 Spain 84 Cyprus 74 Slovenia 70 Portugal 69 Greece 65 Czech Republic 59 Hungary 53 Slovakia 48 Poland 41 Estonia 40 Lithuania 39 Latvia 33 Bulgaria 25 Romania 24 Turkey 23 Source: Eurostat, Towards an Enlarged European Union (Brussels: European Commission, n.d.). Note: In this chart, gross domestic product per capita is calculated on the basis of purchasing power standard (PPS), which takes into account differences in prices across countries. eight Central and East European states in 2002, leading to their simultaneous admission (the "Big Bang") in May 2004.8 For Romania and Bulgaria, however, there were thirty-five chapters, and these two countries were subject to "enhanced monitoring" by the Commission. They were permitted to join as of January 1, 2007, but under an unprecedented "Cooperation and Verification Mechanism" that obliges them to report on their progress in judicial reform, the fight against corruption, and, in Bulgaria's case, the fight against organized crime.9 In 2005, Croatia began formal negotiations and in July 2013 became the twenty-eighth member of the EU. The Costs of Joining For most Central and East European states, making the transition to democratic practices with regard to individual freedoms, elections, political institutions, and parties was challenging. Although the countries' populations desired such institutions and practices 176 RONALD H. LINDEN after four decades of Communist Party rule, not all of the states moved equally quickly. In some cases, communist-era practices—and people—remained powerful, as, for example, in Slovakia and Romania. It took electoral defeats in these cases to improve the EU's opinion and these countries' chances for joining the organization. For Central and East European governments, adapting their countries' political and legal processes to European norms involved making adjustments in a variety of policy arenas. Elimination of the death penalty and laws against homosexuality, for example, was required. Improvements in the legal system, including the formation of independent judges and constitutional courts, were needed in most cases. One of the most common areas of pressure lay in the EU's criticism of the countries' treatment of their Roma minorities. Numbering over 4 million and scattered throughout the region,10 Roma minorities suffered both legal and economic discrimination, exclusion from employment and political power, and, in some cases, actual physical harassment.11 Even leading candidates for membership such as the Czech Republic were subject to criticism by the EU for restrictive citizenship laws and hostile actions toward Roma.12 The EU's involvement in minority issues in the region produced some skepticism even as it provided an opportunity for domestic minority groups and nongovernmental organizations to utilize EU influence on their behalf to secure better treatment from their governments. For example, the EU insisted that the candidate states implement full recognition and guarantees of minority rights that in some cases did not apply in member states.13 Photo 7.1. EU Enlargement Day in May 2004. The flags of Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia are raised at an EU building, marking their accession to the union. (European Committee, 2007) THE EU AND ITS NEW MEMBERS 177 Setting up appropriate Western-style parliamentary and electoral institutions and getting them running in forms that the EU would approve were relatively simple tasks compared to the process of wrenching the economies into line with EU expectations. These states were not as economically developed, had not traded in a competitive world market, and did not have the resources to make the economic transition without substantial pain. The Central and East European economies were more agricultural, less productive, used more energy and human resources to produce the same number of goods as the West, and, for the most part, produced goods that were not competitive on the world market. To make matters worse, the goods these states could potentially sell globally were precisely those that the EU specialized in—farm products, steel, textiles—and the EU was at first not eager to open its markets. Within a few years, however, tariff and quota restrictions on Central and East European exports to Western Europe were removed and trade shifted sharply from East to West (see table 7.2). Still, given the uncompetitive nature of these economies, it took several years before any could achieve significant positive trade balances. Production in most of the Central and East European states declined dramatically and it took until the end of the decade for most of Central and Eastern Europe to reach the economic levels of 1989 and even longer for Romania and Bulgaria.14 Unemployment, which had not officially existed under socialism, soared, reaching more than 12 percent of the workforce on average throughout the region. Part of the adjustment to EU economic policies involved improving the environment for competition, eliminating government support of industries, ending price controls, and allowing bankruptcies. The EU also exerted pressure to allow foreign investment on a nondiscriminatory basis, meaning that experienced, successful West European companies would be free to buy up valuable assets in these states, now available at bargain basement prices. After 1989, the region attracted more than $170 billion in foreign direct investment (through the year 2004), with the bulk going to the three Central European states, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. While proceeding slowly on formal admission, the EU did move to provide the region with substantial economic aid through its PHARE program.15 Other programs were added, like the Special Accession Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development and the Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession programs. Together, more than €20 billion ($23,399,800,000) was allocated to new members in what was termed "pre-accession aid," though some continued even after they became members. Perhaps the major challenge to the accession process involved agriculture. Since its formation, the EU has supported farmers by controlling imports, supporting prices, and providing direct payments through the Common Agricultural Policy.16 Common Agricultural Policy payments constitute the single largest item in the EU budget. With 7 million new farmers (and 40 percent more agricultural land) added by Central and East European accession to the 6 million already in the EU, the organization realized that it could not afford to extend to the new members the generous agricultural subsidies it had been providing to farmers in the EU-15 states. Moreover, in global trade negotiations, the EU has pledged to reduce the level of its subsidies. Hence, as part of these states' accession, direct payments to Central and Eastern Europe's farmers were at first a fraction of those paid to farmers in Western Europe and were increased gradually. 178 RONALD H. LINDEN The Politics of Membership When the EU was founded, the driving idea was to link continental Europe's major economic powers, France and Germany, so inextricably as to make future wars between them impossible. As other functions became part of common responsibility, such as control of nuclear energy, control of agricultural production, and external trade ties, the organization not only grew in complexity but also added members. Great Britain's membership had been vetoed by France in 1963 and was delayed for ten years, but adding democratic Portugal, Spain, and Greece in the 1980s and the relatively rich, capitalist Austria, Sweden, and Finland in 1995 was not controversial. However, adding eight or ten economically weak states that had operated as one-party dictatorships and state-run economies for four decades was not popular. Public opinion surveys among the members of the EU consistently showed a lack of enthusiasm for enlargement in most EU member states. Despite public ambivalence, movement toward membership proceeded, reinforcing the idea among some that the organization operates with a "democratic deficit"—that is, that decisions are made by distant elites who are not responsible to anyone and reflect bureaucratic imperatives in Brussels more than the desires of their constituents.18 In Central and Eastern Europe, though, accession to the EU was generally very popular. Public opinion polls in the 1990s showed that majorities of the populations in the region strongly supported joining the EU. In general, Central and East European populations trusted the EU and saw joining as the right thing to do for their country.19 Support was not equally high throughout the region, however, as the costs of adjustment and the uneven distribution of such costs among the population became evident. In a 2002 survey, for example, only one-third of Estonians and Latvians thought that membership would be "a good thing," while more than two-thirds of Hungarians and Bulgarians thought so.20 In most cases, as countries moved closer to joining the EU, public support for doing so fell off somewhat before rebounding.21 Referenda on joining were held in each of the Central and East European countries due to join in 2004 and produced positive—though in some cases, close—votes.22 In the Croatian referendum in 2012, two-thirds of those voting supported accession, but the turnout (43 percent of eligible voters) was the lowest of any new member state.23 By 2011, among the new member states, public views of the benefits of EU membership were similar to those held in countries with longer membership, but there was somewhat more uncertainty as to whether EU membership was a "good thing" than in the older member states.24 Apart from accommodating legal, political, and economic systems to the demands of the acquis, for several of the new members, some issues provided a possible challenge to the depth of their commitment to join. Many worried that their inexperienced and weaker economies, especially in the agricultural sector, would not be able to compete with rich, subsidized EU enterprises. There was concern that West Europeans would buy up their countries' low-priced assets and land, leaving local people unemployed and without property. For their part, some politicians in the EU feared that economic dislocation and the attraction of the more prosperous West would produce a vast labor migration once borders were erased and full EU citizenship, including the right to live anywhere, was extended eastward. In the end, several countries were granted transition periods during THE EU AND ITS NEW MEMBERS 179 which they could retain control over agricultural land purchase. But the "free movement of persons" was also limited for the new members, with restrictions remaining in place for not less than two and possibly up to seven years.25 Border issues continue to be complicated for some new members. All the new members were obliged to move toward adopting the provisions of the Schengen Treaty (1985) operating among most EU states. This treaty allows for free movement of citizens within the EU but mandates strict enforcement and guarding of the EU's external borders. With that border now pushed eastward, Poles and Hungarians living in Ukraine, for example, found visiting their ethnic kin in new EU member states more difficult and expensive than it had been before. The need for visas suggested a second-class status and depressed the substantial cross-border economic activity that had grown up. Gradually, the EU approved visa-free travel for citizens of the Western Balkans and noncandidate countries like Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine.26 But a major challenge to coherent border policies occurred when hundreds of thousands of refugees began to travel through the region as they fled wars and upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa (see below). Most of the new members also face serious issues in terms of compliance with environmental regulations. This chapter of the acquis includes extensive regulations affecting power generation (especially nuclear power), water, air cleanliness, and the burning of fossil fuels. Accommodating EU standards has been enormously expensive for these states and, in some cases, has obliged them to close down some power plants altogether. To ensure their entry, for example, Lithuania and Bulgaria agreed to close their nuclear reactors, which had the effect of increasing their dependence on Russian sources of energy. Croatia, the EU's newest member, faced the most comprehensive and exacting scrutiny by the Commission due in part to criticisms of the poor performance of Romania and Bulgaria, which joined in 2007. As with those states, the issue of action against corruption slowed negotiations, which lasted six years. Evidence of the EU's persuasive power was the fact that Croatia arrested and tried its own former prime minister, Ivo Sanader, on corruption charges in 2010. But legacy issues from the state's time as part of Yugoslavia remained. Most difficult politically was Croatia's obligation—as part of its adherence to the Copenhagen criteria—to arrest and extradite those alleged to have committed war crimes during the wars with Serbia or in Bosnia. As the Croatian government acted on these demands and former military leaders were arrested and extradited, progress toward membership resumed.27 (See chapter 16 on the successors to Yugoslavia.) For all of the Central and East European states, the period after 1989 and before 2004 represented a wrenching shift in both real and symbolic terms. These states had been part of the Soviet Union's external empire for the four decades after World War II, and over the years, Moscow had used political and economic ties and Soviet-dominated regional organizations to maintain control. When challenges emerged, as happened in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968, the USSR had been willing to use force to keep the countries subordinate. Only in 1989 did the USSR, under Mikhail Gorbachev, refrain from intervening to prevent far-reaching democratic change and the return of full sovereignty to the states of this region. The irony is that having finally achieved full control over their own affairs, the leaders of the newly democratic Central and East European states, with their populations' agreement, moved relatively quickly to surrender key parts of that sovereignty to a different power center, the European 180 RONALD H. LINDEN Union. All were willing to remake virtually all of their institutions and practices to conform to standards set by Brussels. Finally, fifteen years after the revolutions that toppled dictatorships in Central and Eastern Europe, and only after the EU was satisfied that national laws and institutions accorded with its norms, the eastern and western parts of Europe were formally reunited. The EU and the Region: Achievements and Challenges CHANGING THE INSTITUTION AND THE SETTING The enlargement of the EU to the east obliged the organization to adapt its governing structure. Voting mechanisms in the European Council and the number of representatives in the European Parliament were adjusted, though the organization failed to reduce the size of the European Commission. (All twenty-eight members still nominate one commissioner.28) Though the EU grew dramatically in size and power since the end of the Cold War, eastern expansion turned out to be one indicator of the high watermark in the growth of both dimensions. In 2005, a proposed European Constitution was defeated in referenda in Holland and France. A new, less ambitious Reform Treaty (referred to as the Lisbon Treaty) was drafted and finally ratified in 2009. The new treaty reflects Europe's emergence as an international actor, providing for the new political posts of President of the European Council and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. It also reflects a desire to improve decision-making and reduce the democratic deficit by strengthening the ability of the European Parliament to affect decisions.29 In terms of changes in the states, the gains from EU enlargement were multiple and substantial: durable security was established in a region known for conflict, the Central and East European countries were bound together and to Western Europe economically and politically, and the painstaking creation of democratic institutions and societies was initiated and supported. For the first time in modern history, the possibility of military conflict in the heart of Europe is virtually nonexistent. Most of the Central and East European states have joined those in Western Europe as full members of both the EU and NATO. Others in the Balkans, including virtually all parts of what was once Yugoslavia, aspire to join these organizations. Across the membership area, international warfare of the type seen in the last century seems as unlikely as war between France and Germany. The significance of the organization's success on this dimension was thrown into sharp relief by the occurrence of military action just outside the EU domain in Georgia in 2008 and in Ukraine in 2014. Economically, the region's trade and investment are overwhelmingly tied to fellow members (see below), and by 2015, the single-currency Eurozone had grown to nineteen members and included five CEE states (Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). In addition, the EU's aim of promoting democratic institutions and practices in the region has been broadly successful. By 2005, the first "graduating class" of EU joiners from the region were declared to be "no longer in transit" by Freedom House, using an annual assessment of democratic processes.30 Table 7.4 shows the effect of EU involvement. By THE EU AND ITS NEW MEMBERS 181 2008, the Democracy Scores (1 being the best and 7 the worst) had improved in eight of eleven CEE members of the EU compared to the 1991-2000 period. The average Democracy Score for "New EU members" that year was 2.33 while the average for the Balkans was 4.03 and for the former Soviet states, 5.84. CHALLENGES Preserving Democracy Building democracy is an arduous process—especially in a region with precious little democratic history—and gains are fragile. Even with as powerful an actor as the EU as a motivator and guide, movement forward is not guaranteed—especially once the chief prize, membership, is achieved. The slow, often unwieldy processes of democracy test the public's patience, and those seeking greater power are willing to exploit grievances and threats (real and imagined) to weaken democratic institutions. Thus, some democratic "backsliding" has occurred in Central and East Europe (note the decline in table 7.4 in the average score from 2.28 in 2005 to 2.57 by 2013). As figure 7.1 illustrates, that decline has continued—dramatically in some cases. As these indicators show, EU membership has not prevented the erosion of democracy in several CEE states. Hungary and Poland represent the greatest challenge to the EU's much-lauded "soft power" and the very values it professes to represent. In Hungary in 2010, the conservative Alliance of Young Democrats (FiDeSz), in coalition with the Christian Democratic People's Party, won a two-thirds majority in parliament. Since then, the Government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban has adopted many measures, including a new constitution, that strengthen the hand of the ruling party, weaken electoral opposition, and erode the independence of the media, judiciary, and central bank. These and other measures have drawn criticism from the Council of Europe, the European Commission, and the European Parliament, which in May 2017 declared that such developments "have led to a serious deterioration in the rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights which is testing the EU's ability to defend its founding values."31 The EU faces a similar challenge to its ability to protect democracy in Poland, where the government of the PiS (Law and Justice) party, in power since 2015, has adopted similar measures (see chapter 9 on Poland). Lacking enough votes in the Sejm (parliament) to change the constitution, the government in the fall of 2017 adopted legislation to ensure PiS control of the country's judiciary, including the Constitutional Tribunal and Supreme Court. After repeated warnings, the European Commission took the unprecedented action of invoking Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty and declared there to be "a clear risk of a serious breach of the rule of law in Poland." While urging the Polish government to undo these measures, it invited the European Council to accept the Commission's judgement and take action, which could involve sanctions costing Poland its EU voting rights.32 The underlying foundation of democratic attitudes can also erode, as the demands of economic and party competition and the forces of global change test public commitment to the still new systems. Surveys have shown a growing dissatisfaction with the way democracy operates in the region and a stubborn lack of trust in political parties and democratic institutions, such as presidents and parliaments.33 In 2009, a PEW survey showed Table 7.4. Democracy Scores for Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and States of the Former Soviet Union 1999-2000 2007 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2013 New EU Members Bulgaria 3.58 3.42 3.33 3.38 3.25 3.18 2.93 2.89 2.86 3.04 3.18 Croatia 4.46 3.54 3.54 3.79 3.83 3.75 3.71 3.75 3.64 3.71 3.61 Czech Republic 2.08 2.25 2.46 2.33 2.33 2.29 2.25 2.25 2.14 2.18 2.14 Estonia 2.25 2.13 2.00 2.00 1.92 1.96 1.96 1.96 1.93 1.93 1.96 Hungary 1.88 2.13 2.13 1.96 1.96 1.96 2.00 2.14 2.14 2.29 2.89 Latvia 2.29 2.21 2.25 2.25 2.17 2.14 2.07 2.07 2.07 2.18 2.07 Lithuania 2.29 2.21 2.21 2.13 2.13 2.21 2.21 2.29 2.25 2.29 2.32 Poland 1.58 1.58 1.63 1.75 1.75 2.00 2.14 2.36 2.39 2.25 2.18 Romania 3.54 3.67 3.71 3.63 3.58 3.39 3.39 3.29 3.36 3.36 3.50 Slovakia 2.71 2.50 2.17 2.08 2.08 2.00 1.96 2.14 2.29 2.46 2.57 Slovenia 1.88 1.88 1.83 1.79 1.75 1.68 1.75 1.82 1.86 1.93 1.89 Average 2.41 2.40 2.37 2.33 2.29 2.28 2.27 2.32 2.33 2.39 2.57 Median 2.27 2.21 2.19 2.10 2.10 2.07 2.11 2.20 2.20 2.27 2.32 The Balkons Albania 4.75 4.42 4.25 4.17 4.13 4.04 3.79 3.82 3.82 3.82 4.25 Bosnia 5.42 5.17 4.83 4.54 4.29 4.18 4.07 4.04 4.11 4.18 4.39 Macedonia 3.83 4.04 4.46 4.29 4.00 3.89 3.82 3.82 3.86 3.86 3.93 Yugoslavia 5.67 5.04 4.00 3.88 n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a Serbia n/a n/a n/a n/a 3.83 3.75 3.71 3.68 3.79 3.79 3.64 Montenegro n/a n/a n/a n/a 3.83 3.79 3.89 3.93 3.79 3.79 3.82 Kosovo n/a n/a n/a n/a 5.50 5.32 5.36 5.36 5.21 5.11 5.25 Average 4.83 4.44 4.22 4.13 4.20 4.10 4.05 4.05 4.03 4.04 4.21 Median 4.75 4.42 4.25 4.17 4.00 3.89 3.82 3.82 3.82 3.82 4.09 Non-Baltic Former Soviet States Armenia 4.79 4.83 4.83 4.92 5.00 5.18 5.14 5.21 5.21 5.39 5.36 Azerbaijan 5.58 5.63 5.54 5.46 5.63 5.86 5.93 6.00 6.00 6.25 6.64 Belarus 6.25 6.38 6.38 6.46 6.54 6.64 6.71 6.68 6.71 6.57 6.72 Georgia 4.17 4.33 4.58 4.83 4.83 4.96 4.86 4.68 4.79 4.93 4.75 Kazakhstan 5.50 5.71 5.96 6.17 6.25 6.29 6.39 6.39 6.39 6.32 6.57 Kyrgyzstan 5.08 5.29 5.46 5.67 5.67 5.64 5.68 5.68 5.93 6.04 5.96 Moldova 4.25 4.29 4.50 4.71 4.88 5.07 4.96 4.96 5.00 5.07 4.82 Russia 4.58 4.88 5.00 4.96 5.25 5.61 5.75 5.86 5.96 6.11 6.21 Tajikistan 5.75 5.58 5.63 5.63 5.71 5.79 5.93 5.96 6.07 6.14 6.25 Turkmenistan 6.75 6.83 6.83 6.83 6.88 6.93 6.96 6.96 6.93 6.93 6.93 Ukraine 4.63 4.71 4.92 4.71 4.88 4.50 4.21 4.25 4.25 4.39 4.86 Uzbekistan 6.38 6.42 6.46 6.46 6.46 6.43 6.82 6.82 6.86 6.89 6.93 Average 5.31 5.41 5.51 5.57 5.66 5.74 5.78 5.79 5.84 5.92 6.00 Median 5.29 5.44 5.50 5.54 5.65 5.72 5.84 5.91 5.98 6.13 6.23 Source: Freedom House, https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/NIT2013_Tables_FINAL.pdf, Note:The Democracy Score ranges from l.the highest level,to 7, the lowest level and is an average of ratings for Electoral Process (EP); Civil Society (CS); Independent Media (IM); National Democratic Governance (NGO\l); Local Democratic Governance (LGO\l); Judicial Framework and Independence (JFI); and Corruption (CO). 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 0.5 - 0.0 ....ii..... -0.5 -1.0 -1.5 Democracy scores have either stagnated or declined since accession among NIT countries that are EU member states. -2.0- ------ Latvia (2004) ^'J''"' Hungary (2004) \