THE EU ACCESSION AND ECE PARLIAMENTS: A HUNGARIAN APPROACH.
German Policy Studies › Vol. 1 Nbr. 4, October 2001
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Summary
European Union, East Central European
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THE EU ACCESSION AND ECE PARLIAMENTS: A HUNGARIAN APPROACH.
Abstract
The paper first outlines the conceptual framework of the early consolidation as the recent stage of development in the East Central European (ECE) countries. In analysing the process of accession to the EU, the paper focuses on the role of the ECE parliaments that has been an "underresearched" field. The role of parliament has been discussed in three major aspects. First, in its legislative function as legal and political harmonization with the EU, i.e. passing the acts for the Europeanization. Second, the ECE parliaments have the function of aggregating the particular interests into a national interest by providing a public and transparent forum for discussion and interest reconciliation. Third, they have a communicative function given their high visibility, therefore they have to inform the public at large about the latest events of the EU accession and to prepare the populations for the participation in the EU referendum as well as for the support of the EU membership. Democratization and EU integration of the East Central European (ECE) countries have often been treated separately. In the EU integration literature the economic aspects have been discussed almost exclusively and the political aspects ("political harmonization") have been largely neglected. Instead of reducing EU integration to its economic dimension, this paper deals with the political criteria of the accession capacity in the ECE countries, first of all in and by parliament. There is a shift in the democratization process in ECE countries in general from the minimalist-procedural to the maximalist-substantial understanding of democracy. No doubt that there has been a de...See the full content of this document
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