The Changing Relationships between the Accession Countries and their Neighbours in the Changing Landscape of Liberty and Security

Objectives

The objective is to assess the medium and long-term impact of accession process and enlargement on overlapping issues of external and internal security with regional contacts, especially in the context of partial accession of nations to the Union. From May 2004 several diasporas belong to the new member states will remain outside of the EU external borders (ethnic Polish in the CIS countries, Hungarians in Romania etc.). This workpackage will link all the other workpackages as it will assess the investigation carried out by the other partners from the point of view of a selection of accession states (South European, Central European and East European) and a neighbouring state.

Special attention will be devoted to institutional developments in ethnical ties, minority politics, migratory movement and neighbourhood relations between insiders and outsiders.

To assess how the process of enlargement will/will not increase safety and stability in a Wider Europe amongst its members (old and new) and in its ‘circle of friends’

The results of this workpacakge will also inform the observatory.

Description of work

On the basis of results achieved in ELISE and FORNET FP5 research programmes, the research intends to deny or to confirm two generally spread presumptions. According to the first, enlargement will reduce the obtained level of security and will increase external as well as internal risks due to high number of less developed countries in accession, infirm border control and porous external borders, cross-border ethnical tensions, while the free movement of persons in a borderless space could potentially generate a certain invasion of labour markets, pressure on wage level and social cohesion in the enlarged Union. According to the second presumption, candidate states (who will accede the EU in 2004) will remain at low level of action capacity due to concurrently made modernisation in economy, society, reform in defence system in new alliance, establishment of the regional co-operation with adjacent states beyond the historical grievances, getting democracy into shape, rule of law and work for the effective implementation of the acquis communautaire. In order to destroy or prove these interlinked presumptions (or fears) research focusing on some Central and Southern countries will analyse how enlargement forms new types of inter-state, inter-regional and inter-ethnical connections, and how the (temporary) exclusion from the membership through security measures will disintegrate or reshape those. The analysis covers changing Diaspora politics and its regulation including policy toward Diaspora living in the Union and minorities across the external borders (in particular in the case of Polish, Bulgarian and Hungarian Diaspora/minority), immigration policy together with its (hidden) ethnical preferences (e.g. Albanians, Hungarians), cross-border connections between municipalities and actors in economy (e.g. on the Slovak-Hungarian, Polish-Belarus borders), and modification of relations through migration between Roma communities inside and outside (how the study will be carried out precisely/method). The research will be based on extensive desktop research, focussing on structured policy analyses, supplemented by expert interviews in the target countries as well as case studies of selected cross-border regions, where typical issues of ethnic/minority/diaspora interactions can be detected. This will be compared with movement of persons and diasporas in the Euro-Mediterranean region by the Maltese partner. The partners in this package will seek additional empirical information to compliment their own research, also from Workpackages 5, 8, 9, 10 and 12. These results will then be placed in the context of the framework being developed by the other project partners

The workpackage provides a synthesis of empirical research and results relating to presumptions applying political statements of the selected target countries and discourses that will reflect perceptions on security, regional connections, friendly neighbourhood and kin-minorities. The analysis shall include local and central governmental as well as political oppositional statements. The scientific public and civic society shall also be included if it has any relevance. Setting up new controlling system at the external border of the Union, and gradual benefiting free movement of new union citizens will mean a genuine laboratory for research and experiments, respectively. The short-term changing and impact of enlargement on regional contacts may be well investigated in this laboratory.

In the longer term (beyond the initial period of 18 months) the ramifications of being insider and outsider in the Union will be measured in particular through the growth of bilateral, cross-border projects, regional agreements on co-operation and modification of regulation concerning internal and external security efforts, its instruments, changing principles and institutions of minority and Diaspora politics. Analysis of short term impacts not necessary will provide unequivocal and significant proof or destroy of starting hypothesis if change in relations between the entering and adjacent states, ethnic communities and Diaspora. In this case the synthesis of accessible results and data on cross-border and regional connections will be considered as starting point in the context of presumptions referring on fears for insecurity and security risks. The further research on changing regulation, legal practice of security measures and cross-border co-operation will compare with starting point only in longer term through interviews made with legislators, decision- and policy-makers, and analysis of applicability of security rules and instruments for regional co-operation. In this way it can be described how, in which fields and in what extent the enlargement modifies the connections between the entering and excluded states, nations, minorities and municipalities in both sides at the borders in physical and security meaning.