Thrice removed:

A report on the 1998 and 1999 follow-up reports on the ten applicant countries that responded to questionnaires

Melinda Kovács, Rapporteur

In our discussion of how the EU construes applicants in the 1998 and 1999 reports, we identified general tendencies that are valid about all ten countries involved, as well as traits that describe only certain groups. This interpretive account presents these observations and then describes the reports country by country.

General tendencies

The follow-up reports must be placed in the context of the general introduction to them in document no. IP/99/751, which outlines a new strategy for enlargement. This entails the explicit acknowledgment of differentiation in the treatment of the various countries. The implication of the new strategy being differentiated is that the old one was not - the EU presents itself as only having thought of differentiating between applicants as of 1999. At this point in time when all 13 applicants are negotiated with, the EU says the applicants will now be able to proceed on merit. The implication is that thus far, they were not able to. An alternative conceptualization of differentiation is offered by pointing out that as long as negotiations were not opened with all applicants, that served as differentiation, and now that all participate in talks, another was of differentiating applicants was necessary.

The reports themselves received a new layout: the web design is more attractive and more reader-friendly than that of the 1997 country opinions, while at the same time less easy to handle and print for research purposes. The composite papers are not reader-friendly in another sense: in 1998, the composite paper's conclusion groups together all of the labels and qualifications from all the individual reports, to the detriment of sentence-level meaning. The paragraph is incomprehensible and gives an impression of careless cut-and-paste editing in a hurry.

Overall tendencies in the contents of the reports mainly appear as the use of new items in the reports and the word use to describe Roma minorities in these countries. By 'new items' I refer to issue areas that the initial country opinions did not identify as concerns or areas to work on, and still, the reports mention them as missing or requiring considerable effort on the part of applicants. This is relevant in the light of the fact that already in the 1997 opinions, the major discursive pattern to describe the applicants was in terms of lack. Now in the follow-up yearly reports, the EU is pronouncing on what the applicants have achieved in those areas - and also adding other areas where lack may be discovered. The list of expectations and the standards are constantly changing and the bar is constantly raised higher.

The main alternative readings of these 'new items' are benign and focusing on the basis of comparison. The benign reading of these new expectations is that the EU is just learning about these countries and finding out about their problems and shortcomings. This learning process could be an explanation for why there are items in the follow-up reports that were not featured in the country opinions. Another way of interpreting the 'new items' is to point out that what the applicants are measured against is inherently not stable. If the implicit basis for comparison is not the ensemble of 1997 opinions but the acquis communautaire itself, then that is a standard that is hard to measure up to since it is constantly changing itself.

An example of a 'new item' would be the gender gap in wages. The implicit assumption is that the EU is worried about including countries that used to be parts of the evil empire of communism. However, picking out issues like the lack of wage parity across genders is not very sound strategy: the gender gap in wages was the lowest in all of history in the state socialist systems. This is not the class of problems that the communist heritage is responsible for. The gender gap in wages is not a communist but a capitalist problem and it shows the EU as displacing the problems its countries and economies created, onto the applicant countries, and then using these problems as justification for denying/ postponing admission.

The speed of reforms is another example of a similar proportions. Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia are all criticized for being too slow in the implementation of their reforms. In the case of Poland, the term 'sluggishness' is used to refer to its (lack of) performance. Here, the nature of the dynamic between the EU and the applicants is revealed. This is not the doctor-patient dynamic where there are ailing parties who need help to recover - in the framework, it is not possible to blame them for lack of speed. It is the teacher-student dynamic where those who are not fast enough are bad students.

A further generic tendency in the 1998-99 reports is the word use about Roma. It is clear and consistent. This was not the case in the opinions where inconsistency was frequent. In the follow-up reports, only the word 'Roma' is used, without synonyms or parenthetical explanations. The EU uses the same language about all the countries. Discursively, not only has the issue of minority rights been turned into a litmus test for democratic politics in applicant countries, but the Roma have been essentialized into the prototypical minority and into a single group that is spread over several countries but has one identity in all.

Of course, the choice of the Roma as the essentialized minority could be very 'dangerous' because the treatment of the same group is disastrous and easy to identify as such in Western Europe as well. However, the synecdoche move to refer to the Roma as THE minority problem in applicant countries (after the EU carried out a similar synecdoche switch from institutions to minority issues as the test of democratic politics), is a tool for the EU to displace its own fear about the Roma and the concerns about the EU's own minority situations, which are not in order. This is a Foucaultian assertion of power: by remaining silent about minority situations within the EU while criticizing them in the applicant countries, the EU creates a position of power for itself. The EU then expresses worry about the Roma because it cannot possibly pronounce a summary condemnation of them, and still turns them into an undefined threat. This is the threat of the backward and the folkloric. As Wolff points out, in Western conceptions of Eastern Europe, the people are folkloric. Because the Roma fit the stereotype of folkloric people, the EU now finds them everywhere in applicant countries - thereby signaling that the applicant countries where folklore, a sure sign of the past, is still present, are backward and archaic.

In the twenty follow-up reports as a whole, the pattern of presentation as a single principle across cases is not visible and may not exist. The assignment of space to certain issue areas in the different reports does not reveal similarities, nor do the reports themselves make it possible to find in them the rationale for the EU's choice to write more extensively on certain areas rather than others. There may be explanations external to the reports, though, that are also in tension with the proclaimed aim of the EU to use impartial sources of information. For instance, in the case of Romania, a disproportionate amount of space is devoted to the fate of children in care. The children, who are very often unwanted as a result of the pro-natalist policies of the Causescu regime, were abandoned and put in orphanages in large numbers. The despicable conditions in those institutions led to a population of institutionalized children with serious physical and mental disabilities as well as HIV, whose pictures were widely circulated in the Western media. These pictures seem to have been haunting those writing the reports, rather than impartial sources.

The reports generally bring up the question of their audience. It is not clear who they are intended for. They are similar to 19^th c. British writing on colonial India in their cataloguing techniques. Therefore they appear not to address the applicants. Further, their recent development sections are redundant - the populations of the applicant countries know the information contained therein, which is at the same time probably meaningless to EU-crats. However, they are responses to the requests for admission and as such, ought to speak to the applicants. The direction of communication is unclear.

In addition to questions about who the follow-up reports are talking to, our group also raised issues about what they are saying. The discussion touched upon the dangers of reifying the reports into THE attitude of the EU, which is the producer of other discourses and other documents on the same applications. However, it was also pointed out that if there is such a thing as the discourse produced by the EU, then any investigation of even small slices of it will reveal important traits and traces. Also, the texts under scrutiny here are exceptionally consequential documents and this status is a strong argument in favor of their use. Further perspectives that were not explored fully at this point, highlighted the need to consider the multilateral / bilateral models of communication in the application - opinion - reports sequence, and the possibility to reconceptualize the inquiry based not on countries but on regions.

On the whole, the 1998 and 1999 reports are not about changes in applicant countries as much as they are about the timing of accession - even though the EU pushes for certain types of change in the politics of applicants. The accession preparation and negotiations become an iterative process: the acquis changes constantly and is therefore not possible to fully comply to. Because the EU is changing the acquis, it is creating the situation where it is impossible to admit those that it is negotiating about admission. This dynamic is useful to keep in mind for the detailed, country-by-country analysis of closing evaluations, which seem to be prefabricated and driven by motivations other than what drives the main texts of the reports.

Integrational priorities

A staple in all of the reports is the integrational priorities of applicants. All of the reports mention that the applicant countries are committed to integration and accession very early on in the reports, in the 'recent developments' section. However, not all countries seem to want to integrate into the same entities. The following word uses occur:

Bulgaria 98"the European Union and other Euro-Atlantic bodies"

Bulgaria 99EU and NATO both mentioned

Czech Republic 98EU

Czech Republic 99EU, NATO accession mentioned in the very last sentence of the section, not made prominent

Estonia 98EU

Estonia 99EU

Hungary 98EU

Hungary 99NATO accession starts section as first sentence, EU is not mentioned in this section

Latvia 98EU

Latvia 99EU and NATO

Lithuania 98EU

Lithuania 99EU

Poland 98 EU

Poland 99NATO accession and EU both mentioned in second paragraph of section, together with "commitment to integration in Euro-Atlantic structures"

Romania 98EU

Romania 99EU

Slovakia 98EU

Slovakia 99EU - in later section (1.1. on democracy and the rule of law, the President is mentioned as visiting the European Commission and NATO to talk of commitment to accession)

Slovenia 98 EU

Slovenia 99EU

The fact that all of the reports mention the commitment of these countries to accession to the EU is hardly surprising. That it is not the only thing that is mentioned is more interesting. It highlights the relationship that exists between the ideas of getting admitted to NATO and getting admitted to the EU. In the case of those who have been admitted to NATO, their accession is mentioned in different ways in different places, which is linked to the image that the reports paint of these applicants. This will be made explicit in the discussion of the individual reports country by country. However, the reports on Bulgaria, Latvia and Slovakia in 1999 all mention commitment to NATO membership. Also, Bulgaria 98 and Poland 99 use the expressions "Euro-Atlantic bodies" and "Euro-Atlantic structures", respectively. These usages create the impression that there is a Euro-Atlantic entity, with the approximate functions of the image of the 'West', and that is what the applicants are trying to secure admission into. Then it does not matter that NATO is a separate entity and that the overlap between NATO and EU memberships is far from complete.

Accession to NATO

This overall tendency leads to the discussion of the first of several traits that appear in only some reports: accession to NATO. In the case of the Czech Republic, NATO membership is mentioned at the end of a very long 'recent developments' section, after mentioning that there has been no change in government, that EU accession is a priority, that administrative reform yielded only limited progress and that the government accepted a report about delays in reform legislation. The latter two especially set a negative tone - and then one sentence mentions accession to NATO, which is then made to appear insignificant.

In Hungary 99, NATO accession could not be more emphatic: it is in the first sentence of the section on recent developments, starting off what is easily the most glowing paragraph in the twenty reports under review. Admission to NATO is followed by mentioning the presidency of the Council of Europe - a symbolic assertion that Hungary is a integral part of 'Europe' - and by mentioning the election of local minority self-governments - a reinforcement that in the scheme of things where minority policy is the measure of democracy and civilization, Hungary is well-qualified. These implications contrast with some other parts of the report that are more critical. These contrasts are the first in a line of internal contradictions in the texts. They are a sign that there is a potentially hidden agenda that governs the inclusion of certain language, qualifications, and assessments by the EU. These formulations, once they are included, clash with the other parts of the reports that are included presumably in an effort to summarize what has been happening in applicant countries in a given year. Looking merely at the reports, it is not possible to distinguish between the various parts included on the basis of different principles.

In the case of Poland, NATO accession is mentioned in the second paragraph of the 'recent developments' section. After emphasizing that EU membership is a high priority for the government of Poland, the text goes on to say that NATO accession "underlines successive government's (sic) commitment to integration in Euro-Atlantic structures". It is not NATO membership per se that is focused on, but the desire of Poland to be 'integrated'. This is something like an excuse in a report that otherwise is highly critical of Poland for being slow in civil service legislation and in fighting corruption, and is on the whole less positive than its 1998 predecessor. The presentation of accession in this manner adds to the plausibility of a hidden agenda.

The discussion on NATO accession led our group to seek alternative readings and explanation. One suggestion was to link the different ways of presentation to the composition of the European Commission: it is possible that the position of some of the members may have serious impacts on how favorably some applicants are viewed. This possibility has not yet fully been explored.

Catch-up facility

The 'Catch-up Facility' is a program whereby the EU gives financial assistance to Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Romania to help them prepare for accession in 'certain areas'. What these areas are, does not become evident from the reports. The one and only area where the Facility is mentioned is the fight against corruption. In the cases of Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia, the 1998 reports mention the help received from the EU and the measures that these applicants took to remedy their situations. For some reason that does not become evident from the reports, those on Romania do not mention this program.

That the EU finances programs to fight corruption in applicant countries, has a special twist. Corruption is a significant element on several levels. There is no denying that it is a serious problem and requires action in the applicant countries. But then that is not different in other parts of the world either. Not even in the EU where corruption led to a change of Commission. Corruption is not peculiar to the applicant countries. Yet, there is a symbolic logic behind highlighting it as a key issue: it makes the applicant Eastern countries exotic. The Oriental Other (of the idealized Western subject) is easily understood as corrupt.

Financial solutions expected

An interesting 'new item' that occurs in the reports on several countries is the prescription that money be spent as a solution to problems. In the case of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania, the 1999 conclusions prescribe that money be infused into problem areas. This expectation was not there in 1998. In 1999, the inadequacies of the social safety net are reproached to these applicants. The grotesque nature of this criticism / expectation appears when it is recalled that the social safety net of these countries was dismantled at exactly the same time when the 'evil empire' of state socialism collapsed. Also, it is extremely hard for the applicants to react to the pronouncements of the EU: some elements of the social safety net, such as a relatively low retirement age, for instance, could be either seen as positive or as negative. Early retirement is a positive trait in a Keynesian welfare state but a negative trait in a free market. Because it is not possible to know how the EU interprets this and other traits, it is impossible to comply with its expectations.

Personal names

The reports usually do not use names of persons when talking about the political structures and offices of the applicant countries. However, in Bulgaria 98, Prime Minister Kostov is mentioned by name, just as President Adamkus is in Lithuania 98, President Schuster in Slovakia 99, and President Milan Kucan in Slovenia 98. The mention of these persons gives the impression that these are not household names and therefore need to be mentioned to make them familiar. If the names all came from countries that were not originally considered forerunners in the application process, then that would explain their mentions - the ones lagging behind might be conceptualized as less known. However, Slovenia was put in the category of forerunners when the ten respondents to questionnaires were originally (evenly) divided into two groups. If there are types of symbolic logic in the ensemble of EU reports, they are not followed consistently.

In reviewing the reports country by country and year by year, the following details, not mentioned in the discussion so far, appear:

Bulgaria 98

The discussion of the judiciary is still mainly framed in terms of lack: staff, experience, and independence are in short supply. Human rights also are a lack more than anything. These set the tone before the achievements are mentioned in section 1.2. about the changes made to the legal system to better guarantee rights. The achievements also are concluded by the report pointing out that "the law needs further improvement". This is a pervasive strategy in these reports: where there have been efforts and results, the EU judges that these have not been sufficient. The troubling aspect of this judgment is the implicit rather than explicit nature of the standards against which the achievements are measured.

The death penalty, the conditions of prisons, treatment by law enforcement officers, media freedoms are all areas where Bulgaria fails to live up to the ideal. NGOs, labor law, religious freedoms and the situation of the Turkish minority are areas that do not receive criticism. However, the Roma minority is described as one whose situation improved somewhat but not sufficiently. The general evaluation is phrased in terms of some but not sufficient progress.

Bulgaria 99

This report is special because it uses the events of the Kosovo war as an illustration of Bulgaria's commitment to integration: the country allied itself with EU and NATO positions and therefore is praised as for its commitment. This does not occur elsewhere in the reports.

The assessment of the rule of law begins in this report by saying that Bulgaria has achieved stability of democratic institutions. However, this emphasis on improvement is contextualized by the first appearance of 'wait and see language'. I use this term to refer to instances where the EU reports acknowledge that reform has taken place in a certain country, but they claim that there has not been enough time to assess the efficient or other nature of the reforms. The relevant issue is that whether or not 'wait and see language' is used does not depend on chronology. Here, Bulgarian reforms are presented as not in place for long enough for EU authorities to pronounce on them - which has more to do with the image of Bulgaria than with the time elapsed, as other cases will show. If a country is seen as not quite catching up, then one year is not sufficient to judge its reforms. If a country is predestined for a more favorable report card, then their reforms will bear fruit faster, it seems.

There is some use of a language other than English - one term appears in Bulgarian (oblasti). The use of this 'bilingual' pattern either means an effort at learning and educating users of EU documents about the realities of applicants, or a strategy of Orientalization, exoticism and Othering.

Judicial reform and the anti-corruption fight will need more efforts. The discussion of anti-corruption measures features this sentence: "Bulgarian legislation does not yet provide a concrete definition of the concept of 'corruption'". This is an exceptional case of the bar being raised constantly: conceptual clarity is also expected now. The definition of corruption is also a 'new item' - this is not something that the 1997 country opinion prescribed, but the follow-up report still reproaches its lack.

This report concedes there have been improvements but those are always framed in terms of the 'but' that follows: there are achievements but there are also continuing problems in rights protection, media independence, government control of police forces. Several more 'new items' also appear: gun control, measures against the traffic in women, and the integration of disabled people.

The Roma are used as the prototypical minority and the presentation of their situation is also emblematic of the discourse of the reports: while Bulgaria shows commitment to improving the situation of the Roma, now concrete legislation is needed.

Czech Republic 98

The discussion of the situation of the Czech Republic in 1998 features a host of negative traits: some ratifications are missing, no progress has been made in public administration reform, the civil service act deadline is slipping, the judiciary has not improved or done anything in response to the Opinion, and there still is no Supreme Administrative Court. The 1997 country opinions as a point of reference occur on several occasions in the reports and they serve as an instrument of judging applicants: if the applicant country responded and did as the opinion told it, then it is a reason for praise. If there was no response - the case here in Czech Republic 1998 - then it is a reason for reproach.

In addition to missing responses and ratifications, this report also features the European Charter of Local Self-Government as a new item that went unratified. The section on civil and political rights features a contradiction: it first says that there "are no major problems regarding the respect of civil and political rights" then in the next paragraph it pronounces that the "application of Czech law on citizenship continues to be problematic". This is an example of a contrast that has been identified above as a clue that there might be a hidden agenda or set of priorities on the part of the EU in assigning qualifications.

A unique element of the 98 report on the Czech Republic is the inclusion of comparison - this is a contrast with the markedly decontextualized nature of the 1997 opinions. The 98 report says: "The non-governmental sector in the Czech Republic is not as developed as in a number of neighboring candidate countries". This is the only reference to the fact that the applicants are neighbors and can be compared to one another - which has to be part of the EU internal processes since the applicants are ranked, but comparison not usually put in the reports up front.

The closure of the section on human rights and minorities is phrased in terms of the program on the Roma being encouraging, although more work needs to be done. This contradicts the list of all the things that are missing. It also contrasts with the treatment of Bulgaria where the tone is one of criticism in spite of everything that has been done. In the Czech Republic's case, the tone is one of optimism in spite of everything that is missing.

Czech Republic 99

The 99 report on the Czech Republic focuses on delays, lack and on 'new items'. Legal experts are in short supply, the judiciary still has not improved, organized crime is still not curbed, the Supreme Administrative Court is still not in place, corruption is on the increase. The new items are the traffic in women, the gender gap in salaries, and the inadequate punishment of hate crimes.

The wall of Usti nad Labem is featured prominently in the report. Immediately following it is the statement that "the Government action plan of October 1997 detailing measures to improve the situation of the Roma has mostly been fulfilled". This pronouncement contradicts the three paragraphs preceding it that detail what is wrong and missing. There is a tension between summarizing negative developments and the intention not to condemn. This report is extremely high in contradictions and therefore more confusing than most of the other ones.

Estonia 98

This report features bilingual word use as well as reproach for lack of skill in public administration, and criticism of the judiciary where reform is underway but still not showing sufficient results. The discussion of corruption in Estonia 98 is contradictory: the situation is described as one that has improved, while there is 'wait and see' language: ""It is not clear yet whether the measures taken until now have had a positive impact". The use of this type of language in the case of a forerunner country - one with whom accession negotiations started in the first round - forecloses an interpretation of 'wait and see language' and the division into forerunners and laggers-behind as equivalent.

The discussion of human rights and minorities in the case of Estonia 98 is follows a balanced structure: two positive (abolition of the death penalty and improvement of refugee conditions) and two negative traits (prison and pre-trial conditions) are mentioned. This could be the sign of a neutral evaluation - however, it is followed by a series of criticisms on the situation of citizenship legislation and naturalization procedures. These are in turn followed by acknowledging Estonia's efforts to respond to the Opinion of 1997 and a list of improvements in the lives on non-citizens. The general evaluation section, however, goes back to a more negative tone and says that "it is regrettable that the Parliament has not adopted amendments to the citizenship law to allow stateless children to become citizens". In the progression of the report as readers come into contact with, this produces an impression of hesitation after which the report comes down on the side of negative judgment.

Estonia 99

Estonia 99 features one of the more startling elements of the entire discursive universe: it criticizes the country for the high number of parties it has. This is a 'new item' that does not appear in the discussion of Estonia in the 97 opinion or in the other reports as a concern. Bilingual word use and the focus on what is missing in public administration reform is kept from the 98 report. Measures of administrative and legislative reform are mentioned in a short form after a lengthy discussion of that is wrong and / or missing - which is a case of tone-setting and influencing readers.

In the discussion of human rights and minorities, there is an initial step to present Estonia in a favorable light: the active voice is used to describe the ratification of several conventions, while the passive voice is used to say that the social charter has not been ratified. Estonia did the ratification in one case, whereas in the other, non-ratification just happened. The positive tone is kept up by emphasizing the response to the 98 report in passing legislation on the citizenship of stateless children. However, there are 'new items': the gender gap in wages and the use of the term 'ethnic non-Estonians' to describe a group of inhabitants. These, however, are nowhere near as negative as the terms in which the language law is described.

The EU attitude of indignation and anger about the language law is illustrated by the length devoted to its discussion: the chiding of Estonia on this count takes up a fourth of the space of the human rights and minorities section. The language law violates the Europe Agreement and contradicts international standards. Interestingly, this discussion is the only place where the EU is referred to as the Community - the term referring to pre-Maastricht times. It is also a term whose connotations bring up ideas of togetherness and belonging - ideas and ideals that Estonia is now portrayed as violating. Hence the very strong language in the general evaluation: the language law "constitutes a step backwards and should be amended". Backwardness is made explicit rather than stay in the phase of implicit assumption about an applicant.

Hungary 98

This report uses the Hungarian acronym for the party winning the 98 elections - which is bilingual use, with all its problems mentioned earlier, and also impossible to understand for anyone who is not thoroughly familiar with the country. The presentation of the judiciary in this report deserves attention: it is a list of improvements in response to the opinion of 1997 and then closes on wait-and-see language: "It remains to be seen if the reform will speed up judicial procedures or improve the standard of rulings". Maybe wait-and-see language may serve the purpose to make the so-called forerunners wait: if there was no wait-and-see period necessary, then it would be hard to justify why not admitting them.

The discussion of civil and political rights is introduced by a sentence about "important progress" and then lists the areas - except that the last item on the list is about police behavior and the prison situation, both of which are problems and not improvements. Their placement in the list starting off with a very positive heading is misleading.

The general evaluation section offers praise for the 98 elections for "a smooth transfer of power" and a short reminder that the situation of the Roma needs to be improved.

Hungary 99

This report features the glowing paragraph that was already referred to under the NATO accession section. It also comes back to one of the concerns of the 1998 report: minorities still do not have representation in parliament. There has, however, been some improvement in the situation of the judiciary - including training sessions for judges on EU law. A new concern compared to the 98 report is too high government involvement in the media. Another 'new item' is the substandard hygienic conditions in the camps where illegal migrants are kept. Even though refugees receive care on an internationally acceptable level, the standard is creeping higher: illegals ought to get the same. This is probably to balance out the human rights prize given by the UNHCR…

Another 'new item' is the services and lack thereof for disabled people. A new/ fresh insight in the discourse of the reports is the implementation of bilateral treaties among countries: the treaty with Slovakia is mentioned as a positive development. Other than the comparative reference in Czech Republic 98, this is the only other clue that the applicants are not ten distinct entities in a (ten) vacuum(s).

The situation of the Roma is presented through a list of improvements and programs and then concludes on the judgment that in spite of "the steps taken, the situation of the Roma remains very difficult". Without questioning the truth of this statement, it must be pointed out that the technique is to acknowledge improvements and then to judge them insufficient.

Latvia 98

In this report, the presentation of executive and judiciary reform follows the technique of listing improvements and then finding them lacking. There are examples of bilingual word use in the report. There is also tone-setting: at the beginning of the section on anti-corruption measures, the report says: "Efforts have been made by the Latvian authorities and will continue to be needed to combat corruption". Before the readers find out what has been done, they already know it has not been enough. After the measures are listed, 'wait and see language' is used: "It is too early to assess the effectiveness of these measures, and the situation needs to be followed closely". Latvia is not a forerunner so it is not the case that the wait-and-see strategy is justification for postponement. It is impossible to find solely on the basis of the reports the logic behind using wait-and-see language.

This report also features new terminology - non-ethnic Latvians are mentioned. Together with Estonia 99, this seems to point to new directions in EU discourse - previously, ethnicity was not the basis of the discussion. A new item featured in the section of rights is the need for rehabilitation programs.

There has been a response to the Opinion in order to speed up the naturalization process. This area also calls for a new item: when all recommendations are implemented in terms of citizenship law, information will have to be continuously distributed about citizenship applications.

While there is a wait-and-see attitude in this report about the language law, it is justified here, since the law was in parliament when the report was finished.

Latvia 99

This is the report where the wait-and-see language is the most prominent. Although the first case where it might potentially appear - the civil service act being in draft form at the time of completion of the report - features a description of the government's commitment to integration instead, the discussion of legislative reform, and the description of anti-corruption measures both use the cautious wait-and-see technique. The section on corruption is special because it admits that the assessment of just how corrupt a country is, presents difficulties. Other than the mention of corruption as hard to define (Bulgaria 99), this admission that it is hard to measure are the only instances where corruption is not taken for granted as a clearly defined entity. Nonetheless, the efforts to fight corruption are presented in the usual manner: more is needed.

The section on right provides the description of a pensioners' rally, which was peaceful this year, unlike the one before. This is in tension with the 98 description where the dispersion of the crowd did not explicitly imply anything other than a traffic obstruction.

The 99 report acknowledges that the condition of prisons has improved - and then undercuts that by saying that in some prisons, there are problems. The ever-higher-creeping standards require no exceptions to the rule of linear progress. The standards are also alluded to through the 'new items' of the disabled and the mentally handicapped. The major concern is still the language law - although steps have been taken, the general evaluation says that the final version of the language law may still end up being in conflict with the Europe Agreement.

Lithuania 98

In this report with some further examples of bilingual word use, there are multiple instances of not enough progress: public administration is improving, but there is no civil service act in place yet; there have been responses to the 97 opinion, but there is also the wait-and-see strategy when it comes to judiciary reform: "the Lithuanian authorities have taken several measures, the effectiveness of which has yet to be tested". The same attitude is manifest in the treatment of corruption: "Although stamping out corruption is one of the Government's highest priorities, it remains to be seen whether the measures taken so far will be sufficient". 'Sufficient' is the operative term: what has been done is not enough just yet.

The situation of civil and political rights is framed in terms of response to the Opinion, with qualifications. There have been efforts but more work is necessary. The issue of minorities is mentioned only in a single paragraph which starts by saying "there is nothing new to report". The general evaluation mentions the judiciary and corruption as problem areas - very much in keeping with the overwhelming majority of summary evaluations.

Lithuania 99

This report resorts to new terminology by using transparency as a shorthand for the lack of corruption and introduces a new item: the European Charter of Local Self Government. The section on anti-corruption measures deserves careful attention: its structure is to pronounce that more efforts are needed, then say that some steps have been taken, though. The steps are listed only after the negative tone is set. Also, a 'new item' appears: "the definition of active and passive corruption". In addition to Latvia 99, where corruption is described as hard to measure, and Bulgaria 99, where the definition of corruption is problematized, this is the third time that corruption is not mentioned as easily taken for granted. Given the high number of times corruption is mentioned in the reports, taking it for granted is the rule with very few exceptions.

The section on civil and political rights points out that Lithuania not only responded to the opinion but also reacted to the 98 report. Therefore there are improvements to report on in - with the inevitable raising of standards: prison conditions have improved to the point where women's prisons have provisions for convicts to have their children by their side, but there is still over-crowdedness.

The Polish minority is described as having problems - nonetheless, there are efforts to remedy the situation. This is the rare instance of a minority situation is written up as actually working out.

Poland 98

This report is one of the most negative ones among the 20 reviewed here. It also has numerous instances of bilingual word use - which could tip the balance in the direction of interpreting this strategy as exoticism rather than a learning process, these being the possible interpretations outlined above in the section on Bulgaria 99. Everything seems to be wrong: major civil service reform is called for since the 1996 law was a failure; the concerns about the judiciary voiced in the opinion are still valid; and the anti-corruption measures that were carried out were an inadequate response to the opinion. The developments that are possible to diagnose in the case of the judiciary, are only mentioned once the condemning remarks about falling short of opinion requirements.

The section on rights begins by claiming that "It would appear that there have been no cases of inhuman and degrading treatment recorded in Poland since the Opinion". The use of the conditional, even if/when it is an element of formal style rather than an expression of actual conditionality, distances and reduces the claim. While civil and political rights are not problematic, the court specializing in lustration is described as in need of staff and resources. The treatment of women is introduced as a 'new item'.

After all these problems and critical remarks, Poland 98 closes on a general evaluation section that is surprising on two counts: it is in contrast with the rest of the report and it is exceptional among the closing summary sections. For it is unquestionably entirely positive. This is a powerful sign that various principles are at play and clash in the production of these reports.

Poland 99

This report ends the recent developments section by saying that the reforms in Poland will help with the integration process once they are completed. This initial section places the promise of acceptance and admission into the non-descript future. The report also features numerous cases of bilingual uses and a string of assessments that describe the insufficiency of what has been happening in the country. Civil service reform must proceed faster, judiciary reform does not qualify as sufficient response to the opinion and the 1998 report, more effort is needed to remedy the status of the judges, corruption has remained a concern since the opinion. The positive side of this balance sheet features some Polish citizens seeking help from the European Court of Human Rights, which the report writes up as a sign that the mechanisms at the disposal of citizens work properly.

The section on rights begins by pronouncing that "Basic rights continue to be respected and some significant developments have been registered since the 1998 Report". This is a case that may serve as a counterpoint or contrast to the 'wait and see language' of so many other cases. Apparently in this case, one year is sufficient for the EU to make a judgment about the effects of measures. This supports the claim that it is not chronology that decides how the EU will pronounce on matters.

'New items' are placed in this report in the case of trafficking in human beings and women's rights. Some standards are still not met. The general evaluation at the end of this report is less positive than the one of the previous year. This is a multi-layered tension: the text of the 1998 report was rather negative and the evaluation was positive. In 1999, the general evaluation is less positive but the text on the whole is less negative. Poland's case is the strongest argument that the main body and the evaluative summaries of the reports are the products of different processes and principles.

Romania 98

Romania 98 starts with the statement that emergency ordinances are still widely used, which has been a concern already at the time of the opinion in 1997. This appears as a tone-setter in the context of the other reports. However, it is not followed by negative or critical comments. Instead, the government of the country is described as committed to reforming the administration. This is followed by the section on the judiciary, which begins with an introduction that is absolutely free from either praise or condemnation. It just states the "A series of measures has been taken to strengthen the working of the judiciary." The refraining from judgment at the initial stage is unusual among these reports. After the measures are listed, the reports says that "there remains considerable scope for improving the operation of the judicial system". The language is important here: room for improvement is way more positive than the usual fare of insufficient efforts and more work to be done. Criticism is shunned in this report to a large extent. Even when police reform is discussed, the lack of a clear timetable as to when and how the police will be demilitarized, is mentioned without further comment. The point where criticism or negative comments do appear is the discussion of anti-corruption measures. They need to be more effective - which is especially difficult because "the legal basis for the fight against corruption remains incomplete". Corruption is either so much worse than the other domains described that there is no plausible way of holding off on criticism here, or there are different motivations producing the passage on corruption and the previous ones. Corruption as the main problem area in the case of all applicants appears to be an overarching discursive strategy in the reports, which could produce the critical passages. The rest of the report may be the manifestation of a language and conceptualization peculiar to Romania.

Romania-specific language is used again in the beginning of the section on civil and political rights. In pronouncing that there has been improvement in child protection, the report says the "underlying reform strategy, supported by the Phare program, has started to bear fruit" - cf. the issue of chronology above in Bulgaria 99 and Poland 99. Also, in child protection, "there is scope for further improving policy implementation". This is the same type of 'room for improvement' language use as in the discussion of judiciary reform earlier in this report.

These elements set a positive tone - and then the statement that there has not been improvement in civil rights all across the board, does not sound as dramatic. The closing sentences of the section on civil and political rights contradict the previous optimistic pronouncements. This raises the issues of contradictions that appear throughout the reports.

The section on rights also features 'new items': gender equality, physical and mental disabilities are domains where new shortcomings are diagnosed. In the domain of minority rights, the Roma are the only group whose situation is not acceptable. The protection of this minority is one of the tasks that appear in the general evaluation as well, together with other areas where "much still remains to be done".

Romania 99

This report starts with offering praise to the government for handling the cases of civil unrest in the year prior to the publication of this report. Then the text turns to pronouncing the deterioration of the situation of children in care as a recent development, and then to what remains a constant emphasis in this report: the government has a tendency to rule through decrees and emergency ordinances. By the time the text moves to the assessment of the development of the judiciary, it is again using the language typical of the 1998 report: "There is scope for further improving court administration".

While the discussion of the judiciary keeps the techniques and the tone of Romania 98, the section on anti-corruption measures changes the strategy. Here, the tone is set by ringing the alarm about the continued gravity of the situation and it is only after this that the positive measures to combat corruption are mentioned at all. The closure of the section is one where Romania is criticized for lacking determination in fighting against corruption and where there is a 'new item': cooperation among the various bodies dealing with corruption is expected. Of course, it is reasonable and good strategy to want anti-corruption bodies and organizations to cooperate. However, in the context of the EU assessing applicants over a period of time, even a good and reasonable measure become a sign of raising the bar when it did not appear on the original list of expectations.

The section on rights in Romania 99 is one of the more interesting ones in the entire corpus of reports. It features a lengthy discussion on child protection. It references the 1998 report which saw positive change in children's rights and says that the change was in the right direction, but offered only a partial solution and the year 1999 brought a deterioration of conditions. The 'new item' of the passage is statistics on children in care: the numbers are contradictory and the new expectation is to have satisfactory statistics. The government is called upon to respond to the prescriptions by the Commission and to make efforts so that child protection will not solely depend on international help. The rights section then goes from child protection to what it calls 'other issues'. In this passage, issues are mentioned briefly: the penal code not being compliant with European norms is accorded a total of 3 lines, in which 6 issue areas are identified as problematic. This contrasts sharply with the page and a half devoted to child protection and conveys a sense that whatever fits the EU image of Romania will be accorded more space, and the rest of the issues will only be mentioned in passing.

The rights of disabled persons is a 'new item'. In the discussion of minorities, all the bad things happening to the Roma are listed - an then the projects of positive discrimination are mentioned only once the negative tone is set. Finally, the general evaluation explains the amount of space devoted to children's rights: if childcare does not improve, Romania is no longer fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria. The application itself is at stake then - and everything hangs on this one issue. The other striking trait of the summary evaluation is the prescription that attitudes about the Roma must change. They should. There is nothing wrong with that normative claim. However, if accession is made conditional on socio-cultural change of mental maps, it is postponed indeterminately.

Slovakia 98

This report's introduction shows the EU talking about what it told Slovakia about how to speed up reform - this is unusual because most reports do not - or at least not at the very beginning - mention EU communication and prescriptions to applicants. EU communications are relevant in this particular report because it is strongly relying on the technique of negative tone-setting and constant reference to what the EU communicated to Slovakia, lends this technique legitimacy.

What the OSCE had to say about minorities was simply ignored, and municipal elections were expected to be held in a situation where some of the electoral legislation was pronounced unconstitutional but nothing was being done about it. Where there was a response to the opinion calling for the rectification of the parliament's functioning, it was not sufficient. When the EU communicated to the Slovak government that the steps taken in the executive branch (presidential powers assumed by former Prime Minister) were harming the application for membership, the government rejected the EU statement. In the judiciary, there has not been real change since the opinion.

Negative tone-setting is at its strongest when minority language use is discussed in the report. It mentions the fact that school report cards are neither official nor free of charge if they are bilingual before talking about the Parliament's rejection of the educational act harming minorities. Similarly, the Roma are described as still needing protection as at the time of the opinion before positive changes are acknowledged.

All of the report works towards the point where the general evaluation qualifies democratic institutions as shaky in Slovakia. The report identifies a changing political climate, though, and uses wait and see language to describe the EU attitude to the new government.

Slovakia 99

Following on the 1998 report, Slovakia 99 announces that democracy is now being consolidated in Slovakia. The EU discourse has room for regime stability and consolidation to change significantly in the space of one year. Therefore it is plausible to claim that the functioning of the parliament has improved because the year 1999 say a response both to the opinion and the 1998 report.

In the presentation of the responses and changes, the technique is acknowledging efforts and judging them insufficient. This holds for public administration reform and for anti-corruption measures. In the case of the judiciary, though, before steps taken are even mentioned, the tone is set by pointing out that the opinion found the judiciary lacking in independence and then the 1998 report found no change.

The discussion of civil and political rights throws everything together in one of the most condensed paragraphs in all the reports: the traffic in women (a 'new item'), the need to make state-owned media truly public service, and land ownership by foreigners are all here. Given the little space allotted to these, it appears that these are not a high priority for the EU this year. The passage on minorities is also similarly condensed: bringing the language law back within the framework of constitutionality, implementation of the basic treaty with Hungary and the situation of the Roma are all discussed in a structure that no longer separates these issues into paragraphs of their own. This is in keeping with the evaluation at the end of the report that highlights the importance of institutions and prescribes efforts aiming at their stability.

Slovenia 98

This report specializes in criticizing the lack of speed: the legislative process is too slow in Slovenia, public administration reform does not proceed fast enough, in the case of the judiciary, "Not much progress has been achieved". The latter domain receives quite an unusual complaint: the judicial process is slow because there are too many human rights guarantees. Positive developments in the domain of the judiciary are only mentioned after the negative tone is set. The place where negative tone-setting does not work is the anti-corruption section: since there is not much corruption, the only thing the report says is that efforts to combat it need to be stepped up.

In the section on civil and political rights, new terminology is introduced: what used to be referred to as restitution of property is now 'denationalization'. Property relations also call for extensive quoting from the Association Agreement - while the report on Slovakia paraphrases previous EU communication, the explicit standard is not quoted in this manner in other reports. The summary evaluation at the end of the report mentions property ownership by foreigners as a problem - which is in keeping with the technique of quoting extensively what Slovenia committed to. Speed is an issue in computerizing the land registry as well as in handling citizenship claims. There has been extensive labor legislation, and while the Roma have problems, there are programs to help them. The report on the whole is quite positive when compared to most others. Which is in contrast with the general evaluation at the end: it features no laudatory comments at all. Other reports would include words of praise in the final evaluation even at the end of reports that in general are less favorable.

Slovenia 99

This report keeps the main concern from the previous year: speed of procedures and reforms is still the problem for Slovenia. Characteristically, the measures taken to speed up the legislative process are mentioned only after the negative tone is set. Similarly, the discussion of the judiciary describes the speed / slowness problem kept from the previous year before mentioning progress.

The discussion on corruption says the available statistics claim there is not much corruption, but that organized crime is on the rise. The next paragraph quite contradictorily says that more efforts are needed for fight corruption. This conveys the impression that there is a prefabricated set of concerns that the EU uses and will resort to even where it is not entirely appropriate.

Human rights are not problematic and prison conditions are also fine - because those prefab concerns are not prominent, the report moves on to something that is: land ownership. The Association Agreement is quoted again at length - but this time it is not set off from the main text by smaller font size as it was in the previous report.

New items are introduced with the rights of the disabled and gender equality. In the case of the disabled, there are constitutional guarantees for their rights - the new standard is met. In the case of gender relations, the glass ceiling put women's salaries at 85% of those of men. Pointing this out as a shortcoming is a strong clue that the standard is not the real but the idealized version of Western Europe and EU members.

Summary and conclusion

It seems that the best way to conclude the analysis of the follow-up reports is to review the concluding sections of these reports. Thus, the paragraphs that contain the EU's judgment and summary assessment of the applicant countries, will be seen at a glance.

Table of Annual (1998 & 1999) Report Comparative Analysis

Y = Yes, it is found/mentioned in the "General Evaluation" section

N = No, it is not found/mentioned in the "General Evaluation" section

The "Fulfill Polit Crit" column renders the info of whether or not the Commission stated explicitly that the country fulfilled the Political Criteria.

The following 9 columns are thematic data as expressed by the Commission that represent the breadth of the Summary deficiencies in the applicant countries that are addressed by the Commission.

 

Help Roma

Help stateless

Reform Judiciary

Fix Parlim process

Respect for rule of law

Lang learning

Public Admin reform

Bulgaria 1998 1999

Y Y

Y Y

Y Y

N N

Y Y

N N

Y Y

N N

N N

N N

Czech Rep. 1998 1999

Y Y

Y Y

Y Y

N N

Y Y

N N

N N

N N

N N

N N

Estonia 1998 1999

N Y

N Y

N N

Y Y

Y N

N N

N N

Y Y

Y N

N N

Hungary 1998 1999

Y Y

Y Y

Y Y

N N

N N

N N

N N

N N

N N

N N

Latvia 1998 1999

Y Y

Y Y

N N

N N

Y Y

N N

N N

Y Y

Y N

N N

Lithuania 1998 1999

Y Y

Y Y

N N

N N

Y Y

N N

N N

N N

N N

N N

Poland 1998 1999

Y Y

N Y

N N

N N

N Y

N N

N N

N N

N N

N N

Romania 1998 1999

Y Y

Y Y

Y Y

N N

Y Y

N N

N N

N N

Y N

N N

Slovakia 1998* 1999

N Y

Y

Y

N

Y

N

N

N

N

N

Slovenia 1998 1999

Y Y

N N

N N

N N

Y Y

Y Y

N N

N N

N N

Y N

 *Slovakia's 1998 Report varied drastically from the otherwise typical format for the rest of the country's 1998 General Evaluation's.

Further observations may be made on the basis of the general evaluation sections:

In the 1998 Reports 5 countries arbitrarily received the status of "institutions functioning smoothly." These were Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, and Slovenia.

In the 1999 Reports, Romania barely fulfills the Political Criteria.

The 1999 Reports instituted a more active and forward/direct approach in the explicit ordering/suggesting of the country's possible actions in the "General Evaluation" section.

The 1999 Report adds "Fight Crime" to the deficiencies of Czech Republic and Slovakia, and adds "Help Minority Rights" to Slovakia and Bulgaria as well. The concern for human rights is found in Romania and Bulgaria. ('98 Report had a concern for civil rights in Poland's section)

Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania are all told by the Commission to use money to help the Roma/attitudes of the people towards minorities/minority rights.

The concentration on improving discriminating attitudes in society reflects a new drastic shift in the '99 General Evaluations.

These observations offer further support for the main findings of this analysis: there are parts of the reports that appear motivated by unstated or hidden agendas and therefore conflict with one another. There are tensions within the reports and very few links among them, although some notion of applicants being neighbors and comparable, does enter the follow-up reports, in contradistinction to the 1997 country opinions. The tone and strategy of communication is consistent across all these pieces of discourse by the EU: it is the assumption of a dominant position where there is only one speaker (the EU) who is powerful enough to label the process a dialogue, even though the only communications that are referenced by the follow-up reports are by the EU and not by applicant countries.