The Eu's Neoliberal Agenda in Acceding Member States

Starting in the mid-1990s and accelerating through the early 2000s, liberalization in much of eastern Europe was driven by the overpowering incentive of EU membership.  This was particularly true for the eleven post-Communist countries becoming part of the European Union, but also in other potential candidate countries in the Western Balkans and elsewhere.  This paper argues that the incentive of membership in the European Union was a much more powerful motivating factor for neoliberal reform than IMF or World Bank conditionality. Moreover, the paper shows that even where neoliberal reforms benefited from the local support of strong and well placed advocates, like in the Czech Republic and Poland, the EU was an important actor helping to “complete” the unfinished implementation of privatization and liberalization. In short, while EU accession did not affect all countries equally, candidate and potential candidate countries in eastern Europe, the Western Balkans and the former Soviet Union have been continuing to profoundly liberalize their economies due to EU influence.