THE RULE OF LAW IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION’S WESTERN BALKANS ENLARGEMENT POLICY

Abstract

The key conditions for EU membership and the principle of rule of law are enshrined in the Copenhagen criteria. Amplifying the conditionality policy meant that political criteria were introduced into the EU membership negotiation process by means of diff erentiating two chapters within Union law: Chapter 23, Judiciary and fundamental rights, and Chapter 24, Justice, freedom and security, thus creating the basis for the new approach at the enlargement process according to the motto “fundamentals fi rst”. The reason for introducing this approach was the requirement to achieve results in the areas that represent the pillars of a democratic society and are an indispensable precondition for conducting the remaining reforms. This requirement is particularly refl ected in the 22 POLITICAL THOUGHT 59 VASKO NAUMOVSKI MILENA APOSTOLOVSKA-STEPANOSKA LEPOSAVA OGNJANOSKA latest proposal on a new enlargement methodology that followed the summit in October 2019, when appointing a date for the start of negotiations with Albania and our state was postponed and the accession process, again, reached a dead end. The proposed methodology focuses even more on the “fundamentals”, taking into account that democratic institutions and economic criteria are also affected by the rule of law. Thus, political criteria are linked to economic criteria in one logical entity, as foreseen according to the Copenhagen criteria.