Funding Values: The EU, Civil Society, and the Rule of Law in Serbia

Michele Debernardi, Geneva Graduate Institute

Democracy and the rule of law emerged as guiding principles of EU foreign policy in the 1990s, when the European Commission’s DG8 rationalized the administration of the European Development Fund directed to former African colonies (Dimier 2014). The end of the Cold War reoriented EU policy from Africa to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where EU enlargement was considered an instrument for the continent’s political reunification (Bernini and Zielonka 2023). In 1990, in continuity with practices previously developed in the “Third World” (Mayhew and Sargent 1996), the EU launched the PHARE program in CEE with the objective of introducing “pluralist democratic procedures and practices and the rule of law” (European Commission 1993, 135). Unlike former colonies, establishing the rule of law in prospective member states was a precondition for the functioning of the EU in socio-economic and commercial terms and for “Europe’s self-understanding as a union of liberal democracies” (von Bogdandy 2018, 693). “Funding” the rule of law is a key EU priority in the current enlargement negotiations with the Western Balkans. The EU has increased financial support for civil society to encourage legal and institutional reform from within candidate countries, but success often depends on the political will of government officials (Fagan and Wunsch 2018). In this context, hostile relations between the state and civil society raise questions about the perceived legitimacy of EU intervention. I conducted fieldwork at the EU Delegation to Serbia and the Council of Europe Office in Belgrade. Relying on in-depth interviews with EU civil servants and CSO representatives, I ask: Who are the individuals operating in the “international field of practices” (Guilhot 2005) of rule of law promotion in Serbia? What is the role of local CSOs? And under what conditions do the EU, CSOs, and the Serbian government negotiate Serbia’s EU accession?

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 Presented in Session 108. Rule of Law, Policy Feedback, and Civic Participation