The Accession Negotiations of the Czech Republic to the European Union: how successful?

Abstract

the European Union (1998-2000). The main research questions are: how to
measure success or failure in the accession negotiations? Are the conditions
of the Czech Republic's entry well negotiated? Why are the results of the
negotiations the way they are? The study demonstrates that the abilities of
negotiators influence the results of the accession negotiations. This
confirms the hypothesis that negotiators' abilities, their strategy, and tactics
matters in this specific and highly asymmetric negotiations, although the
character of the accession negotiations would presume that those should
have only minor role in the accession talks. The analysis studies the
influence of the negotiators' abilities in the good results in the area of the
transitional periods as well as in the relatively less successful outcomes in
the financial deal. Although a direct correlation between the effective
strategy/tactics and successful results as well as between the incompetent
or missing strategy/tactics and unsuccessful outcomes was not found, the
study proves the impact of the individual as well as collective
strategy/tactics of the candidates. The Czech Republic individually, as well
as in the cooperation with other candidates, achieved not only expected
minor concessions but was also able to change the original position of the
EU and even the EU methodology. The strategy of the Czech foreign policy
towards the bilateral disputes with the member states (nuclear power
Temelín, Benes decrees) could influence the low sum of the future Czech
income for the years 2004-2006 from the EU budget, although the resultant
amount was mainly determined by the objective reasons in the distribution
of the finances among the candidates.