This article addresses the promotion of democracy in the enlargement process of the Central and Eastern European countries. We start by outlining EU democracy promotion during accession, with a particular focus on political conditionality. In a subsequent part we argue that the European...

The Union's noncompliance with any of the standards of gay rights protection it had at its disposal in 1997, when the pre-accession Regular Reporting of the East European applicants for membership commenced, did not prevent it from promoting gay rights protection as a necessary pre-accession...

The European Union is founded on a set of common principles of democracy, the rule of law, and fundamental rights, as enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on the European Union. Whereas future Member States are vetted for their compliance with these values before they accede to the Union, no...