Introduction

Abstract

The promotion of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights is a central goal of EU external policy, based on the common values of its member states. After the breakdown of communist regimes in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the EU contributed successfully to the consolidation of democracy in the region by supporting and integrating Central and Eastern European countries. This successful result is generally attributed to the EU’s policy of accession conditionality (Schimmelfennig et al. 2006; Schimmelfennig and Scholtz 2008) or ‘active leverage’ (Vachudova 2005), which offered the democratizing countries EU membership as a reward for democratic consolidation. This has become the epitome of effective EU external action, and continues to shape expectations for the Union’s role in international democracy promotion well after the completion of its historic Eastern enlargement.