The European Union (EU) stands on the threshold of the eastward enlargement. The accession process was launched on March 30, 1998 with ten Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs). Five of them- Hungary, Poland, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia- are due to begin accession negotiations in the immediate future. Previous enlargements had profound implications for the nature of the EU and the eastward enlargement will also prove to have long lasting effects. As Harris notes: ‘the changes set off originally by the collapse of communism have resulted in an unprecedented speed of development, both in terms of the widening of the European Union and the deepening’.

A variety of incentives on the part of the EU and the CEECs contribute to the shaping of this process; nonetheless like the Mediterranean enlargements of the 1980s, the eastward enlargement of the EU is ‘first and foremost political in nature, arising from the need to provide the applicant states with stability and support as they emerged...to hard won freedom and democracy’. Though it is often argued that changes in the CEECs are irreversible and the liberal democratic order is destined to triumph in Europe, its success throughout the whole European area, however, is still questionable and far from being ubiquitous reality. Mazower argues that ‘we should certainly not assume that democracy is suited to Europe. Though we may like to think democracy’s victory in the cold war proves its deep roots in European soil, history tells us otherwise’. Thus, Harris is right to conclude that ‘the eagerness for different countries from Central and Eastern Europe to join the European Union as quickly as possible must therefore be welcomed precisely as an opportunity to secure democracy in these countries’ (my italics).

A multiplicity of actors have been involved in shaping the democratisation process in the CEECs and subsequently the eastward enlargement process of the EU. This paper particularly focuses on the often neglected dimension of transnational party co-operation in Europe and analyses its role and impact in the enlargement process. The main aim is to analyse the role of the European People’s Party (EPP)- one of the most important transnational party federations in the EU with long standing ideological commitment to the European integration process- in the eastward enlargement process of the EU as well as the likely effects of the eastward enlargement on the EPP. The main argument is that transnational Christian Democratic (CD) minded party co-operation across Europe had a noticeable role to play in the democratisation process in the CEECs and subsequently in the eastward enlargement process of the EU. At the same time, the eastward enlargement of the Union will substantially affect the institutional and ideological dimensions of the EPP.

It will be argued in Chapter 2 of the paper that transnational party co-operation, like in the Mediterranean democratisation period, has contributed to the democratisation process in the CEECs and particularly to the emergence and development of political party systems in this region. In addition to that, the EPP has developed a collaborative institutional framework with the CD minded parties in the CEECs which has served as a framework for legitimising, assimilating and socialising the still nascent CD parties and political elites of the region. The paper further argues that transnational party co-operation across Europe contributes to the ‘europeanisation’ of political parties and especially political elites of the CEECs which, given the prospect of the EU eastward enlargement, may play a positive role as a pre-condition for the more stable political integration of the candidate member states.

Moreover, Chapter 3 will argue that the eastward enlargement of the EU will have inevitable effects on the institutional arrangements and cohesiveness of the EPP as well as the status of the EPP Group in the EP. Therefore, the paper looks at the EPP strategy in response to the EPP enlargement and argues that the underlying rationale of the recent developments in the EPP points to an increasing tendency to open the EPP up to parties from other traditions with intention of preserving its strength in the EU decision- making institutions and in the European Parliament (EP) in particular. This, however, risks of diffusing the Christian Democratic ethos in the EPP and subsequently internal cohesiveness of the party. The paper concludes that after the eastward enlargement of the EU the EPP is likely to consolidate its strength in the EU because of retaining considerable numbers of representatives in the decision-making structures, but dichotomy of widening versus deepening will prove to be a mutually exclusive phenomenon.

The question of the role and impact of transnational party activities across Europe is especially important considering the significance of political parties in the EU and its institutions. Despite discussions about the decline in the importance of party ideology, historical, sociological and institutional reasons for changes in the significance of the political parties in Western Europe, political parties continue to play a vital role in the EU.

Moreover, the European integration process was intrinsically related to the emergence of the new phenomenon in transnational party co-operation- namely the transnational party federations which eventually developed in the so called European parties. Though the EU is not ‘Europe des partis’, but it is certainly more than a ‘Europe des patries’. At the European level political parties mainly through the transnational party federations and party groups in the European Parliament, play a decisive role while providing a legitimating linkage between the EU institutions and national constituencies, aggregating alternative economic, political and social models for the European integration process and producing transnational mobilisation of political forces for their implementation. Moreover, some of the most important EU decision-making institutions (the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Council) are run by officials recruited from national political parties and therefore are directly related to the domestic party context.

The role and significance of transnational European parties was recognised by the Maastricht Treaty. Article 138A states:

‘Political parties at European level are important as a factor for integration within the Union. They contribute to forming a European awareness and to expressing the political will of the citizens of the Union’.

The role and impact of transnational party activities in the EU is, however, ultimately dependent and often constrained by the EU institutional arrangements. The Council which ‘is at the heart of decision- making in the EU’ remains the main arena of political conflict where ultimately national cleavages often outweigh ideological left-right cleavage.

Together with the principles of personalism, the social market, and subsidiarity, commitment to European integration is one of the hallmarks of the CD ideology in Europe. As Lamberts puts it, ‘Christian Democracy has associated itself to such an extent with European integration that its continued existence will most probably also be conditioned by it’. González goes as far as to argue that the European Union is essentially an ideological project constructed by Christian Democrats:

‘at most, the European Union is essentially a Christian Democratic project. At least, Christian Democracy has been on the vanguard of European integration since World War II...Explanations which understand the development of the European Union as the expression of a certain economic determinism in the midst of an increasingly inter- dependent world fail to acknowledge the essentially ideological content of this development’

The CD commitment to the federal model of European integration stems from the centrality of the subsidiarity principle in the CD ideology and is associated with the understanding of national sovereignty which, they argue, is not the guiding principle for state-government and should be dismantled in favour of both sub- and supra- national institutions.

Inspired by these principles the CD parties and politicians stood at the vanguard of the European integration project and the ‘Aufbauperiode’ after WWII. A parallel and, as some argue intrinsically related, process to the rebuilding of Europe was an effort to develop structures for the transnational party co-operation among European CD parties.

CD parties had considerable difficulty in establishing forms of transnational party co-operation prior to post-1945 period. There was no transnational CD party network prior to 1914, and the interwar period saw Christian Democrats unable to develop anything more than the International Secretariat for Democratic Parties of Christian Inspiration. Despite attempts to develop an institutional network of CD parties, the Secretariat was a mere meeting place for party politicians undertaking such activities often against the advice or even knowledge of their party leadership. The triumph of fascism in the two countries with the strongest CD parties led to the collapse of the Secretariat in 1939.

More serious attempts for international party co-operation came after WWII. The foundation of the Nouvelles Equipes Internationales (NEI) in 1947, again mainly a forum for discussions and socialisation of the leading CD elites and even representatives of parties from other political families, played an important role in the reconciliation of European political leaders and the launching of the European integration project. As European integration advanced, the NEI waned in importance and in 1965 was replaced by the European Union of Christian Democrats (EUCD) based in Rome and hosted by the Italian DC.

National CD parties which had joined the EUCD for the first time qua parties, however, were divided as to the nature and scope of the umbrella body. The saga of CD and Conservative party rapprochement in one transnational organisation also has its roots in the EUCD.

The formation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and development of the new style of parliamentary life within its Common Assembly from 1953 (followed by similar developments within the Assemblies of the European Economic Community and the Council of Europe) brought the next move forward in the transnational party co-operation with the formation of transnational party groups in which deputies sat with the members from the same family groups rather than national groups and the slow formation of the cross-frontier solidarity among them.

The advent of the first direct elections to the EP in 1979 acted as a catalyst for the creation of the ‘European People’s Party -Federation of Christian Democrat Parties of the EC’ in July 1976 which brought together twelve CD parties from seven out of nine EC member states. There were numerous disagreements over the name, structure and scope of the federation. It also excluded any mechanism for cooperation with CD parties from countries which were not in the Community. As a result, the EUCD became a sort of waiting-room for entry into the EPP and practically remained this kind of organisation from then on. The World Union of Christian Democrats founded in 1982 and later restructured into Christian Democrat International (CDI) also had little practical influence upon the transnational CD-minded party co-operation in Europe.

The EPP’s initial insistence on strict adherence to CD principles and strict commitment to the federal European project had a positive effect on the internal cohesiveness of the party, but at the same time contributed to strengthening the EPP’s effective rival for influence, the European Democratic Union (EDU) which was set up as an alternative transnational collaboration framework for CD and Conservative parties. The rivalry for position has continued ever since, although by 1998 it looked like being resolved in the EPP’s favour. However, for traditional Christian Democrats it will be a hollow victory which was won mainly at the expense of diffusing CD ethos and internal cohesiveness of the EPP. Most probably it is not an exaggeration to say that the EPP which now stands to triumph is the EDU in a different guise, as the present EPP encompasses three equally important traditions: CD, conservatism, and economic liberalism.

Enlargements of the EPP was one of the most important factors determining the complexity of the EPP nature, membership, internal structure, and functions. The stimulus for continuous enlargement of the EPP was grounded not only on ideological reasons, but more often determined by institutional arrangements of the EU favouring strong majorities in decision-making bodies and secularisation of West European societies which had profound influence on the CD ideology and parties.

The EPP has grown from the twelve founding CD parties of the seven EC member countries in 1976 to twenty two full members from fifteen EU member countries and eight associate members as well as ten observers from eight more countries in 1998, the latter being parties mostly from the EU applicant countries. Every enlargement, however, has had a weakening effect on the CD ethos in the EPP, as the most fundamental problem with every enlargement of the EU was the fact that enlargements brought into the Union countries without strong CD traditions and parties. The following chapters of the paper are going to argue that the eastward enlargement of the EU is not an exception to this tendency, but rather on the contrary, is one of the most difficult challenges the EPP has ever faced. De Waele is right to point out that:

‘the future of the Christian Democracy will be determined in Central and Balkan Europe. Some new and successful implantations would give the movement as a whole, strength and prosperous future. A failure would drastically reduce its influence on the continent as a whole’.

The eastward enlargement of the EU represents an unprecedented political challenge for the EU and the CEECs alike with democratisation and the integration of the CEECs into the EU occurring simultaneously within a radically changed international political environment. The incipient process of eastward enlargement has been dramatically influenced by the fact that the EU in its entirety (institutions and member states) represents the only pole of attraction and, moreover, the main source of external influence for the CEECs. As Geoffrey Pridham argues, ‘this has allowed the EU to have a "demonstration effect" on these countries through its identification with democratic values and its espousal of democratic conditionality as a sine qua non of prospective membership’. Agenda 2000 emphasises that:

‘effective functioning of democracy is a primordial question in assessing the application of a country for membership of the Union. The Amsterdam Treaty has enshrined in Article F a constitutional principle that ‘The Union is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law’. Accordingly the Intergovernmental Conference has decided to modify Article O to make the respect of Article F an explicit condition for membership’

Once EU membership is perceived as a strategic goal of the CEECs, the EU is able to exert substantial influence on democratisation process and play an important role in CEECs long before the official accession period. As Pinder points out: ‘membership of the Community, when it becomes possible, is indeed the best way to underpin democracy’.

This chapter argues that bilateral and multilateral transnational CD party co-operation with parties form the CEECs has contributed to the democratisation process in the region and by 1998 had a substantial impact on the emerging party systems in the CEECs. The EPP has developed an institutionalised framework for collaboration with CD-minded parties from the CEECs that has served as a forum for legitimising and politically assimilating the still nascent CD parties of the region. Moreover, transnational party co-operation contributes substantially to the ‘europeanisation’ of the political elites from the CEECs and, therefore, is likely to influence more stable and gradual political integration of the candidate member states into the EU.

The emergence of political parties is central to the democratisation process, as ‘effective political parties are a basic need for constitutional democracy’. Pridham points out that:

‘while normally peripheral to national party development, transnational links may acquire a more general significance...[during democratisation period], as emerging party systems during transition from authoritarianism to liberal democracy, being intrinsically unsettled, are accordingly rather more subject than established ones to international influences’.

These may be formative, related to party ideological and programmatic development as well as acquiring political experience, and expertise in the course of democracy building. The role of transnational party co-operation in democrarisation process in Europe, however, is a relatively recent pheomenon. The democratisation in Western Europeimmediately after the Second World War occurred before the establishment of effective transnational party networks. The subsequent enlargements of the EU, except the Mediterranean one which is the closest parallel to the eastward enargement, had brought into the Union parties from countries with long established traditions of liberal democracy and clear ideological leanings.

The Mediterranean democratisation process and the subsequent integration of those countries into the EC and transnational party links at the European level may serve as the closest example for assessing the influence of transnational party co-operation. The chapter will demonstrate that despite the already evident differences between Mediterranean and CEECs democratisation processes, certain striking parallels have occurred and they shed more light upon the deeper understanding of the role of transnational party co-operation in the transition period from authoritarianism to liberal democracy.

In the Mediterranean case, bilateral transnational party links played a key role in the democratisation process. They stimulated multi-lateral transnational party co-operation, however, and contributed substantially to the emergence and development of the political party system in Southern Europe.

In contrast to the case of the CEECs, the Mediterranean case was marked by what Pridham calls ‘pre-transition solidarity’, i.e. links between politicians of Spain and Portugal and the party internationals or parties in individual EC member states were established even before the beginning of the democratisation process. This was especially true of the Socialist parties and Socialist International. Some party leaders from the Iberian peninsula made regular appearances in transnational and national meetings of West European parties searching for visibility, recognition and mobilising moral and financial support still during the period of authoritarian regime. Such personal contacts established between politicians during the authoritarian period subsequently proved to be critical for the development and formation of political parties.

Second, bilateral links, often institutionalised via party foundations, proved ‘in some ways the single most influential source of transnational support, partly because of their timing of intervention’. Moreover, in the 1970s, except for the party Internationals, transnational party co-operation at the level of the EC was still in a rather embryonic stage. That was even more true of the miserable budgets allocated to transnational party networks and their lack of actual experience of co-ordinating political aid.

It is commonly agreed that in this respect German party foundations were the most successful, mainly because West Germany developed the system of party foundations as channels for overseas political funding and instruments carrying governmental policy in domestic and foreign affairs. Pridham goes as far as to state that Federal Republic was ‘perhaps the only West European state with a systematic strategy’ for promoting the democratisation process in Southern Europe.

Thus, equipped with large budgets coming from public funds, extensive knowledge and expertise of the region, long standing contacts with politicians from formerly illegal parties and unions, staff and facilities, the political foundations provided essential practical and financial help, political training and expertise in democracy building at the most crucial time when political parties were just starting to emerge from the background. Moreover, foundations acted as channels for international contacts not only by arranging such contacts, but also taking care of such detailed practicalities as funding politicians and activists’ visits abroad.

Even though Socialists were at the forefront of this process, by the late 1970s all the German foundations had representatives on the Iberian peninsula, each with impressive budgets way in excess of those of national parties from other countries which were also present in the region. Ideological reasons may partly account for this kind of international activism, particularly the threat of the Communist ideology taking root in the Mediterranean peninsula. In addition to this, the prospect of the accession of the Mediterranean countries to the EC served as an additional stimulus to get involved in the transformation period in the region and search for potential future political partners. German national interests were also mediated through the party foundations.

The German Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS), indisputably the best financed and largest CD foundation, pioneered the mission to find prospective contact parties and groups in the region and to provide support for their development and formation as well as act as a ‘clearing house’ for different right-wing groups with the intention of influencing their ideological and programmatic transformation.

Organisational, practical and financial support was often directed to the formation of party foundations rather than directly to party organisations themselves for legal and political reasons in local countries. The KAS was a coup de force behind the establishment of the Instituto Democracia e Liberdade in Lisbon in 1975 and Fondacion Humanismo y Democracia in Madrid in 1977 both linked in 1990s to the CD-minded parties in their respective countries and mainly involved in political education and training. The financial support of KAS to both institutions continues to the present day in the form of annual co-operation agreements. The influence of the German foundations in Mediterranean is widely acknowledged by the local parties and political foundations themselves.

In the case of the CDI, the EUCD, and later the EPP, personal contacts with politicians and activists in the Mediterranean region at least in the early stages of democratisation were either very limited or non-existent, although developed later mainly through the German mediation. This was even more true in regard to the absence of the crucially important material and organisational support from the transnational party networks which could have been granted to those parties and groups emerging on the political scene.

To sum up, transnational party links encountered a whole range of problems in Southern Europe, some of which repeated themselves in CEECs to a surprisingly great extent. First, there were difficulties in establishing ideologically suitable partners in the Mediterranean countries; especially non-leftist parties parties found it difficult to find allies that had not been discredited by the authoritarian regime. And second, one of the major problems closely related to the first one, was confusion over party identities. As Pridham points out ‘some parties simply suffered from basic identity problems as distinct from a lack of ideological reference for the purpose of transnational links’. In some cases, notably in Greece, emerging parties were reluctant to develop transnational links partly because of their own ambiguous identity (as in the case of Nea Demokratia which developed links with the EPP very gradually), partly because they wanted to retain their own autonomy from outside influence or were suspicious of the German influence. Some of transnational party links turned out to be embarrassing for domestic reasons, and therefore even counter-productive.

On balance, however, the transnational party co-operation had positive effects on the democratisation in Southern Europe. Its influence was particularly strong in the emergence of new pluralistic party systems. As Pridham points out ‘such links also had some indirect influence both in underlining the commitment to the EC membership for these countries and also possibly in adding to the momentum for the consolidation of their new democracies’.

As in the Mediterranean case, transnational party co-operation with the parties from the CEECs proved to be an important driving force behind the development of political party system in the region. At the initial stage there was a marked tendency of bilateral transnational links between West European CD parties and their respective foundations and emerding parties in the CEECs. Later on, however, when the prospect of the CEECs eventually joining the EU became a political reality, multi-lateral transnational links were intensified. The EUCD, the EPP, and the EPP Group in the EP developed co-ordinated and strategically- planned actions to target potential allies in the CEECs and to integrate them into the transnational party networks.

A whole range of factors inevitably constrained the timing of intervention, effectiveness and extent of transnational activities in the CEECs.

In contrast to the Mediterranean experience, where the market economy and at least some sporadic elements of democratic practices had been retained during authoritarian rule, liberal democracy has never had deeper roots in the CEECs. Therefore, prior to the 1990s, the pluralist party system was a reality that had hardly ever been practised or known in the CEECs. Nor were CD parties a well-known feature of the region. Contrary to the sometimes optimistic accounts about the tradition or prospects of the CD ideology and parties in CEECs, it should be noted that even during the interwar period only very few countries in the region had CD parties with a significant role in political life until they were deemed to collapse or even collaborate with national authoritarian regimes.

In addition to that, as Pridham argues, ‘the period of Communist rule was simply too long and also penetrative in its impact on society to allow for a simple revival or modification of ‘historical’ forces as the basis for the new party systems, as the first elections in 1990 demonstrated’.

Another characteristic of the CEECs was that at the beginning of the democratisation process in CEECs a typical political form of societal interest representation was broadly based, loosely organised and ideologically diffuse social movements whereas political parties in the CEECs existed either in a rather embryonic form or were totally absent. Partly it was due to the differences in the cleavage system in the CEECs where the most important ideological cleavage was opposition to the existing authoritarian regime, partly to the lack of democratic experience and practises.

Again, in contrast to the Mediterranean case, in the pre-democratisation period in CEECs there was very little evidence of transnational party links between Western and Eastern Europe. Exception was links with émigrés groups from CEECs representing pre-war political parties in exile (as, for instance the Central European Union of Christian Democrats, later integrated into the EUCD) and those of certain parties of the Left in Western Europe (for instance, German SPD and Austrian SPO) maintaining unofficial or not widely publicised contacts with reformist wings of the Communist parties in several countries of the region. Nonetheless, in some cases personal links between West European party elites and representatives of the social movements or dissidents in the CEECs were established and even some financial support provided. These contacts proved to be very important later with the actual emergence and development of political parties.

The immediate phase of party emergence was chaotic and ideologically confusing. Not only transnational actors, but even citizens of respective countries did not have basic information about the quickly multiplying opposition groups or their ideological leanings. As Pridham explains:

‘the most frequently quoted difficulty met by transnational actors wasconfusion over ideological labels. Sometimes these bore no obvious resemblance to West European tendencies, but even when they did their meaning could be misleading... One mistake often made by West European parties and also representatives of the internationals was to assume a repetition of familiar ideological tendencies in ECE’.

Personal contacts helped to overcome some of the confusion, but another remarkable phenomenon was the fact that nascent political parties and groups as well as umbrella movements contained groups with different or even without any clear ideological leanings (except the general anti-Communist standing) and sought acceptance as well as support from all possible sources. That was partly predetermined by the tight timing of the first free elections in CEECs in 1990 which took place within a very brief time span after the collapse of Communism in all these countries, except Poland which had held partially free elections in summer of 1989, and the desperate search for political expertise and support to run the election campaigns. The Polish Solidarity, for instance, made contacts with three internationals- Socialist, Christian Democratic and Liberal- as well as parties of different political leanings in numerous countries in order to preserve political equilibrium among different groupings within the movement and also to benefit from prospective political and financial backing.

The first free election campaigns in the CEECs in 1990 witnessed the emerging phenomenon of transnational party co-operation involving parties on both former divided parts of Europe and also including CD-minded parties. There were strong stimuli for this kind of intervention. First of all, there were ideological reasons for transnational party co-operation. Transnational party networks in Europe and West European parties suddenly found themselves in a situation where the long proclaimed moral solidarity with the CEECs had to be demonstrated in practice. The EPP Programme of 1990 states that:

‘the main tasks of the European People’s Party in the immediate future are to develop its links with Eastern and Central Europe in particular and the further development of the European Community towards Political Union’.

In addition to solidarity, there was a strong anti- Communist incentive which had also been an important driving force behind the intervention of West European CD parties in the Mediterranean peninsula, Latin America, and Africa.

Second, the radically changed international political environment and dramatic upheavals in the neighbouring countries necessitated urgent strategic action on the part of the West European governments and the EU to curb potentially destabilising forces. Concerns over the pan-European security and stability acted as a major stimulus to intervene with political and economic aid into the reform processes in the CEECs and to promote democratisation process. Transnational party co-operation might have substantially contributed to that, particularly in cases where it was used to pursue national policies. Transnational party links provided crucially important personal contacts between politicians and public figures as well as information on the situation in the region.

Last and most importantly for the party development in the CEECs, the early intervention of transnational party co-operation was crucial, as ‘this intensification of transnational links could have an effect on party identities, especially once the question of formal membership arose’. Thus, it provided an extra incentive for the parties in the region to clarify their ideological leanings or enforce reformist tendencies, as membership of the transnational structures provided not only prospective technical or organisational support, but was also expected to strengthen the party’s prestige, credibility, and international standing. This was especially true in the situations when several similar political parties or groups competed for attention and place in the same international organisation.

The European CD parties and their transnational networks, mainly the EUCD and EPP, were given a further incentive to develop systematic and institutional network of collaboration with parties in the CEECs after the 1990 elections that brought into power parties and political movements of the right in almost all the newly democratising CEECs. The main challenge during the first years of transnational CD party co-operation with the CEECs was the institutionalisation of transnational links- namely developing institutional methods and criteria for accepting parties from the region into CD transnational party networks. In the messy and unpredictable state of political affairs in Europe of that period a very cautious and gradual process for the integration of parties from the CEECs was deemed appropriate.

At this stage, the direct role of the EPP as a transnational entity in the CEECs was rather limited, which even its leading officials have described as a political failure. Given its small number of personnel (ten people in the Secretariat General), very limited budget and internal frictions within the party coupled with unreadiness for such dramatic changes in the political arena and complexity of the party development in the CEECs, it is not surprising that the EPP initiatives, in most cases, did not go further than general declarations. In addition to that, the statutory provisions of the EPP did not provide any opportunity for institutional relations with parties which were not members or applicant members of the EU. Therefore, the EPP had mostly used the EUCD and to a lesser extent the CDI to carry out its mission in the CEECs.

Activities of the EUCD were renewed in 1990 mainly for the EPP to have the institutional mechanism for collaboration with the emerging parties from the CEECs. The close institutional interlinkage between the EUCD and the EPP contributed to the high degree of strategy and policy co-ordination towards parties from the CEECs.

In 1990 the EUCD Commission on Central and Eastern Europe, later renamed the EUCD Working Group, chaired by Vim VanVenzel was set up to play the reconnaissance role of the potential allies in the CEECs. Within that there was a CIS Working Party on parties from the former USSR. As early as June 1990 the first parties from the CEECs were granted membership of the EUCD (the CDI opened its structures to the CEECs also the same year), namely Hungarian Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNF), Czech Christian Democratic Union- Czechoslovak People’s Party (KDU- CSL), and Slovak Christian Democratic Movement (KDH)- all of which won a considerable share of vote in the first legislative elections in their respective countries and were later actively involved in first governments and transition reforms. Thus, the vague prospect of ‘return to Europe’- the powerful party propaganda slogan at that time, took some institutional shape and visibility.

Several factors might have contributed to the choice of the first parties to be accepted into the CDI and the EUCD. Pragmatic and ideological reasons mattered as well as the intensity of bilateral links between certain parties or politicians of West European CD parties and those from the CEECs.

Partly because of the deep internal and financial crisis, the CDI did not seem to have any noticeable role in the CEECs, except one conferred on it by the EUCD- that of being a formal waiting room for centre-right parties from the CEECs seeking membership of the EUCD. The CDI, being a loose and politically weak structure, provided an opportunity for the EUCD to have contacts with potential partners without the risk of institutional relations or certain obligations. The parties in the region were very quick to recognise this and hence took membership of the EUCD rather than the CDI as their strategic goal.

There were not that many political and especially practical benefits from the CDI membership itself except from formal legitimation and international recognition in the weak, but nonetheless transnational party network. These factors, however, might have been successfully used to domestic advantage in the CEECs, especially in the situation when several similar political parties or groups were competing for a place in the domestic political arena.

Technical agreement was reached between EUCD and CDI that until such time as a country from the former USSR (except the Baltic states) became a member of the Council of Europe, liaison with CD parties in this country was a prerogative of the CDI, but not EUCD. However, even after former USSR states joined the Council of Europe and their deputies sat in the EPP Group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, none of their parties, despite long standing applications, had been accepted for membership of the EUCD by 1998. This may be explained by several factors- first, by the unstable situation in the former USSR countries, the weak traditions of CD parties and their poor performance at the domestic level domestic level, coupled with indecisiveness and lack of vision in regard to these countries and parties on the part of the EUCD.

The EPP and the EUCD also relied on the achievements and information provided by inational West European CD parties and their respective foundations which were quicker, more experienced and, of course, better funded to get involved in the region.

In general, as in the Mediterranean case, the initial stages of transnational party co-operation with the CEECs was marked by intensity of bilateral rather than multilateral transnational links.

The structural changes in the CEECs necessitated co-ordinated involvement of the West European CD networks and particularly with long-term projects. However, much depended not only on the strategic approach, but also on financial resources which is a sore question to all transnational party networks. As Thomas Jansen, the former EPP Secretary General puts it, ‘there was not much to be done with the budget available for EPP or EUCD’.

German parties and their foundations were again in the most favourable position to pursue transnational links due to their enormous budgets and experience in democracy building in Southern Europe, Latin America, and to a lesser extent Asia, Africa and the Pacific. They quickly opened offices and later permanent representations in the CEECs and were mostly involved in political training for democracy building rather than direct financing of local parties and political groups. The lack of available funds limited the involvement of the Mediterranean parties, although the CEECs found the Spanish model attractive. The same is true of the British parties which had to rely exclusively on the funds available from the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and Know How Fund.

Furthermore, there has been even an observable tendency of regionalisation of transnational bilateral contacts between CD parties. Following long standing cultural and historic ties Dutch (Eduardo Frei Foundation) and Austrian foundations tended to concentrate their activities in Central Europe while KAS and Hanns Seidel Foundations were the first ones to champion realms of Ukraine and Russia. The Scandinavian parties concentrated their activities almost exclusively on the Baltic states.

The type of assistance offered was adapted according to party and legal requirements of the recipient countries and varied from direct or indirect funding of the parties (through party foundations), to practical assistance with organising election campaigns, and providing facilities as well as political education and training.

In addition to that, foundations tended to co-ordinate their projects and favoured activities in their traditional fields of expertise, though some adaptations to the specific situation in the CEECs were also noticeable. Dutch, Austrian, Italian foundations have been mainly involved in political training and education, human and minority rights programmes, while their German counterparts are also active in legislative reform, public administration, economic development, media and privatisation programmes. Common topics to activities of all foundation include tackling such specific problems of the CEECs as nationalism, minority rights, non-governmental organisations, social issues and organised crime.

Nevertheless, differences of approach among the various foundations and national parties concerning targeting potential partners and allies in the CEECs started to emerge very quickly. The significant divisions occurred between the Germans on the one hand and other CD parties on the other, mainly based on the historically determined and long standing differences in the perception of identity of the CD movement. German CD Foundations, and especially KAS, have had reputation of pursuing policy of a compromise, i.e. supporting CD parties, but also maintaining contacts with other parties, especially in the situations when CD parties did not have prospects of electoral success. The situation was further complicated by the fact that both German CD parties, CDU and CSU, are members of the EDU and International Democrat Union, the Conservative international founded in 1983, and therefore also offer support to conservative parties. The KAS was the first CD-related Foundation to open offices in Central and Eastern Europe and has developed unique expertise as well as extensive bilateral links with political parties, NGOs and governmental institutions in the CEECs. Activities of the KAS in CEECs are carried on in both bilateral and multi-lateral framework of co-operation. The influence of the KAS, and especially is financial capacity, is strongly felt by CD parties in the CEECs, notably in areas of political education and training as well as party formation and development.

In contrast to Germans, Dutch and Benelux CD parties and their foundations favoured transnational links with close ideological allies. This problem is a long-standing source of conflict not only between national parties, but also within the EUCD and the EPP, which was reinvigorated when foundations and parties started their activities in the CEECs.

Transnational party co-operation contributed substantially to the ‘europeanisation’ of CD political elites from the CEECs through the co-ordinative multilateral projects in education and political training.

A period of insatiable hunger for political education and training as well as expertise in democracy building to be provided by West European partners started as parties from the CEECs found themselves in government and were faced with realities of carrying on enormous economic and political reforms. Later this was coupled with the prospect of the CEECs eventually joining the EU and the urgent need to acquaint people with the complexity of the EU policies and procedures. Furthermore, there was a need to support the CD parties in the CEECs with their organisational and identity development.

In addition to numerous conferences, meetings, and study days organised by the EUCD and the EPP in collaboration with different CD foundations and in some cases funds available from the EU budget, the transnational CD-minded party co-operation also developed long-term co-ordinative projects aiming at familiarising politicians from the CEECs with democratic practices in Western Europe, complexity of the European integration process, and, of course, policies and development of the West European CD parties. In short, West European CD networks intended to provide ‘europeanisation’ for emerging parties from the CEECs.

The most prominent achievement of transnational CD party co-operation in the area of political education and training is the Robert Schuman Institute in Budapest and the Robert Schuman Foundation based in Luxembourg.

The Robert Schuman Institute, originally the Christian Democratic Academy for Central and Eastern Europe, was founded in Budapest in 1991 by the EUCD as a strategic institutional collaboration framework with CD-minded parties in the CEECs seeking to educate and train politicians, a well as assimilate and socialise political parties and movements. The overall aims of the RSI include support and promotion of democratic transformation in CEECs based on European values, securing flows of information and making contacts between parties and politicians from different European countries, promoting the idea of a United Europe and preparing the Christian Democratic minded political forces of the CEECs for governing. The RSI undertakes activities in several related fields, namely in training and education, maintaining a documentation centre- databank, publications, networking activities, and ‘cross border co-operation’ programme, although, as the 1997 Annual Report of the RSI indicates, ‘the Robert Schuman Institute has always regarded training Christian Democratic politicians and the network connected to it its primary and most important task’. The importance and success of the RSI courses for the political parties of the CEECs is best testified by the growing number of participants every year and the fact that former graduates are being successfully recruited for important party and governmental positions.

The political composition of organisations participating in the activities of the RSI indicates that the German model of ‘ideological openness’ is taking over the principled approach, as representatives from a wide range of political parties and movements are taking part in the courses and activities of the RSI. It may be interpreted as a strategic approach to attract more potential allies in the region where, as already argued, CD ideology and CD parties do not have strong traditions or societal support and to educate a young generation of CD minded politicians with a broad perception of what the CD movement stands for.

Another example of the transnational party co-operation in the area of political education and training includes the Foundation for Cooperation Between Christian Democrats in Europe, set up in June 1989 by the EPP in the EP and later renamed into Robert Schuman Foundation that concentrates specifically on political education of young politicians and MPs from the CEECs in the EU related issues. The main programme of the foundation is structured as a four week course in Brussels and Strasbourg intended to give extensive practical knowledge in the institutional complexity of the EP and especially the work of EPP Groups in different institutions of the EU. This is coupled with promotion of intensive personal contacts between politicians from CD and related parties in West Europe and the CEECs. In general, the Foundation has served as an efficient network for elite socialisation and provided practical knowledge as well as fruitful personal contacts with political partners and potential allies in the future EU structures.

In conclusion, it should be noted that the problems discussed in this chapter all inhibited the role and influence of transnational party co-operation at the early stage of political democratisation in the CEECs, though ‘altogether, transnational party co-operation provided limited but important and certainly welcome assistance to emerging political parties in the former Eastern bloc, especially for the electoral period’.

Certain features of transnational party co-operation in the early democratisation period in the CEECs seem to resemble those of the Mediterranean experience, but modifications are also evident, mainly because of the specific situation of the region and timing of the first elections in the post- authoritarian era which took place much earlier than in the Southern Europe. In addition to that, transnational party co-operation was complicated by the fact that historical parties were less important than in the Mediterranean case, which led to some confusion over the ideological leanings of the newly emerging parties.

Nevertheless, ideological and security incentives stimulated the involvement of national West European CD parties, their respective foundations and transnational party networks in the CEECs. It is evident from the experience of transnational party co-operation in the first few years after the fall of the Iron Curtain that bilateral co-operation conducted mainly through respective national party foundations predominated in transnational party activities.

This tendency changed, however, once the prospect of the CEECs eventually joining the EU became a political reality and transnational party networks, especially EPP and the EPP Group in the EP, felt stronger incentives to get involved in a more co-ordinated and strategically planned action. Moreover, transnational party co-operation contributes substantially to the ‘europeanisation’ of the political elites and parties from the CEECs through their socialisation and assimilation into West European transnational networks, therefore, is likely to influence more stable and gradual political integration of the candidate member states into the EU.

As the next chapter will demonstrate, the prospect of the EU eastward enlargement had substantial impact on two levels of transnational party activities: first, formulation and pursuit of opinions and policies on the eastward enlargement of the Union, and second, preparing for the enlargement party structures and searching for potential allies in the CEECs.

As with previous enlargements, eastward enlargement of the EU will affect the EPP’s institutional and ideological dimensions. It will also influence EPP’s position in the EU decision- making structures, particularly the EP. In order to prepare for the eastward enlargement, the EPP has conducted structural reform of its institutional framework and changed its statutes so that parties from the CEECs applying for membership of the EU could be given associate membership status in the EPP. As a consequence of the reform, the EUCD will be merged with the EPP so that to create a more co-ordinative and efficient structure of transnational CD minded party co-operation in Europe. Moreover, the recent development in the EPP’s strategic approach of targeting potential political partners in the region not only from the CD tradition indicate that the eastward enlargement will also substantially affect ideological cohesion of the EPP.

As part of the major structural reform in the party, the Statutes of the EPP were amended at the XIth EPP Congress in Madrid, November 1995, to allow parties from the CEECs to become full members of the EPP when they join the EU and, more importantly, to provide ‘a careful and gradual integration of parties from the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe’ (my italics) even before the accession of their particular countries to the EU.

The role of the EUCD at the initial stage was still critical, as it was decided that EUCD membership would be the gateway to the EPP in the sense that only those parties from CEECs which are members of the EUCD would be eligible for membership of the EPP. The role of the EUCD, however, has changed substantially in this process and by 1997 gradually the way was opened for parties entering the EPP directly without spending some time in the ‘waiting room’ of the EUCD.

A so called ‘three-stage approach’ was set out at the XIth Congress in Madrid in 1995 as a model for structural relations between the CEEC-sister parties and the EPP. The underlying strategy was that each country and each party would be treated on an individual basis. In the first step, EUCD-member parties which have met certain conditions can acquire observer status in the EPP when their country has applied for membership of the EU. A second step in this process is associate membership of the EPP. This phase is reached once a state has begun negotiations with the EU. The third and final stage is full membership of the EPP which is possible once a particular country becomes a full member of the EU.

The strategy was modified by the XIIth EPP Congress in Toulouse in November 1997 which introduced new statutory amendments creating the possibility of accepting as associate members of the EPP parties from countries which have applied for membership of the EU (and not only those whose applications are in the process of negotiation). As EPP News put it, ‘this is the EPP’s response to the anticipated development of the EU’. Notably, it refers to the need ‘to bring together the forces within the EPP in view of the imminent enlargement of the European Union’ and the realisation that the period between CEECs’ application for membership of the EU and actual negotiations for accession may be a lengthy process.

The statutory amendments adopted by the EPP Congresses in Toulouse (1997) and Madrid (1995) mark substantial progress in the relations between the EPP and parties from CEECs. As the EPP president Wilfried Martens and EPP Secretary General Klaus Welle have pointed out, ‘our sister parties from Central and Eastern Europe are becoming partners with equal rights’. The status of Associate member of the EPP permits active and passive presence in all the EPP organs: associate members have voting rights in all the EPP bodies and can be elected to office within them. The number of their votes is calculated on the basis of their representatives in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

In addition to the statutory changes, the EPP Political Bureau meeting on July 1, 1996 in Luxembourg also established a list of criteria for observership in the EPP to be applied to applicant parties. Later the same criteria were used for evaluating candidate parties for the associate membership. The criteria emphasise five most important requirements:

- that applicant parties represent a stable political force in their respected countries- practically speaking this means more than 10% of the votes in the last legislative elections or alternatively 5% in the two preceding elections and parliamentary representation;

- that applicant parties have not suffered from a split in the two preceding years prior to their application;

- that applicant parties have paid EUCD membership fees;

- that all representatives of applicant parties sit within the EPP Group at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Western European Union and all other European representative bodies;

- that applicant party programmes include Christian Democratic principles of personalism and subsidiarity and express special commitment to European integration on a federal model.

The criteria are observed rather strictly and a number of parties from the CEECs have been refused membership due to the violation of these requirements. For instance, the EPP Political Bureau meeting in Brussels on March 5 and 6, 1998 postponed a decision on the application for observer status in the EPP by the Bulgarian National Peasants Union (BANU-PU), which takes part in the present governmental coalition until the EPP Political Bureau meeting in September 1998, as this party had split in September 1996 and despite its favourable evaluation does not satisfy one of the criteria.

The EPP’s tendency of applying double standards for different parties and favouring government parties from the CEECs, however, is also noticeable. As Denise O’Hara put it ‘applying double standards is reality- those parties in government are preferred, as they will take part in negotiations and later provide seats in the EP’. An example of such an attitude includes the EPP’s relations with the Homeland Union- Lithuanian Conservatives (TS-LK), the major partner in the present centre- right governmental coalition in Lithuania, which was granted observership in the EPP on the condition its deputies become members of the EPP Group at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. This had not happened by 1998 although representatives of the party participated in all major EPP events and were viewed as an important partner in the region. The current status of this party in the EPP is, however, not clear even for the EPP officials themselves. The TS-LK is also a member of the EDU and seems to be trying to balance getting additional benefits from participating in the international political forum of the EPP and at the same time escaping from too much responsibility related to that.

Even if some degree of political manoeuvrability is allowed in practise, the EPP is usually unforgiving with cases of ‘clear hangover from the Soviet era’, the most famous example being the expulsion of the Hungarian Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) from the EUCD. In July 1997 it was decided that the KNDP had ‘expelled itself’ from the group ‘because of its increasingly hard-line nationalistic tendencies’. The party was the natural Christian Democratic ally in Hungary from the beginning of the 1990s when it was in the country’s governing coalition of 1990-1994. It was also one of the first parties (together with Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) to apply for membership of the EPP at the end of 1994. However, it has entered into contacts with Hungarian right-wing nationalists and was expelled from the EUCD.

In addition to the statutory reform, institutional reform of the EPP structures in preparation for the eastward enlargement has also been at the top of political agenda. At the XIth EPP Congress in Madrid in 1995 the EPP presidency was reduced from twelve to eight members; an EPP Council composed of the Presidency together with the Presidents of the EPP Member Parties was created as a new forum for political debate; and the so called ‘EPP mini-summit’ was introduced to bring together the Presidency and the EPP Heads of State and Government to co-ordinate their positions on the eve of EU Summits. Meetings of the EPP and member party as well as government leaders have been taking place at different levels for quite a long period; the Congress merely gave these structures some legal appearance. All these institutional changes in the EPP point in the direction of closer interlinking different levels of party structures to make it more efficient in the institutional framework of the EU.

The eastward enlargement of the EU and subsequently of the EPP is going to bring about another major change in the transnational CD- minded party co-operation in Europe, mainly the merger of the EUCD and the EPP. In the EPP Congress in February 1999, the EUCD will be completely integrated into the EPP and the EPP will practically become the centre of transnational CD and likely minded party co-operation in Europe. The decision to merge the EUCD into the EPP brings to an end a lengthy period of deliberation and was singled out by the Secretary-General of the EPP/EUCD Klaus Welle in his annual report to the EPP Political Bureau on March 5, 1998 ‘as the most important development in the past year’. It should put an end to the duplication of functions which existed between the EUCD and the EPP and make the EPP a more coherent and efficient structural entity.

The establishment of the EPP eroded dramatically the EUCD’s mission and role in transnational party co-operation. Practically it became a mere waiting room for entry into the EPP for CD parties from West European countries which had not applied to join the EC and therefore were not admitted into the EPP. The situation was further complicated by the increasing number of countries joining the EC and parties from the EUCD subsequently shifting their focus to the EPP while at the same time remaining formal members of the EUCD. In addition to that, the Community enlarged to countries without strong CD tradition and the EUCD found increasing difficulties in finding new potential partners. By 1988 it was decided to fold up the EUCD as an inefficient relic structure but this was later postponed because of the dramatically changed situation in the CEECs and horizon for EUCD potential activities expanding far eastwards.

Nonetheless, despite the tension between the two organisations, the EUCD remained the gateway to the EPP in the sense that until the EFTA enlargement all the parties had entered the EUCD prior to the EPP. When the Scandinavian Conservative parties were admitted to the EPP as permanent observers in 1993, it was the first time when someone forgot to pay a prior visit to the EUCD.

The EUCD role in the democratisation process in the CEECs and later in the eastward enlargement process, as mentioned, followed the pattern of the Mediterranean rather than the EFTA enlargement. Nevertheless, the final result was the same as in the EFTA enlargement- the CEEC parties eventually effectively bypassed the EUCD in applying to the EPP. Pressed by the urgent need to find political partners and concerned with its own fortunes in the EU institutions the EPP gradually opened its gates for the direct membership for parties from the CEECs without prior membership of the EUCD. The statutory changes of the EPP allowing CEECs applicant countries to become observers and associate members of the EPP robbed the EUCD of political role and the final date of its folding up was just a matter of time.

Nevertheless, the EUCD and the EPP merger leaves many important questions unanswered and creates a lot of confusion in the EUCD/EPP Secretariat, the level where practical decision are made. The majority of the EUCD parties, most of them from the applicant member countries, will gradually move into the EPP. A problem, however, arises in regard to parties from, to use the Brussels slang, the so called ‘Agenda 3000’ countries of Eastern Europe, which have not applied or even will not apply for membership of the EU, and therefore, according to the statutory provisions of the EPP, cannot be granted membership of the EPP, but which are at present members or observers of the EUCD. Their destiny will be to remain in the CDI, but this organisation is likely to undergo a major structural reform in the nearest future and still does not have any strategic policy in regard to parties which are going to move into the CDI from the EUCD. In addition to being a loose organisation without a credible political role to play in transnational party co-operation, the CDI has lost its attraction after being caught in serious internal and financial crisis. As a consequence of the EUCD merger into the EPP, the EPP is going to evolve as the main centre of transnational CD minded party co-operation in Europe, though it may have negative repercussion to the transnational party links with parties from former USSR and other countries which have not applied for membership of the EU.

To sum up, on the basis of the above mentioned statutory amendments and criteria for membership as well as institutional reform, the EPP has prepared itself for the gradual opening up to the CEECs. An interesting point is the fact that the EPP, the party which was so keen to push the opening of negotiations for the EU enlargement with as many candidate countries from CEEC as possible, has used a very carefully crafted approach of ‘an individual process per country and per party’ for the expansion of the EPP itself. It should be noted, however, that the EPP despite the often acclaimed slowness and ambiguity, championed the process of enlargement to the CEEC in the sense that it granted observership and later associate membership to the parties from the region a full year before their countries were invited for enlargement negotiations with the EU. The first parties from the CEEC were granted observership of the EPP on December 6, 1996 while EU enlargement negotiations were set in train by the Luxembourg meeting of the European Council on December 12/13, 1997.

At the end of 1994 the Hungarian KDNP and the Hungarian Democratic Forum were the first CEECs parties to apply for membership of the EPP. By the end of 1996 when statutory amendments enabling parties from applicant member states of the EU to become observers of the EPP were introduced, ten countries from Central and Eastern Europe had formally applied for membership of the EU and eleven parties from a total of seven of these countries had submitted applications for observer status in the EPP. On December 1996 the Political Bureau of the EPP officially opened EPP structures for parties from the CEECs while deciding that six of the eleven applicant parties, namely PNTCD from Romania, ODA and KDU-CSL from the Czech Republic, KDH from the Slovak Republic, LKDP from Lithuania, and SKD from Slovenia fulfilled all the criteria for recognition as the observers in the EPP. It was also decided that TS- LK from Lithuania would be granted observer status the moment its deputies became members of the EPP Group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The second round of the EPP’s eastward expansion took place on June 6, 1997 when, following a suggestion by the Secretariat General, the Political Bureau decided to recognise as observer of the EPP ISAMAALIIT from Estonia and MKDM from the Slovak Republic; UDF from Bulgaria was given the same status on December 4 that year. All the above mentioned parties were already members of the EUCD, some of them as early as 1990.

After the XIIth EPP Congress in Toulouse which amended the statutes of the EPP to allow parties from applicant countries to the EU to become associate members of the EPP, a new period in the party’s development dawned. Parties from the region were invited to submit applications for associate membership of the EPP and after their evaluation (according to the same five criteria which applied for observer status) as early as March 5/6 1998 the EPP Political Bureau accepted four new associate members, namely: the Christian Democratic Peasants’ Party of Romania (PNTCD), the Christian Democratic Party of Lithuania (LKDP), the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) of Bulgaria and the Union for Freedom (UW) of Poland. Two more parties were granted observership: the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) and the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ). However, as already mentioned, the application of the BANU-PU from Bulgaria was postponed until September the same year due to its failure to fulfil criteria of not having any split in the party for the last two years.

As is evident from recent developments, the strategy of the EUCD as a corridor to the EPP is gradually being abandoned. The EUCD Working Plan 1997 claimed that ‘EUCD member parties should demonstrate in the coming two years that they are fit to become members of the EPP’; the same document, however, also stated that ‘[we] decided to change our "wait and see strategy" and become more pro active’.

There were well-founded reasons for this change: in 1996 most of the CEEC parties belonging to the EUCD were in opposition after the second post-Communist legislative elections and, moreover, with apparently weak electoral capacity in the future. Such a strategically important country as Poland, for instance, had no representative in the EUCD. With the process of the eastward enlargement of the EU progressing so quickly, the EPP’s chances in the region did not look very promising. There was a growing concern over the impacts of the eastward enlargement on the EPP and especially its future representation in the EU institutions where the EPP seeks to have majority position. As regards EPP strategy in the CEECs, it seems that the pragmatic approach of opening up the EPP to parties from non-CD tradition to ensure strong representation in the EU decision- making institutions is already a settled issue, at least at the level where strategic decisions are made. Not much attention is paid to the so called ‘principled Christian Democrats’ passionately protesting. Already in 1997 the EPP welcomed Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA) from the Czech Republic and the Homeland Union- Lithuanian Conservatives (TS-LK) from Lithuania granting them observership status in the EPP with the very first wave of applicants, though neither of them had any status in the EUCD nor were CD parties. In March 5/6 1998 the Political Bureau accepted the Freedom Union from Poland as an associate member of the EPP even though this party had never applied or had any status in the EUCD. As in previous EPP enlargements, the need to look for prospective strong partners ended up in practically different thresholds applied to different parties. Pragmatism is triumphing over ideology and leaving parties as ‘market places with all their selling and buying business’ despite the number of carefully edited and nice looking ideological programmes and documents.

Like previous enlargements, the eastward enlargement of the EU creates a strong element of partisan self-interest for the European party federations and especially their respective groups in the EP, as it will affect the future political balance in the EP and, as the EP is the main political arena for the activities and influence of the European party federations, subsequently the authority of parties in the EU in general. As the Secretary General of the EUCD and EPP Klaus Welle puts it, ‘the EPP simply cannot afford to lose the eastward enlargement- at least not to have less [MEPs] than now’.

The history of the EP development is marked not only by the enormous transformation with regard to its areas of competence, but also significant institutional and structural changes including the dynamics of the EP group formation and functioning. In many ways, the current EP is not comparable with the ECSC Common Assembly of 1952 or even the EP of 1979. The number of mandates has risen from 78 delegates from the six founding member states in the ECSC Common Assembly in 1952 to 626 MEPs elected by direct universal suffrage in 15 member states by 1998.

From 1953 to 1987 the number of the Groups in the EP grew steadily from three to nine, each needing to accommodate different political parties and politicians coming from the rapidly changing political landscape in Europe. Since then, the number of Groups in the EP has fluctuated between eight and ten, partly determined by the constraints of the institutional framework of the EP. The dynamics of the EP group development has gradually evolved in such a way that two major Groups- the Group of the Party of European Socialists (PES) and the Group of the EPP have always been dominant in the EP reaching the highest point in 1994 European elections when the combined number of seats gained by Socialists and the EPP constituted 62.6 per cent of the total number of seats in the EP, this number increased further when MEPs from other Groups subsequently joined Socialists and the EPP Group.

The following graph represents the percentage of seats gained by each Group in the four sets of

European elections held to date and the total number of seats held by two Groups in the EP:

The progress of the CD parties in the EP is marked by several phases. First, as EPP Klaus Welle puts it, ‘the 1950s and 1960s will always be regarded by Christian Democrats as their Golden Age’, since between 1953 and 1968, the Christian Democratic Group (officially established in June, 23 1953 in the ECSC Common Assembly in Strasbourg) regularly gained between 45 and 50 per cent of the mandates and was the biggest group in the Assembly, although diminishing slightly each time. In 1969 came the first major decline with a fall to 37 per cent. In 1973, with the accession of Great Britain, Ireland and Denmark, the percentage fell even further- to 28 percent.

The major reason for this shift was the fact that CD parties were overrepresented while the left wing was under-represented during the initial period when MEPs were nominated by national parliaments rather than elected. The Italian Parliament refused to send Communists until 1969 and the French Parliament refused until 1970. When Italian Communists entered the EP, the percentage of seats held by the Christian Democratic Group fell immediately from 45 to 37 per cent.

As Welle notes the relative loss of seats accompanying the first enlargement of the EC in 1973 arose for a variety of reasons, but most important of them, as in subsequent enlargements, was the absence in many of the countries of the European Union of Christian Democratic Parties in the strict sense of the definition. Christian Democratic parties existed in neither Great Britain nor Denmark, and the relationship between the Christian Democratic Group in the EP and the Irish Fine Gael developed only gradually over the years.

The practice of European elections coupled with subsequent enlargements of the EU to the countries with weak CD traditions contributed further to the diminishing percentage of EPP seats in the EP, especially in relation to the percentage gained by the Socialists. This is partly attributed to the fact that the EU has neither uniform constituencies nor a single voting system; that being particularly true in regard to the unpredictable effects of the British majority voting system.

In addition to the normal growth of the EPP Group with the accession of new member states to the EU there have been a number of so called ‘extra’ enlargements of the Group when special ‘Fraktiongemeinschaft’ agreements and individual membership agreements were enacted with MEPs from other Groups joining the EPP Group. With the adhesion of the British and Danish Conservatives into the EPP Group in 1992 an upward turn in EPP’s representation in the EP became apparent. The EPP as of 1998 holds about 32 per cent of seats in the EP (202 seats out of the total 626), but numbers and percentage were maintained at the costs of cohesiveness and internal stability within the Group. Since 1989 the EPP Group has enlarged, but this happened essentially due to the integration of parties outside Christian Democratic tradition. This dynamic has resulted in enormous changes within the structure of the EPP Group. By August 1998 only 94 of the 202 EPP Group members belonged to the parties which had been members of the EPP or EPP Group in the EP before January 1, 1989. Over 90 per cent of newcomers are from parties of non-CD tradition and had no previous connection either with the EUCD or CDI.

There are mutual incentives and motives between the EPP and the parties joining it. First of all, the number of MEPs and heads of government in the Council is of vital importance to the party, as institutional powers and decision-making procedures in the EU are directly dependent on absolute majorities. Second, parties wishing to join the EPP seek transnational channels of access and influence on the one hand, and maximisation of parliamentary influence, on the other. The EPP’s attraction for parties on the political right is stimulated not only by its significant status in the EU, but also by the lack of an effective alternative transnational party

network for parties on political right. In certain cases it may have substantial pressure on CD party development. Hanna Suchocka, member of the Polish UW notes that :

‘our membership in the European Union could help us not only to better develop our democracy and economy but also perhaps to build a real Christian Democratic party, because it’s a need to be member of one of the fractions in the European Parliament. This is a first step whch could ceate also this atmosphere in our country for the creation of such a strong structure’

The following graph represents the present distribution of seats in the EPP Group according to member states:

As it is evident form the graph, three major national delegations, namely Germany, Italy, and Spain constitute more than half of the total seats of the EPP Group. Members of the EPP and political commentators alike have stressed the ever increasing importance of the German-Spanish axis within the Group of the EPP in the EP and the EPP itself. After the accession of 20 MEPs from Forza Italia into the EPP Group in June 1998, Italian representation, after a disastrous period following the break up of Democrazia Christiana, regained its political weight. This step to integrate the FI into the EPP Group, however, led to the resurgence of serious considerations about the future of the EPP and its increasingly right-wing and nationalistic tendencies. The situation was further complicated by the fact that there is an observable division of political interests and strategies of the EPP qua party and its Group in the EP despite the fact that they both share common leadership of Wilfried Martens. The tendency has been that new parties are first integrated into the Group of the EPP in the EP and only later into the EPP itself, but the number of the MEPs and parties that are members of the EPP Group and not the EPP is sharply increasing, particularly in regards to the whole British delegation and considerable part of French and Italian delegations (in total more than one quarter of the whole EPP Group in the EP).

The current developments in the EPP and especially its Group in the EP lead to the assumption that the opening up of the EPP to parties form other traditions is irreversible strategic decision and, therefore, it is going to have a considerable influence upon the EPP’s attitude and policies in regard to the enlargement of the EPP to the CEECs. As Secretary General of the EPP/EUCD Klaus Welle points out:

‘the inclusion of people’s parties which did not emerge from traditional Christian Democratic traditions is no longer a marginal phenomenon, but the new third pillar, and has long ago become part of normal life’.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe technically should serve as a preparation for the future participation of the representatives from the CEECs in the network of the EPP Group in the EP. At present the EPP Group is the strongest political group in the Council of Europe with 154 seats out of the total 286 and representatives from 40 member states, including 15 CEECs as well as former USSR republics and 30 political parties from the respective countries. Practically, however, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe provides just a very loose co-operation framework for likely- minded parties and does not necessarily give additional credits while seeking membership in the EPP. The co-ordination of activities and even exchange of information between the Secretariat of the EPP/EUCD in Brussels and the EPP Group in the Parliamentary Assembly in the Council of Europe is very limited and therefore with insignificant influence for transnational party co-operation.

Given the present system whereby the EP the number of seats in the EP is allocated partly according to the population of the respective country, eastward enlargement would give 10 applicant countries from the CEECs 234 seats, equivalent to 40 per cent of the current number of the MEPs. Out of this number 56 per cent (131 seats) would go to the first five countries invited for the negotiations for the EU membership: Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, and Estonia. Poland alone would get 64 seats, that is 27 per cent of the seats that might be attributed to all ten applicant countries and almost 50 per cent to those likely to arrive in the first wave of enlargement. The following graph represents the distribution of seats among the CEECs according to the present procedures of the EP:

Even though the European elections are still a distant prospect for the CEECs, the European parties are already counting their potential strength in the region and preparing strategic plans for medium and long term action, as ‘the choice of partner parties in Central and Eastern Europe today will have a decisive influence on the European People’s Party’s ability to build a majority once these countries join the EU’.

The objective of achieving a majority status in the EP after the eastward enlargement of the EU is a strategic goal of the EPP actively advocated by its leadership, but at the same time viewed suspiciously by the representatives of the "principled CD" parties which perceive it to be a political blasphemy that may lead to the final diffusion of the CD dimension in the movement, as this approach will inevitably require the opening up of the EPP to parties from other traditions. The Secretary General of the EPP/EUCD summarises this dilemma in the following way:

‘The possibilities for the EPP in Central and Eastern Europe are dependent on what strategy is pursued. If the EPP limits itself to EUCD member parties, it will not achieve much more than 10% of the seats [in the European Parliament]. If- as in the enlargement to Scandinavia- parties are included which are not traditional Christian Democrats, the result is almost 40%. The EPP’s chances in Central and Eastern Europe are dependent on our political will, and therefore on ourselves.

The parties with big potential which belong to the EDU but not the EUCD’

The strategy of achieving majority position in the EP after the eastward enlargement or at least the prospect of gaining more influence in the CEECs at the expense of opening the EPP to parties from other than CD tradition was strengthened after the political swing to the right in the CEECs. The most recent developments in the EPP when associate membership or observership of the EPP was granted to parties from non-CD tradition which had not had any prior status in the EUCD or CDI, show that the option of opening up has been chosen, mainly pushed by strong German presence in key decision making bodies and crucially important position of the Secretary General. This tendency, however, may have dramatic and long-term consequences to the already ideologically divergent EPP and diffuse the CD ethos in the party.

With every enlargement the EU had to incorporate not only the divergent economic and social systems of the new member states, but also the peculiarities of their domestic party politics. Previous EU enlargements have had a significant impact on the EU political party structure and the prospective eastward enlargement has already begun to influence both transnational party systems and parties from the CEECs. The current enlargement of the EPP emanating primarily from the prospect of the eastward enlargement of the EU is a challenge for the EPP and the parties from the CEECs alike.

The eastward enlargement presents an unprecedented political challenge in the sense that the CEECs have only emergent political party systems which do not fit clearly into the traditional European party families and whose stability is not certain. Thus, they may cause important difficulties and doubtful convergence with more traditional European party families and party federations. Moreover, the prospect of European integration has itself evolved as a new source of intra- and inter-party competition in the CEECs and confronts newly emerging domestic parties with the whole set of challenges as they organise themselves to participate in its institutions and decision-making.

As it was argued, like in the Mediterranean case, transnational CD-minded party co-operation has had a significant role to play in the CEECs not only in the democratisation process per se, but also providing ‘europeanisation’ for political parties and political elites in the CEECs. Intense bilateral and multilateral transnational party co-operation across Europe has provided a framework for political socialisation and positive experience in the consensus building for the still nascent parties and politicians of the CEECs. Such co-operation may play a very positive role in familiarising political elites of the CEECs with the complex nature of the EU decision making and the role of transnational party federations as well as parliamentary groups in the EU and subsequently precondition more stable political integration of the candidate member states.

As it was demonstrated, the EPP has played an important direct role in the EU policy formulation on the eastward enlargement and conducted structural reform of its institutional framework to prepare for the party enlargement. Ideological and pragmatic reasons had contributed to the EPP’s strategy to pursue transnational links in the CEECs not exclusively with CD parties. This ‘opening up’ strategy, however, will have long-term implications for the EPP development.

Three variables are likely to play an important role in shaping the EPP future after the eastward enlargement of the EU, mainly: the CD identity crisis, the fragmentation of the EPP, and the implications of the institutional arrangements in the EU.

First, as Waele points out ‘the Christian Democratic parties [in the CEECs] appear or reappear at a time when the "model" parties in Western Europe are undergoing a serious identity crisis’. Therefore, the prospect of the CD parties convergence across Europe is likely to be impeded not only because of the still nascent and unstable CD parties in the CEECs, but also because of the lack of uniformity among CD parties in Western Europe.

Despite intellectual attempts to define Christian Democracy as a political ideology per se in the contemporary European political context, major CD parties in Europe now have increasing difficulty in distinguishing themselves from economic liberals on the one hand or from reformed conservative parties on the other. A closer look at the problem points out that in addition to such general factors as secularisation of society and dramatic changes in societal cleavage structures as well as the collapse of Communism which shaped dramatically CD ideology, the identity crisis was also accelerated by the fact that CD has failed to develop into an ideologically consistent movement throughout Europe. Dierickx rightly points out that it is more appropriate to speak about CD ideologies rather than genuine CD ideology in Europe. The eastward enlargement is likely to aggravate the crisis of the CD ideology at the European level even further, as the CD parties from the CEECs which are going to join the EPP are still very nascent and without settled nature.

Second, the EPP has already evolved into a fragmented federation of parties consisting of, to use the terminology of the EPP/EUCD Secretary General Klaus Welle, three pillars: two of them representing different concepts of a CD party, namely, the Benelux CD parties and the German CDU, and the third pillar comprising the diversity of newcomers into the EPP from other political traditions. The eastward enlargement is likely to add the fourth pillar to the already fragmented landscape of the EPP and therefore, to abate the degree of cohesiveness as well as CD ethos in the party. With one third of the EPP member parties already coming from non-CD tradition, the EPP risks at becoming an umbrella movement for non-leftist parties.

Third, institutional arrangements in the EU are likely to be one of the most important factors affecting the EPP future. There are mutual incentives and motives for the EPP to enlarge and for parties to join it. First of all, the EPP has to rely on the MEPs in the EP and heads of governments and ministers in the Council, as institutional powers and decision-making procedures in the EU are directly dependent on absolute majorities. Therefore, for the European parties whose raison d’être is competition for the representation of their policy on the European level, the strategy of ‘opening up’ is more a need than a choice. Second, parties wishing to join the EPP seek transnational channels of access and influence on the one hand, and maximisation of parliamentary influence, on the other. The EPP is attractive for parties from the CEECs not only because of its significant status in EU party politics, but also by the lack of an effective alternative transnational party network for parties on political right. Therefore, even with growing diversity of political interest representation in the EPP, the cohesiveness of the party may be retained by the constraints of the EU institutional arrangements which require high levels of policy co-ordination and majority status for effective policy achievement. The EPP policy development towards the eastward enlargement of the EU is an illustration of such an approach- despite diverse national party interests a compromise was reached to achieve maximisation of political inluence in the EU.

To conclude, after the eastward enlargement of the EU the EPP is likely to retain its strength because of strategic policy of retaining considerable numbers of representatives in the decision making structures in the EU even at the expense of diffusing CD ethos within the party. The enlarged EPP, however, is likely be more diverse in both organisational and policy aspects.