The Frankfurt (side-) effect?

• Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
• the Robert Schuman Centre Seminar Series

Join Krisztina Arató, a Jean Monnet Fellow at the RSC, as she presents her recent research in the Robert Schuman Centre Seminar Series

Democratic backsliding in East-Central European EU member states as well as the EU’s delayed efforts to stop and heal the process is a widely known and researched phenomenon. The two countries in spotlight are Hungary and Poland – the latter with a prospect of internal change as a result of the 2023 October parliamentary elections. While the literature is concentrating on the several old and new procedures the EU is aiming to carry out to address breaching common values set in Article 2., this study intends to explore the phenomenon from an unusual perspective – the so far lacking Eurozone membership in the case of these two democratically challenged member states.

Is there a correlation between both countries being under Article 7 procedure and being outside the Eurozone, or, reversing the question, would it be possible to fall back in terms of democracy within the Eurozone? Applying Europeanisation theory as an analytical framework, the study looks into institutional and procedural elements in the structure of the Eurozone (European semester documents, ECB reports, ECOFIN press releases, etc.), Banking Union rules and their effects and other potentially relating institutional elements in order to explore whether Eurozone membership, apart from its core mission, i.e. establishing an economic and monetary union, has a side-effect on maintaining the quality of democracy in EU member states in East-Central Europe.