Beyond similarities: a comparative study of the European Union’s merit-based assessment on Georgia and Moldova
Date
2024
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Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
This research critically examines the claimed normativity in the European Union's decision-making process by scrutinizing the cases of Georgia and Moldova through the methodology of Most Similar Systems Design and the Logic of Process Tracing. The work seeks to discern the unexpected disparate outcomes during the membership application in June of 2022, focusing on tracing the consistency of the European Union’s assessment of Georgia and Moldova through the lens of Normative Power Europe theory. The central hypothesis proposes that despite the similarities of the candidates, Georgia has been normatively assessed as underperforming compared to Moldova over the span of the past five years, which could offer an explanation for the contrasting decisions in June of 2022. The results of the analysis unraveled that Georgia had not been assessed as underperforming in comparison to Moldova and, therefore, the hypothesis and the claims of the European Union do not hold.