Polen und Tschechien auf dem Weg in die EU : Die Beitrittsverhandlungen im Rahmen des Zwei-Ebenen-Ansatzes

Abstract

Robert Putnam's political theory of a two-level-game forms the basis for the examination of the accession negotiation of Poland and the Czech Republic with the European Union.On the first level, negotiations take place with representatives of the applying countries and the EU. On the second level, the results of the negotiations must be ratified by the parliaments. At this point, the domestic actors can only vote yes or no, a renegotiation is impossible. For this reason, the domestic actors try to influence the negotiations already on the first level by pressing their government to ask for transition periods.After a theoretical introduction on the two-level-game approach of Robert Putnam and some of its extensions by other authors, the relevant domestic actors of both countries are presented, and their potential political influence on the accession negotiations is estimated.In the following chapter, the demands for transition periods of Poland and the Czech Republic are compared in order to find out which country is more successful in negotiating for its application.Concluding it seems that Poland is in a stronger negotiation position because it could gain more concessions from the EU than the Czech Republic.The final statement, though, can only be given after all of the negotiation chapters will have been closed.