Too Little, Too Late? Governance Transfer and the Eastern Enlargement of the Council of Europe

Abstract

The Council of Europe (CoE) has created a broad framework of governance-related norms since its foundation in 1949. Today, the CoE’s more than 200 treaties cover a broad variety of policy fields. The most important documents deal with democracy, human rights, rule of law, and good governance. Consequently, these areas are at the center of the CoE’s governance transfer. Since the end of the Cold War, the CoE’s key challenge has become governance transfer to its new Central Eastern, South Eastern, and Eastern European post-socialist member states. However, unlike the European Union (EU), the CoE has a comparatively small budget and only soft accession conditionality.