An aristocratic title is not enough to ensure a noble behaviour. A person's greatness comes from acknowledging the mistakes and agreeing to correct them.
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." (Jimi Hendrix)
20 April 2006
As the EU tries to fix its
borders, offers of a "privileged" status short of membership may offer a way out
of the enlargement imbroglio – or make it worse.
BRUSSELS, Belgium |
The member states and institutions of the European Union are locked in a bitter
debate on the future expansion of the bloc – whether it should enlarge at all
and if so, to what extent. This concerns not just distant prospects but also
immediate events, above all the accession of Bulgaria and Romania planned for 1
January 2007.
The debate highlights the indigestion caused in the 15
members from Western Europe by the EU's big-bang expansion into Central and
Eastern Europe in 2004. It also shows up the change of mood brought about by
continued economic stagnation among the EU-15 and last year's traumatic
rejection of a draft constitution by voters in France and the
Netherlands.
A MENTAL WALL?
In March, the European Parliament
endorsed a report, strongly inspired by German and French politicians, that
promotes a cautious if not reluctant attitude toward future enlargement. The
majority of parliamentarians recommended that the countries bidding for
membership should be given a "European perspective," a term that includes not
just membership, however distant, but also a so-called "privileged partnership."
The EU foreign ministers will discuss the idea at an informal meeting scheduled
for end of May in Austria.
Experts are unimpressed.
"The Berlin
Wall fell 15 years ago. But in the minds of people and even politicians in the
western part of the continent it is still there. Even the new member states, who
have been in for two years, are still considered to be faraway exotic places,"
said Jean-Michel De Waele, professor at the Free University of Brussels. "I
consider this state of mind a fiasco – for the EU, but also for the new
members."
EU hopefuls fall into four categories. Bulgaria and Romania
have already finalized membership talks and signed their accession treaties;
they are now waiting for the EU to confirm that they will indeed be able to
enter the bloc next New Year's Day. (A safeguard clause in their accession
treaties allows the EU to postpone accession by one year if the countries fall
short of expectations.)
In the case of Croatia and Turkey, the EU
formally started negotiations last year. Analysts expect Croatia to enter before
the decade is over, perhaps in 2009, while Turkey's is a more distant
prospect.
The other Western Balkan countries received assurances from the
EU that they are in principle future candidates for full membership; but so far,
only Macedonia has reached the status of a candidate country. Serbia and
Montenegro has only just begun to negotiate its Stabilization and Association
Agreement (SAA) with the EU, as has Bosnia and Herzegovina. For Western Balkans
countries, signing an SAA is a first contractual step that formally sets a
country on EU course.
The fourth group, currently Ukraine and Moldova and
one day perhaps Belarus or Georgia, is subject to the EU's "neighborhood
policy," with no membership prospect offered at this stage.
But whatever
group an EU hopeful finds itself in, they all feel a new chilly breeze blowing.
Bulgaria and Romania are asked to produce tangible evidence for the
success of judicial reform and their anti-corruption drives. Charging high-level
politicians with corruption has in a way become a condition of keeping the
accession date of January 2007.
| Cartoon by Corax |
GETTING IN BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE
Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn seems to prefer the 2007 entry date, perhaps in conjunction with some unpleasant safeguard measures. But there is robust opposition in the European Parliament to the 2007 date.
"It is quite clear that the Bulgarians, but even the Romanians are not ready. Now it is necessary to consider what the political consequences of a delay would be," De Waele said. He warned that a "no" from the EU would "create a terrible shock, bring about a depressed mood in both countries." But, he argued, democracy would not be under threat in either country.
Guillaume Durand from the European Policy Center, a Brussels think tank on integration issues, is even tougher. "Why don't the member states, the Commission, the Council secretariat openly say that [Bulgaria and Romania] are not prepared for membership? That a one-year delay would be healthy for them? Don't tell me that such a decision would destabilize these countries – on the contrary, it would help to consolidate them," Durand said, pointing to opinion polls suggesting that a majority of Romanians do not consider their country to be ready for accession and expect a one-year delay anyway.
Both analysts argue that the EU should learn from its past mistakes instead of repeating them.
"It is clear that Poland was not ready in 2004, but it was decided that there could be no enlargement without Poland," Durand said. "It is clear that it was a huge mistake to take Cyprus in without having solved the problem of the divided island, but it was done anyway." Durand contradicts the official narrative according to which the 2004 enlargement was a success.
Croatia had to take some tough criticism of the weakness of its public administration and judiciary in a ministerial council with the EU in April. The European Commission commented negatively on the backlog in the courts, which also don't always seem to be able to guarantee their independence from political influence. The freedom of the broadcast media was questioned, as were some macroeconomic choices of the government, for example its tolerance of a big budget deficit.
To date, Croatia has in its negotiation process opened just one of the 30-some chapters of EU law and standards that the country must adopt, and screened a mere four, the same record as Turkey. Croatia finds itself in the same group as Turkey on another issue as well: President Chirac of France has announced that any future member after Romania and Bulgaria would need to pass a referendum in France. While this was primarily aimed at keeping the Turks out, it could also delay or derail Croatia's plans to enter in 2009.
In the Turkish case, EU member states are quarrelling about the very process of negotiations.
Some say that the question of political criteria such as democratic governance, transparency, and non-discrimination should be dealt with separately, when the relevant chapter (created just for Turkey and missing from the procedure for other countries) shows up on the negotiation agenda. Others want to apply these conditions to all chapters, or most of them. That is why the science and research chapter is so much easier than the education chapter, which now has become a politically tough nut to crack – it includes such contentious issues as schooling conditions for girls or ethnic minorities, political pressures inside the system, the firing of uncompromising professors, or revisionist interpretations of history.
The EU has not yet been able to agree which approach to adopt.
DIMINISHED APPETITE FOR ENLARGEMENT
Among the member states' ambassadors to the EU, "it is quite clear that there is a growing will to be stricter towards Bulgaria, Romania, and Croatia and to link all negotiations with Turkey to the fulfillment of political criteria," Czech EU envoy Jan Kohout said. He added, "The absorption capacity of the EU is stressed more often. It is very clear that there is no appetite for further enlargements."
De Waele likewise sees a lack of willingness to pursue the enlargement process and to match it with fresh money. "The Flemish Belgians are more and more reluctant to finance the Walloons inside their own country. The same goes for relations between West and East Germans, or Italy's North and South," he said. "Who would, under these circumstances, be willing to open his purse for faraway Albanians or Bosnians?"
He expects the enlargement process to be suspended "for a long time" once Croatia is in. Those who will be left out must be given something in exchange, another chance that would make the waiting easier to swallow; a privileged partnership could do the trick, according to De Waele, if it is well conceived and defined. In any case these countries must be clearly told what their immediate destiny is likely to be.
Durand believes that even Turkey might one day accept such an intermediate solution – a political union of sorts and increased participation in the internal market without institutional integration or access to benefits from the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP).
He thinks that Turkey might be willing to compromise not just under the pressure of circumstances but also based on a growing awareness that being a "special" member of the club of full-fledged members, or rather just one among many, would not finally match the country's national sense of pride. He does not share the apocalyptic vision of a rejected Turkey being driven into the arms of Islamic fundamentalists.
"Turkey has only one perspective, which is European," he said. "The whole political elite agrees on that and I do not see anything that might change that, not even a refusal of full EU membership."
The proposal by the European Parliament to create an intermediate form of participation in the EU is not new. The notion has been around since the fall of the Berlin Wall. French President Mitterrand's European Confederation, flatly rejected by Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa in the early days of post-communism, is a good example, as is the "European conference" conceived at the beginning of this decade to accommodate Turkey before the decision on its candidate status was pushed through.
These instruments did not see the light of day, and the same may yet happen to their successors if the aspirant countries stand firm in their bid for membership. On the other hand the chances of such schemes are better than they used to be since the mood in Europe seems to have changed profoundly. The continent's western half has lost its feeling of a historic injustice done to its neighbors to the east that needs to be repaired. The economic slowdown has diluted the sense of solidarity while the shattering defeat of the draft constitution has highlighted weakening support for the integration project. More and more politicians, especially from the conservative camp, are demanding that the EU should, once for all, decide on its borders, on who's in and who's out.
Pavel Telicka, a former European Commissioner from the Czech Republic who today works as an analyst and consultant, thinks this is a dangerous game. "A debate about the borders of Europe can only create another conflict, another source of tension in the EU without solving anything," he told TOL. "Member states cannot agree on this, not today. So let's not do it; it would be utterly counterproductive."
But at the same time, he acknowledges that future enlargement is not a prospect with which a majority of member states, and their citizens, are happy.
"I would suggest that we analyze this mood, tackle the question of the absorption capacity of the union, and define reforms necessary to overcome the current state of play," he said. "There might be a pause in enlargement. We should try to create conditions that one day the pause will end and the process will continue."
Karel Bartak is a Brussels correspondent of the Czech News Agency (CTK).
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