It's in all our interests to welcome Balkan countries into the union
Chris Patten
Thursday June 19,
2003
The
Guardian
When European leaders gather this
weekend in the Greek coastal resort of Salonika, they will be unusually
numerous. The 10 countries that join the union next year are a welcome addition
to the club. But with heads of state still learning each other's names, and some
of our citizens unable to list the new members - never mind point to them on a
map - is this really the moment to be thinking of further additions?
It is. Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey are already preparing for membership. And
we have recognised the European vocation of the five countries of the western
Balkans: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the former Yugoslav republic
of Macedonia, and Serbia and Montenegro.
That adds up to a union of over 30 members. Quite a thought. Decision-making
was hard enough with 15 flags around the table. How will it be with more than
twice that number?
The prospect may be daunting, but the policy is right. Just as it was
morally, politically and, I believe, economically right to welcome the countries
of the former eastern block, so it is right that we should admit the countries
of the western Balkans when they are ready.
Until then, there will be a piece missing from the jigsaw. That is true
geographically, as a glance at the map of Europe will confirm. But it is also a
question of the stability of our continent. We all remember the images of
Sarajevo under siege, the horrors of Srebrenica, ethnic cleansing, streams of
refugees; the human tragedies, destruction and devastation. None of this can be
allowed to happen again. Just as the prospect of EU membership helped to
maintain stability in central and eastern Europe after the collapse of the
Soviet Union, so it has become a critical factor in the still fragile Balkans.
This is not a matter of altruism. It is in Europe's interest - as well as
being a moral imperative - that we should project stability and security. If we
tried to exclude people who are by history Europeans, not only would we risk
creating a new iron curtain, but we would face tremendous pressures from illegal
immigration, organised crime and trafficking of every kind.
Every time I visit the western Balkans, I am struck by the remarkable
progress that has been achieved over the past four years or so. The EU has
thrown its full energies behind transformation in the region. Refugees return to
houses reconstructed by the EU. There are new bridges and new roads. Police
officers learn, with help from the EU, to manage the delicate ethnic mix across
the region. Customs services have improved with our help. Some of the most
important work is of a kind that you will never see on television or in
newspaper photographs: technical assistance to help new governments build
effective democratic institutions and deliver good services to their citizens.
The EU has invested a tremendous amount in the stabilisation and development
of the western Balkans. We agreed a six-year programme of €4.6bn for 2000-06,
and may end up exceeding even that. In Serbia, after the fall of Slobodan
Milosevic, which I firmly believe we helped to precipitate, no one was more
generous than the EU, or swifter to deliver. We have made - and continue to make
- a real difference.
EU member states have repeatedly confirmed the prospect of Balkan membership.
But this does not mean that the western Balkans are on an effortless glide path
into the EU. That, in Philip Larkin's words:
...all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.
On the contrary, it is a thoroughly "losable game". Our task in Salonika is
to make two things crystal clear. The prospect of membership is real. But - and
it is a substantial "but" - that prospect can only be realised through sheer
hard work and the applied political will of those in power in the region.
The road to Europe is paved not with good intentions, but with reforms that
bring tangible results; with painstaking efforts to align legislation,
liberalise economies, raise standards of governance and absorb values of
democracy, human rights and respect for the rule of law. It is the same road
that our new partners from central and eastern Europe have travelled with such
success.
There is still quite a long stretch of that road ahead for the western
Balkans, though each country is at a different point along the way. In Salonika,
we will propose new Europe partnerships to bolster the enormous efforts we are
already making to support the western Balkans on their journey to the heart of
Europe. They are a sign of our firm intention and of our good faith. But
membership of the EU must be earned.
?Chris Patten is the EU's external relations commissioner
