Europe is full of gloom about the prospects for a common foreign and security policy, following the EU's spectacular divisions on U.S. policy over Iraq. But Europe should learn from its successes as well as its failures. Last week, the EU celebrated the success of its most effective foreign policy ever when it signed an accession treaty with 10 post-communist countries. Their membership in the European Union from May 1, 2004 is a triumph of Europe's "soft power"--the force of attraction and the ability to shape countries in the EU's own image.

For over a decade, the EU has been actively involved in state-building on a huge scale in Central and Eastern Europe. The Union has influenced almost every aspect of institutional and economic reform in these countries. The United States cannot boast that any country has adopted its norms and values as assiduously as the candidate countries have taken on the EU's models.

The initial "regime change" was achieved by the people of Central and Eastern Europe themselves. But after the 1989 revolutions were over and the hard work of reconstructing states and markets began, the EU provided a strong guiding hand. The EU did not just lead by example, it used its soft power instruments actively to encourage the post-communist countries to move toward westward models.

The Union cannot claim all the credit for the region's progress, because most of the hard work was done by the countries themselves. But the EU was able to empower reformist politicians by approving their efforts and rewarding them with aid, trade and political ties. The Union influenced the political choices of the Central and East Europeans across a vast range of policy areas, from market regulation to the protection of minority rights. It also guided the reforms in great detail, from setting toy standards to improving air quality.

Enlargement is a foreign policy that taps the EU's strengths. Trade, investment and aid were much more important in influencing the post-communist transformation than the EU's puny military capabilities. It used the power of attraction, not coercion. And the slow-moving, cumbersome nature of the EU's supranational institutions was an advantage--unusually--because it ensured the continuity of a long-term policy even as the commitment of the national governments wavered.

How can the EU replicate this success in the wider region surrounding it? After its success in Central Europe, the EU is failing to exercise soft power effectively in neighboring countries to the east, and in North Africa. Where is the clear, consistent, unified EU agenda for the long-term development of Ukraine, let alone for Moldova or Algeria?

Part of the problem is that the EU is still inward-looking rather than outward-oriented. The EU expends vastly more energy considering its own internal organization, as the fuss over Valery Giscard d'Estaing's latest ruminations yesterday on a possible constitution shows, than how to shape its regional environment. Another problem is timing: the EU tends to respond slowly to crises. Soft power is greatest at moments when countries are trying to reform themselves, when they are looking for the kind of models that the EU can offer. Such moments have to be seized quickly, so the EU should develop the capacity to act much faster.

The greatest problem, though, is that other countries' membership aspirations are viewed as an existential threat in many EU countries. Somehow it is dangerous to the EU that Morocco might try again to apply for membership some day. The biggest carrot must be hidden away lest it tempt the unworthy.

This attitude is short-sighted. The power of attraction is a vital foreign policy tool, one that the EU should use more creatively to shape its "near abroad." A recent paper on neighborhood policy from the European Commission takes the right line: it suggested that the Union's frontiers should not be established once and for all, and that nearby countries should be offered more access to the single market in return for reforms. But this policy needs more substance, and it needs political leadership from the national capitals. The EU's neighborhood is not a high priority in Paris, London, or even Berlin. But it should be, given that many of the greatest policy challenges come from the surrounding region: poverty and instability there create a fertile ground for crime just across the EU's border and make more people think of moving westwards.

The enlargement process offers important lessons for using soft power better. First, membership prospects must be credible. You have to live up to your promises, or you will undermine the reformers' efforts. The EU has been less successful in influencing Turkey than it was in post-communist Europe partly because it has blown hot and cold on the membership question.

Second, the standards must be high, so that by the time a country attains them, it will not disrupt the Union. Third, the conditions must be clear, so that policy-makers know what has to be done before they can join. And finally, the same standards must be consistently applied to all comers. No country should ever be told that it will be in by a certain date regardless of how it behaves--as some EU politicians were prone to tell Poland in the 1990s. But, equally, no country should be told that it can never join, no matter how well it meets the conditions-as some have told Turkey.

EU enlargement also holds general lessons for attempts at reconstructing economies and societies emerging from authoritarianism. The two most important: Winning hearts and minds is essential to ensuring that reforms take root. And state-building is a long haul that offers few immediate political rewards. The new members are finally ready to join the Union nearly 15 years after the change of regime, and they started in better shape than present-day Iraq. None of the presidents and prime ministers who started this process is still there at the end to take the credit. Let's hope the Bush administration has that kind of patience for Iraq.

Ms. Grabbe is research director of the Center for European Reform, a think-tank in London.

Centre for European Reform © CER 2003