DECEMBER
2000/JANUARY 2001 - CER BULLETIN, ISSUE 15
SET
A DATE FOR ENLARGEMENT NOW by Heather Grabbe
The EU has an accession
process, but still needs an enlargement strategy. The European Commission deserves
credit for keeping the accession negotiations going, but we are reaching the
limits of what the EU institutions can achieve. Now we need political leadership
at the highest levels for enlargement to happen. The accession policy remains
highly technocratic, focused on getting the applicants to converge with the
Union. That is necessary, but not sufficient to ensure the successful integration
of a dozen or so - very diverse - new member - states. And it certainly will
not be enough to sell enlargement to increasingly sceptical west European populations.
Every interest group that receives EU or national subsidies, feels threatened
by wage competition, objects to immigration, or just fears change, will raise
myriad objections to enlargement. Anti-enlargement groups are already mobilising,
starting in Austria and Germany. Enlargement is an easy target for opportunist
politicians seeking a popular anti-EU cause. They portray it as expensive and
likely to cause mass immigration, even though such assertions are largely unfounded.
The only way the EU can overcome the complaints of special interest groups is
to set out a clear strategy with a firm commitment to a date for the first accessions.
The history of European integration shows that important and difficult projects
- like the single market and monetary union - can be kept on the road only if
there is a strategic map with a date clearly marked. Without the discipline
of a deadline, member-states will carry on fiddling with the institutions and
arguing about the budget forever.
Opponents of a fixed date usually argue that the applicants will slow their
preparations if they think their entry will be automatic. But in fact, the opposite
is true. The front-runners are aiming for 2003, but it is very difficult for
their governments to persuade legislatures and ministries to speed up preparations
when there is no clear evidence of a commitment from the EU to admit them soon.
The longer entry is delayed, the more the prospect of EU membership will lose
credibility as an incentive to reform. Moreover, a set date for the first accessions
would not bind the EU to admitting any one country. The best-prepared applicants
can compete for seats on the first train to Brussels.
The EU should also establish a clearer set of criteria for judging transparently
and publicly when each country has met the conditions for accession. The EU
will need to show that its decisions on each applicant's readiness are impartial
and objectively based on evidence. That would prevent any backsliding from a
large country like Poland, were it to assume that it could join straight away
simply because it is strategically important.
Enlargement will be the EU's major contribution to security and stability in
Europe. It will also dynamise the Union by infusing it with new blood from countries
which are used to reforming their economies and political institutions much
more quickly and radically that any member-state would dare.
None of the EU's problems would be solved by not enlarging. Postponement would
do nothing to deal with the threat of instability on the EU's peripheries, the
pressures of migration and global competition, and the need to revitalise the
EU itself. Since the Amsterdam treaty of 1997, the unsustainability of current
methods of decision-making and policy development has become embarrassingly
clear. The recent speeches from Fischer, Chirac, Blair and Prodi on the future
of the EU all point to the need to find new, post-Monnet methods of integration.
The EU has been officially preparing for enlargement for seven years, yet it
is still "in denial" - as Romano Prodi put it - over how far-reaching
its self-transformation must be. Taking in a dozen or so countries will nearly
double the number of member-states, and add more than a third to its population,
but the approach is still "business as usual".
We therefore need to go further than the settlement at Nice, which promises
to be a holding position for the current members rather than an adequate settlement
for of enlargement. The inter-governmental conference was nominally aimed at
preparing for enlargement, but its focus has been on adapting the creaking structure
for the current 15 countries, rather than on establishing a durable framework
for an EU of 25 or 30 members.
The budget also needs a fundamental re-think, and not just because of enlargement.
The Common Agricultural Policy is under ever-greater pressure, because of the
World Trade Organisation negotiations, the rising cost of farm subsidies, and
public concern over what the BSE crisis has revealed about industrialised farming.
And what is the future for "solidarity" through regional aid, in a
context of national budgets restricted by the stability pact?
The economic case is not an easy way to sell enlargement. The gains are likely
to be considerably greater than the costs: enlargement will add over 100 million
consumers to the single market. The likely first entrants are rapidly transforming
their economies through foreign direct investment and trade with the existing
members. But the problem is that the long-term gains are difficult to quantify.
In contrast, the economic costs are short-term and the losers are relatively
easy to identify - making it hard to overcome sectoral interests.
Yet overall, enlargement is a bargain. The direct budgetary cost of enlargement
is very small, for east European farmers will get nothing like the subsidies
given to their western counterparts. The maximum allocation to central and eastern
Europe in the EU's current budget over seven years to 2006 would only be 7 billion.
This amounts to one per cent of EU GDP - a tiny price to pay for re-uniting
Europe, and a fraction of the amount spent on defence budgets during the Cold
War. But the opportunity costs of failing to enlarge soon are great. Unless
the EU gets ready now, it will lose credibility in the eyes of the current applicants,
and also of the Balkan countries that are using the goal of membership as a
motivation for painful reforms. Further delay would suggest that the EU is reneging
on its promises, hardly a good example to set for democratisation and good governance.
Enlargement is the EU's most important foreign policy. The Union must look up
from its internal reforms now and start living up to its regional responsibilities.
