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The Economist Global Agenda
The Economist, London, UK, Thursday, Apr 29th 2004
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There are worries that a European Union of 25 member countries will
prove unmanageable. But the queue to join continues growing. Could the
Union one day expand to take in the whole of continental Europe and
beyond?
RATHER like the various theories of the universe, it is possible to
imagine a European Union that goes on expanding, one that reaches a
certain size then remains stable, or one that eventually implodes. So
far, the EU continues in its expansionary phase. On Saturday May 1st it
undergoes its fifth and most ambitious enlargement since its
foundation, as the European Economic Community, in 1957 (see table
below). The EU aims to admit Romania and Bulgaria in 2007, and
Croatia may also join around then.
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(Click on images to enlarge them)
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Already, there are worries that the current enlargement will prove a
step too far. Getting agreement between 25 squabbling countries may
prove near-impossible. There are also fears that mass migration from
the poorer eastern entrants will cause a backlash against the EU among
richer existing members. Already, EU citizens have doubts about the
European project: a poll last December by Eurobarometer found that
fewer than half of its people now agree that the Union is "a good
thing".
However, while fears of the Union falling apart are growing, so is the
queue of aspiring members--and not just among countries that
geographers would call European. Israel and Morocco would both like to
join. If they get in, why not Algeria, which held a reasonably
democratic election in early April--and which belonged to France, and
thus to the EU's predecessor body, until the 1960s? Or Tunisia, the
first North African country to sign an association agreement with the
EU?
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 led to a rush of applications
from countries previously behind the Iron Curtain, the EU refined its
entry requirements. Under the "Copenhagen criteria", agreed in 1993,
applicants must be stable democracies that guarantee the rule of law
and human rights; they must have a functioning market economy; and they
must be capable of taking on all the obligations of EU membership,
including its colossal body of existing laws (known as the ACQUIS
COMMUNAUTAIRE).
There is one other stipulation in the EU's treaties: members should be
"European". But the meaning of this is not defined. Turkey has had its
application formally recognised, despite most of its territory being in
Asia. Georgia would like to join, but while geographers place it in
Europe, it is actually to the east of Syria and Jordan. Azerbaijan is
also geographically European but its chances of ever being accepted
seem remote. Nevertheless, Mikhail Saakashvili, Georgia's president,
predicts that all the countries in the Caucasus will eventually join.
Some would argue that "European" means culturally European--including
being predominantly Christian. But the EU has ruled out discriminating
on religious grounds, by acknowledging Turkey's application and by
making it clear that Bosnia--also predominantly Muslim--will one day
have its application considered, as will the other Balkan states if
they continue making progress towards the Copenhagen criteria.
If all of southern Europe can apply, why not all of eastern Europe?
Maybe one day but, as Heather Grabbe of the Centre for European Reform
puts it, "Belarus is too authoritarian, Moldova too poor, Ukraine too
large and Russia too scary for the EU to contemplate offering
membership any time soon." The EU's single-market commissioner, Frits
Bolkestein, argues in a new book ["The Limits of Europe"] that these four
countries should be permanently ruled out (he thinks Turkey should be,
too). It is a good job that they are all a long way from fulfilling the
Copenhagen criteria because the cost of incorporating them would be
enormous.
There are several small, prosperous, western European states that the
EU would welcome with open arms: Norway and Switzerland (whose
governments have contemplated joining but whose citizens voted against)
plus Iceland and micro-states such as Jersey, Liechtenstein and Monaco.
These all have relationships with the EU offering them most of the
benefits of membership while sparing them some of its obligations, so
they are under no great pressure to join.
The countries that do want to join are mostly poor. What most attracts
them are the big EU subsidies that helped lift earlier joiners, such as
Spain and Ireland, from rags to riches. But the generosity of the EU's
wealthier paymasters is already under great strain and would reach
breaking-point if more impoverished countries joined on the same terms
as past entrants.
This problem is compounded by the size of some of the poor, would-be
members: Turkey could be the Union's most populous member by the time
it is ready to join, in about 2015. This would upset the current
balance of power, in which the biggest countries (and thus those with
the most votes) have been the main paymasters. In the biggest and
richest current member, Germany, the opposition Christian Democrats,
who oppose Turkish membership, could quite easily return to power in
the 2006 elections.
The arguments that the EU's leaders have used to justify
enlargement--that it will make Europe a region of prosperity and peace,
and that it will further the Union's aim of becoming a global
power--could justify its expanding to encompass the whole continent and
beyond. But both existing and wannabe members' doubts about further
enlargement will grow in the coming years, especially as the latest
entrants struggle to implement tough EU rules, without the generous
subsidies of the past to oil the wheels of integration. As the Union
gets bigger, Brussels may come to be seen as remote and dictatorial.
The waning attractions of full EU membership may eventually persuade
some applicants to accept the alternative the Union offered them last
year: under the "Wider Europe" initiative, the EU's neighbours will get
free trade and other benefits in return for political and economic
reforms. If so, the steady-state theory of the EU may eventually prove
correct.
"The Limits of Europe" by Frits Bolkestein, to be published in Britain
by Gibson Square Books later this year.
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2628212
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