Enlargement has always played a decisive role in the EU. Every time a new group of member states has joined, the integration process has also increased the EU’s policy remit and strengthened its institutions. The 1970s enlargement round preceded the creation of the European Council, the direct election of the European Parliament (EP) and led to important innovations in the fields of re-gional, monetary and foreign policies. The two Mediterranean enlargements in the 1980s were immediately followed by the Single European Act. Thirdly, the 1990s enlargement towards the North took place only two years before the Amsterdam Treaty. Finally, the big two rounds of Eastern enlargements in the 2000s were directly linked to the interim Nice Treaty and the constitutional experiment that eventually resulted in the Lisbon Treaty. Even the Maastricht Treaty was also connected to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the mini-enlarge-ment represented by the absorption of East Germany. It is clear that the process of European integration itself may be interpreted as a virtuous combination of widening and deepening. Both from the EU and the newcomers’ perspectives, this process is surely among the most successful policy instruments for provid-ing political stability and economic prosperity.
Despite this historically positive assessment, the prospect for the enlargement process is not very promising in 2010-2011. To be sure, the EU continues to be attractive in the West Balkans – new applications have just arrived from Podgorica and Tirana, and the recent visa liberalisation has fostered some op-timism in Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. This is also the case in Turkey (despite the slow progress of the negotiations, which are also blocked infor-mally by Paris and Berlin) and in other areas where accession was not seriously considered until recently, such as Iceland and Ukraine. However, those voices which (since the 1960s) have tried to create the impression of widespread Eu-ropean disapproval of new enlargements seem now to be stronger than ever.
Furthermore, this ‘enlargement fatigue’ – which is evident in the scepticism of many citizens and in the low profile of EU institutions towards new acces-sions – is reinforced by the perception that Bulgaria and Romania have not been able to cope with their obligations as members. It has not helped that some EU members have bilateral disputes with candidates – this is producing serious crisis in the negotiations with Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey. The best way to overcome such deadlock is to use the unique opportunity of the new in-stitutional settlement – not only the top jobs introduced by the Treaty but also the fresh mandate of the European Commission and the Trio – to give a new boost to enlargement policy and place it higher on the EU agenda (Europeum, demosEUROPa).
A clearly defined roadmap for future enlargements is needed – one that will de-scribe when each country will be able to liberalise visa regimes, receive candi-date status and / or open chapters in the accession negotiations, using explicit conditionality. In the current EU member states, this strategy should be con-nected to the guarantee by all member states that they will respect the principle of pacta sunt servanda. Regarding the present candidates or future ones, it will create a healthy competition among the potential future members – as it was the case in the previous 2000s enlargements, most of the EU-related economic reform and democratisation in candidate countries is achieved once the nego-tiations are open. In addition to this roadmap the EU must adopt a more as-sertive role, as the membership perspective alone cannot deliver a solution to the worrying stalemate situations of Bosnia, Kosovo and Northern Cyprus. This may include a clear EU membership prospect in the medium or long-term. The EU must also enforce the solutions that enable them to emerge from the stale-mate situation and avoid the risk of instability (Europeum, demosEUROPa).
Whether this clear strategy for future enlargement is agreed or not, the Euro-pean Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) should help to provide political and policy answers for the EU in its relations with its Eastern and Southern neighbours.
The original ENP has become more vague, with the creation of new different – and often unconnected – regional and bilateral cooperation forms for the area surrounding the EU: Eastern Partnership (EaP), Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), Black Sea Synergy, Northern Dimension, ‘advanced status’ agreements, etc. It is unclear if these initiatives represent alternative formations in the EU’s neighbourhood or, in some cases, intermediate steps to enlargement.
Brussels may officially treat Eastern Partnership countries as potential can-didate states but it is nonetheless unclear that Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus or the three Caucasus countries are convinced that their future is or should be in the EU. Their post-Soviet political elites and societies are losing their commit-ment (never massive) to the European project. Three key realities clearly dif-ferentiate the Eastern Neighbourhood from the accession states of the 1990s:
(i) Russia is another pole of attraction in the region, (ii) these states are weak ones, and (iii) they are sovereignty-seeking, with leaders whose priority is to bolster statehood, strengthen their personal position and excuse a lack of re-form. Since it is impossible to ignore Europe’s energy or security needs and given that relations with Moscow is one of the most divisive issues for the EU, the stance towards Russia should avoid confrontation and be at least coopera-tive, supporting the idea that the EU’s multilateral cooperation in the Eastern neighbourhood could constructively complement the existing EU-Russia rela-tionship. Notwithstanding this, the EU should build its own and autonomous strategy to help its Eastern neighbours prevent and cope with political and
economic crises, thinking imaginatively of ways to counter Russia’s strong power of attraction in the region (SWP, ECFR).
Regarding the Northern African neighbours, the under-performance and frag-mentation across different lines of the EU foreign policy towards the region is clear. The ‘variable geometry’ uncovers the difficulties in creating a North Afri-can region that is ridden with inter-state conflicts and heterogeneity. Wealthy regimes, such as Algeria and Libya, can cope and go global. Morocco and Tunisia look for the EU for support, while Egypt is situated somewhere in the middle. Underpinning these tensions, there is a continuing ‘securitisation’ of the Mediterranean debate in the EU, which centres on threats emanating from the South: islamist terrorism, illegal immigration and organised crime. The Trio Presidency cannot resolve this deep-rooted quandary, but a gradual shift of the European narrative on North Africa is advisable. The EU should acknowl-edge the objective tensions facing its policy and place a renewed emphasis on fundamental political reforms in the partner countries, which Brussels has not been able to encourage so far. Without a membership horizon, political condi-tionality is difficult in countries like these. But the EU can improve its democra-cy-promotion record by concentrating on what can actually be achieved on the ground (DIIS).
GlobAl GoVERNANCE
Internal and External Challenges for the EU: the Economic agenda of the Spanish-Belgian-Hungarian Trio Presidency
András Inotai Director of the Institute for World Economics of the Hungarian academy of Sciences; for GKI
Jean Pisani-Ferry Director, Bruegel