Analysis: EU enlargement – Members and guests only?

As the EU tries to fix its borders, offers of a “privileged” status short of membership may offer a way out of the enlargement imbroglio – or make it worse, writes Karel Bartak in Transitions Online.

The member states and institutions of the European Union are locked in a bitter debate on the future expansion of the bloc – whether it should enlarge at all and if so, to what extent. This concerns not just distant prospects but also immediate events, above all the accession of Bulgaria and Romania planned for 1 January 2007. 

The debate highlights the indigestion caused in the 15 members from Western Europe by the EU’s big-bang expansion into Central and Eastern Europe in 2004. It also shows up the change of mood brought about by continued economic stagnation among the EU-15 and last year’s traumatic rejection of a draft constitution by voters in France and the Netherlands.

A mental wall?

In March, the European Parliament endorsed a report, strongly inspired by German and French politicians, that promotes a cautious if not reluctant attitude toward future enlargement. The majority of parliamentarians recommended that the countries bidding for membership should be given a “European perspective,” a term that includes not just membership, however distant, but also a so-called “privileged partnership.” The EU foreign ministers will discuss the idea at an informal meeting scheduled for end of May in Austria.

Experts are unimpressed.

“The Berlin Wall fell 15 years ago. But in the minds of people and even politicians in the western part of the continent it is still there. Even the new member states, who have been in for two years, are still considered to be faraway exotic places,” said Jean-Michel De Waele, professor at the Free University of Brussels. “I consider this state of mind a fiasco – for the EU, but also for the new members.”

EU hopefuls fall into four categories. Bulgaria and Romania have already finalized membership talks and signed their accession treaties; they are now waiting for the EU to confirm that they will indeed be able to enter the bloc next New Year’s Day. (A safeguard clause in their accession treaties allows the EU to postpone accession by one year if the countries fall short of expectations.)

In the case of Croatia and Turkey, the EU formally started negotiations last year. Analysts expect Croatia to enter before the decade is over, perhaps in 2009, while Turkey’s is a more distant prospect.

The other Western Balkan countries received assurances from the EU that they are in principle future candidates for full membership; but so far, only Macedonia has reached the status of a candidate country. Serbia and Montenegro has only just begun to negotiate its Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU, as has Bosnia and Herzegovina. For Western Balkans countries, signing an SAA is a first contractual step that formally sets a country on EU course.

The fourth group, currently Ukraine and Moldova and one day perhaps Belarus or Georgia, is subject to the EU’s “neighborhood policy,” with no membership prospect offered at this stage.

But whatever group an EU hopeful finds itself in, they all feel a new chilly breeze blowing. 

Bulgaria and Romania are asked to produce tangible evidence for the success of judicial reform and their anti-corruption drives. Charging high-level politicians with corruption has in a way become a condition of keeping the accession date of January 2007.

To read the article in full, visit the Transitions Online website.