Toward a Better Union

Toward a Better Union

It is excellent–as well as historic–that the
European Union is laying out the welcome mat for Central and
Eastern Europe. The region’s aim should now be to get a better deal
for the rural poor and others left behind in the transition
process.

It may yet all go wrong, but finally it looks as
if Western Europe has found the courage to propose to its other
half (or at least a large chunk of Central and Eastern Europe). EU
enlargement has been a marathon process, preceded by a huge
contract–the acquis communautaire, which runs to 80,000
pages–and, as the seemingly inevitable has approached, the voices
of doubt on both sides have, if anything, grown louder. After 13
years of courtship and nearly a decade of talks, the pairing hardly
rates as passionate.

If anything, this seems like the union of a
middle-aged and wary pair. However, that has its virtues. It does
not diminish the significance of the moment or change the fact that
adding eight Central and East European countries in one go is an
act of courage by the current members of the EU.

The accession process may not, as European
Commission President Romano Prodi claimed this week, be “Europe’s
political masterpiece,” but the decision to enlarge is a “visionary
act” and a leap of faith. Credit should be given for that. If, as
most probably feel (and should feel), their state and institutions
are more modern and more orderly now than they were three or five
or 10 years ago, the regions’ citizens should also appreciate that
some of this is thanks to the day-to-day EU-imposed grind of
passing laws and negotiating.

So this is a moment for relief and mutual
back-slapping, a moment to put the fatigue, wariness, and
disillusionment to one side.

It is not a moment to let up, though, as
membership is not yet in the bag. Brussels has said that it will
continue to apply pressure throughout 2003–and even after the new
members join the union and the European Commission has reserved for
itself the right to take special measures if things go wrong. The
honeymoon could prove rocky, and it certainly won’t be a
love-in.

What’s more, a wave of referendums must be
crested before that. The first comes on 19 October, when the Irish
vote on the Nice treaty. A “no” vote could cause the timetable for
enlargement to slip. The candidates will have no influence on that
vote, but some of the region’s governments will themselves have to
work hard to ensure that their referendums are passed when they put
the question of entry to their populations, probably next spring in
Central Europe and next autumn in the Baltics.

In Hungary, the referendum should pass easily;
it is the only country where support has risen the closer accession
comes. But in Poland, more needs to be done to counter widespread
skepticism and reduce the popularity of the outright and virulent
opposition of groups such as Andrzej Lepper’s Self-Defense
Party.

In the Czech Republic, meanwhile, the challenge
will be to ensure the referendum passes despite the common lack of
enthusiasm and important pockets of Euro-skepticism. (This also
increases the importance of the upcoming presidential elections,
which could just conceivably see the highly Euro-skeptical Vaclav
Klaus replace Vaclav Havel.) The same holds in the Baltics, where,
for example, 35 percent of Latvians in June opposed joining the
EU.

Nonetheless, just as Western Europe is
increasingly questioning the consequences of enlargement, it is
time for Central and Eastern Europe to consider what their new
agenda should be when they finally join. For 13 years, the
candidate countries’ focus has been on getting themselves into
shape so Brussels might accept them, their task to adopt reams of
new laws, and their aim to achieve the best possible terms of
entry.

They now know that Brussels deems them fit
enough. They now more or less know the terms of entry, though the
trickiest part of the discussions–on agriculture–has not been
completed. They also know their allocation of votes. They can now
begin to decide what it is they most want from the union and how to
exercise their votes.

The temptation will be to turn their attention
from the reforms inspired by the EU to fighting for a bigger share
of EU subsidies.

But rather than sit back, they should deepen
their reforms. Adopting laws is one thing, but the European
Commission found a wide range of weaknesses that needed to be
addressed: the functioning of the judiciary and the civil service,
independent regulation and central banks, the streamlining of
bankruptcy procedures, corruption, reforms of the social security
and tax systems, liberalization of key markets, and improving the
rights and integration of minorities. These are areas where it is
in the applicants’ own interests to make improvements. They should
do so.

Similarly, they should avoid the temptation of
simply battling at the pig’s trough of EU subsidies. The accession
process has been a test of the EU’s rhetoric and actions, and it
has revealed an alarming gap. The applicants have accepted some
discrimination, preferring to keep their eye on the broader aim of
gaining membership.

That was an understandable policy. Nonetheless,
some of the discrimination is outrageous. One is the decision that
the new members will at most be entitled to just half the amount of
regional aid that the poorest parts of the current 15-member EU
receive. The new members should use their new status to push
collectively for fairer treatment.

Another area of discrimination is farming, where
it appears certain, though talks remain unfinished, that the
Western European farming lobby will ensure that the EU will not
fork out the vast sums required to give equal aid to farmers in the
new member-states. It is of course unfair. But as the EU’s Common
Agricultural Policy is irrational, farming subsidies fall into a
different category. When agriculture consumes $39 billion in direct
EU subsidies and over half the EU’s budget, it would be
unsustainable for Polish and Lithuanian farmers to receive the same
overly generous treatment that Western European farmers currently
enjoy.

Instead, for the more far-sighted, it would be
better for Central and Eastern Europe to push for reform of the
agricultural system and urge that the money saved be spent on the
sustainable development of their poorest areas–which, as it
happens, are rural.

The main aim of the new members should therefore
be the creation of a European Union where everyone has fair and
equal access to a joint bank account, and where the budget is used
to ensure that those groups and areas left behind during the
transition learn the value of an “ever closer union.” It would
probably be better for everyone–the EU included–if it didn’t take
another 13 years to agree on that.

To read more about the candidate countries,
please visit

Transitions Online.