Prague Enlargement Dialogue 2012
Discussion paper
David Král, Vladimír Bartovic
edited and commented by Vít Beneš
The following document does not necessarily represent the position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
of the Czech Republic.
The place of enlargement in the current EU strategic debate
For the European Union, enlargement is no longer a grand strategic political project anymore. The reality of the European Union in 2012 is that the forward looking strategic thinking in the EU is driven mainly by the Union internal developments that have evolved in the past two years in the wake of the sovereign debt crisis, and to that end it tends to focus on the issues of the future of economic and monetary union, co-ordination of economic policies, adding of “missing links” to sustain the single currency, debt mutualisation, balancing the fiscal discipline and growth etc.
The current state of the strategic EU debate is best reflected by the two reports that have appeared in course of 2012, trying to frame the current discourse as well as provide some guidance for European policy makers (albeit sometimes rather vague ones) in terms of future direction of policies, as well as institutional changes that should underpin them.
The first of the quoted reports, published ahead of the June European Council, was produced by the President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy in close co-operation with the Commission President José Manuel Barroso, President of the Eurogroup Jean Claude Juncker and the President of the ECB Mario Draghi. The report addresses primarily the issues pertinent to the economic and monetary union, as its title suggests[1]. The paper does not mention enlargement at all. To some extent, it is understandable, given the fact that the report deals merely with the internal issues mainly of the Eurozone. On the other hand, it is quite telling that no link is seen between the growth, jobs and stability, which is one of the main focus points of the document, and the enlargement. This link is something that will be explored later on in this paper.
The second report that merited substantial attention of the European policy community and media lately is the so-called “Westerwelle group report”, published on 17 September 2012 by a group of like-minded foreign ministers which emerged from the initiative of the German foreign policy chief Guido Westerwelle[2]. Unlike the previously mentioned report, this paper addresses a wider range of issues, including the external relations of the European Union (which was be expected given that it was tabled by foreign ministers). However, even here enlargement is mentioned only marginally among other areas concerning external action, along with the neighbourhood policy, development, trade and external economic affairs, management of migration flows, climate change and energy security. Much more attention is devoted to CFSP which is clearly perceived as a major challenge in the realm of EU external action, while no specific reference as to how to give a boost to the enlargement process are made. Implicitly, enlargement can be seen as a potential challenge in terms of future treaty reforms, when in the last section dealing with the long-term overall functioning of the EU it is acknowledged that “in an EU with 28 or more Member States, treaty reform will be more difficult”[3].
The brief overview of these three main strategic papers from recent period underpin the waning importance of the enlargement for the EU. It does not translate into a grand strategic project like the post-Cold war 2004 “big bang enlargement”. One can sense this not only from the reports that were alluded to, but also from other documents. For instance, enlargement was in the run up to 2004 quoted as a priority of almost every single EU Council presidency. Recently, perhaps as a result of a tendency to cut down the number of presidency’s priorities, the enlargement agenda is usually hidden under the broader “Global Europe” or “EU in the world” clause, and often it seems it is there more from the inertia rather than from the genuine belief of the presidency. But also the rhetoric around the enlargement has been changing considerably. While prior to 2004 it was referred to by policy makers as an opportunity, stressing its positive sides rather than the risks, after 2004 and especially after the accession of Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, we come across much more clichés like the “enlargement fatigue” or the need to consider the EU’s “absorption capacity” in the enlargement discourse.
Unlike the grand European project that the enlargement was a decade ago, currently it is merely conferred to the “unfinished business” of the perspective accession of the countries of Western Balkans and the strongly contested issue of the accession negotiations with Turkey. This can be explained by several broader considerations. Firstly, the process lacks strong advocates at the EU level, both at the level of member states and personalities. Especially the strong German backing which was instrumental in making the “big bang” happen is missing in the current atmosphere. Although there is still a relatively strong group of like-minded countries that see the enlargement as a strategic priority for the EU, they fail to translate this support into strong political signal and the German clout to push the other Member States and . The Eastern enlargement was seen much more in symbolic, even idealistic terms as a necessary step towards bridging the divisions that emerged across Europe as a result of the Cold War, as a historical duty or obligation and as such was often portrayed by the EU leaders. Perhaps this has enabled the politicians in the EU to sell this story to the public, although the public support remained significantly lukewarm in many Member States (e.g. Austria, France). This idealistic and symbolic rhetoric is, however, not present in the current political discourse. It is difficult to make this argument in relation to Turkey. But even where it could be convincingly made, such as in the case of Western Balkans (not least because of the inactivity syndrom strongly present in many EU capitals), it is not happening at the rhetorical level to boost the process politically.
Another possible explanation is a failure to accompany the inclusion of more countries with necessary structural changes in the EU. This trend is especially evident since the failed referenda on the Constitutional Treaty in France and the Netherlands in 2005. The grand project of EU Eastern enlargement was accompanied by not least as grand a project of drafting the European constitution. After the failure of the process, the abyss between the “deepening” and “widening” has increased even further. No matter how much disputed the link between the two processes could be by academics and think-tankers, it is still central to thinking of many policymakers across Europe. The failure of the EU to deliver on one side of the coin (in this case deepening) automatically results in a perceived need to slow down on the other side too (in this case on enlargement), with the fear that otherwise the Union as a whole risks strong paralysis. Many have hoped that the atmosphere will grow more favourable after the Lisbon Treaty has been finally adopted, by which the widening – deepening dilemma was supposed to be – at least for the time being – settled. But the outbreak of the debt crisis proved that the framework provided by the Lisbon Treaty by far does not represent a stable and durable solution for the internal EU issues.
Current assessment of the state of play in EU enlargement
Enlargement is a policy that involves all the main political institutions of the European Union (European Council, Council, European Parliament and European Commission) as well as the member states and their national parliaments. Although the strategic political decisions related to the enlargement are in the hands of the European Council, the main engine of enlargement is currently the European Commission. As a result of the “strategic shift” in relation to the enlargement policy, the process has much less political backing, especially among large member states. The Commission’s approach can be described as technocratic. Once the article 49 of the Treaty on European Union is activated by the European Council and the Commission is asked for the opinion on the application, the standard bureaucratic procedures starts. Although the Commission in this process acts as the “member state’s agent”, it is steadily increasing its influence on both creation and implementation of the enlargement policy. The negotiation frameworks with Croatia, Turkey and Iceland show that the European Commission was given a space to act as a mediator between the member states of the EU and applicant countries.
However, Commission lacks the necessary political and strategic clout that the member states possess. This can be illustrated by the different degree of attention that the Commission or Member State representatives receive in the candidate countries. Merkel’s or Sarkozy’s statements are much more noticed and commented by the Turkish media or political elites than those of Barroso, Ashton or Füle. Similarly, when Angela Merkel suggested she would appreciate more open-minded attitude of the Serbian government vis-à-vis Belgrade – Prishtina dialogue, things indeed started to move forward unlike in case of similar statements made by EU institutions
(Cooper, Füle).
Despite the fact that the enlargement is less politically driven, it is however much more politicized. There is a growing tendency to use the accession process as a bargaining chip in dealing with bilateral issues. There are dozens of points in which any member state can stop or slow down the accession process of the applicant country. Starting with the assessment of the application, decision over the candidate status and opening of the accession negotiations, through the negotiation phase when the consent is needed for opening and closing of each individual negotiation chapter until the end of negotiations, conclusion of the accession treaty and its ratification. Although the attempts to make use of the accession process to settle bilateral disputes were present already during the previous rounds of accession, for the first time it has had serious impact during the Croatian accession process. While negotiations with countries from so-called Helsinki group of states lasted less than three years, Croatia’s negotiations were prolonged to six years mainly due to the blockage by Slovenia. Similarly, other veto players on the EU side, in particular Greece in case of Macedonia and Cyprus and France in case of Turkey, cause that the process of enlargement is becoming much more hostage to bilateral issues/problems than was the case previously. This behaviour of some member states is setting a negative example for the applicant countries that will join the Union sooner than the others. Given the complexity and inscrutability of relations among Western Balkan countries it might have serious impacts on future negotiations.
While 2004 enlargement is being consensually considered as a success story, we cannot say so about the accession of Bulgaria and Romania. In case of the countries acceding in 2004, the accession conditionality was more or less thoroughly applied and these countries fulfilled the accession criteria. Bulgaria and Romania were admitted to join the EU as full members despite serious shortcomings in fulfilling all the vital conditions. Strict conditionality was replaced by the policy of so-called post-accession socialisation secured by safeguard clauses in their accession treaties and creation of the verification mechanisms. However, this approach was not perceived positively and left negative experience that influenced European Commission’s and member states’ attitudes toward enlargement with the common denominator of significantly increased cautiousness. As a result, the process of enlargement differs significantly to that from last “Eastern” round. It is much more concentrated to the pre-negotiation phase where the candidates are required to show compliance with requirements that were previously tackled in the negotiation phase.
In case of Western Balkans countries we can even talk about additional conditionality or “Copenhagen Plus” criteria. They tackle region-specific problems such as the full co-operation with the International Criminal Tribunal on former Yugoslavia (ICTY), neighbourly relations or regional cooperation.
Commission follows its own enlargement strategy from 2005 based on “three C”: consolidation of political commitments, strict conditionality and communication. This strategy was backed in 2006 when the European Council conclusions on enlargement stated that: “the enlargement strategy based on consolidation, conditionality and communication, combined with the EU’s capacity to integrate new members, forms the basis for a renewed consensus on enlargement”. New European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Füle complemented these three C with the fourth - “Credibility of the accession process”.
For the EU's enlargement policy to proceed successfully, it has to be credible in two respects, according to the Commission. For the member states, credibility of the enlargement process means rigorous conditionality towards the applicants. Only those who are fulfilling all the criteria and only once they are fully prepared, they can be recommended by the Commission to conclude negotiations. On the other hand, candidate and potential candidate countries must have tangible European perspective. They shall be promoted throughout the enlargement process step by step as they comply with individual benchmarks. Once they fulfil all the conditions and achieve full preparedness they shall be admitted to join the EU without being hindered by other issues such as internal developments in the EU or its member states.