When you’ve seen what a parcel bomb can do, enlargement’s problems hold no fears

Date: 19/09/02

By David Cronin

Nice...Cyprus...the CAP...Kaliningrad. There may be trouble ahead but Eneko Landaburu, director-general of DG enlargement, is determined to conclude talks on the first wave of the EU's eastward expansion in December.

THE arduous task of leading the European Commission's talks with the 12 countries bidding for EU membership falls to a mild-mannered Spanish official, who made a brief foray into party politics.

Eneko Landaburu was a member of the Basque parliament for the Spanish Socialist Workers Party in the early 1980s. He came to Brussels in 1986, initially to head the Commission's regional policy department.

Director-general of DG enlargement since January 2000, Landaburu is grateful that the Belgian capital is free from the kind of violence which has plagued his home region, directly affecting some relatives and friends. His brother, a journalist, remains traumatised after a parcel bomb exploded in his face; miraculously, he survived the blast.

The tranquility of Landaburu's office in the glass roofed Charlemagne building beside the empty colossus of the Berlaymont is at odds with his intense work rate. Like all skilled diplomats, the 54-year-old comes across as someone of boundless patience. But he leaves you in no doubt about his determination to do everything possible to hit the principal deadline set by Denmark's EU presidency. It wants to conclude talks on the first wave of the EU's eastward expansion at December's Copenhagen summit.

Most of this intricate jigsaw, potentially leading to the accession of ten new states to the Union (Poland, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta, Cyprus and Hungary) in 2004, has been assembled. Yet there are some awkward-looking pieces that still have to be slotted in somewhere.

One of these has a question written on it: how will enlargement be funded?

Earlier this year the Commission tried to provide the answer. It proposed a budget of €40.1 billion, to be spent on the prospective ten new entrants in 2004-2006. The new countries would provide some €15 billion of that amount in their own contributions to the budget.

Landaburu notes that 11 of the Union's existing member states 'more or less' have endorsed this blueprint. He will have to concentrate hard between now and December to convince the four doubters - Germany, Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden - to also back it.

Germany's red-green coalition government will not take any decision on this, he concedes, for the time being with a general election taking place this Sunday (22 September). However, he is optimistic that Berlin will soon drop its opposition, irrespective of whether Gerhard Schröder or his centre-right rival Edmund Stoiber emerges as chancellor.

The Germans consider the proposal too costly, yet Landaburu points out it is well within the budgetary parameters agreed by EU leaders at the 1999 Berlin summit. The deal reached then earmarked a maximum of €67 billion for spending on the accession states in 2000-2006.

'I'm reasonably sure that whatever the conclusions of the votes, the interest for Germany in enlargement is so high - in terms of politics, culture and geopolitics - that it cannot block the process over a question of money,' he says.

'The Commission proposal is a proposal which is totally fulfilling the limits that were decided in Berlin.

'The Berlin agreement was decided by all member states, including Germany, which had the [EU's] presidency at that time.'

Meanwhile, the main bugbear for Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK is that they wish to see some reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) before the Union's ever-generous subsidies are bestowed on farmers in central and Eastern Europe.

'I agree completely that deep reform of the CAP is needed,' remarks Landaburu. 'But it is too early to have the debate on the future of CAP, according to the conclusions of [the] Berlin [summit]. It is too early to put this question on the table in a certain way to blackmail the candidate countries, who have been waiting for ten years to be members of our family.'

Turning to Sweden, the UK and the Netherlands, he says: 'Knowing that these countries are strongly supporting the enlargement process, I believe, at the end of the day, they will accept a good compromise.'

But what will that compromise entail? Landaburu has given diplomats representing EU states some ideas about scope for altering the Commission package.

He is tight-lipped about the exact nature of his suggestions but is adamant that any compromise thrashed out must not differ radically from the Commission's original proposals.

Any moves to cut the recommended budget would, he feels, be vigorously resisted in the accession countries, most of which are already angry that the EU's executive is proposing to grant their farmers far less than the amount enjoyed by the present EU-15.

'I strongly believe the proposal is the minimum acceptable for the candidate countries, that will have to convince their own populations, through referendums in most cases, that the package to enter the Union is a positive one for them,' he contends.

'Those trying to reduce this package are in a certain way supporting those people in the candidate countries who are against the adhesion of their countries [to the EU].'

The assured tone of his comments about the package contrasts with the almost palpable fear that Ireland's voters could once again say 'no' to the Nice Treaty in the second referendum on it, due next month. Ireland is the only EU country to directly consult its voters on the treaty.

Commission President Romano Prodi and others have described the treaty as a political necessity for enlargement (a view hotly disputed by the anti-treaty side, who claim enlargement could proceed in any event).

The Irish rejection of Nice in the first poll last year caused consternation in all the Union's national capitals.

If the people of Dublin, Cork and Galway say 'no' for a second time, Landaburu feels that plans to formally draw the curtain on the first wave of enlargement talks at Copenhagen will more than likely be scuppered. He admits this is his 'main concern' at the moment. 'This could have consequences to delay the global process [of enlargement].

'It will probably not permit the conclusion of the exercise [on wrapping-up enlargement talks] in Copenhagen.

'This vote would promote a shock in the Union and when you receive a shock nobody knows how members will react.'

The most likely effect of a referendum failure, he believes, would be that the question of how the EU's institutions, especially the Council of Ministers, should function in the long term will have to be reopened.

All-night talks at the 2000 Nice summit ended with a compromise deal on reweighting votes in the Council. Under its terms the EU's largest country, Germany, would be able block Council decisions by teaming up with other big states representing 38 of the Union's population.

Revising that agreement, reluctantly accepted by many EU governments, would 'require some time', says Landaburu.

'It will be very difficult to have a proposal too close to what Nice said. The determination of threshholds for quality majority voting is not an easy question. It is a question about the power and influence of member states.'

He also predicts that an Irish rejection 'will provoke a lot of people into saying we are going too fast [with enlargement], that our public opinions are not supporting us in this global process.' But he expresses hope, too, that some mechanism can be found to avoid enlargement being postponed due to fresh wrangling over how the EU's institutions can function once it becomes a reality.

The Irish poll is expected to take place shortly after the Commission publishes its annual reports on the readiness of each accession country for membership on 9 October.

While work on these assessments is still continuing, Landaburu reveals that one of the big topics they will grapple with will be how to boost the capacity of political bodies in the states to deal with the extra administrative burden imposed by EU membership.

The Commission is due to suggest a way of using the EU's structural funds to improve the efficiency of political institutions in the countries concerned, for example through improved training for civil servants.

Although he will not divulge precise details, he also indicates that the reports will contain 'something new' for Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.

The earliest date foreseen for Bucharest and Sofia entering the EU is 2007 but Landaburu says 'we are thinking about a new roadmap for these countries'.

This could present fresh ideas about bringing the two countries into the EU fold as soon as possible, but it's still improbable that this would result in the 2007 date being revised.

Two weeks ago Bulgaria's government presented the Commission with a paper, arguing that the country is a functioning market economy, meeting the economic conditions for EU membership.

Deputy Prime Minister Nikolay Vassilev is worried, however, that the regular reports may understate, for political reasons, the full extent of Bulgaria's progress in slaying the economic legacy of communism.

If the Union granted the recognition which Vassilev believes is due, many would ask why Bulgaria is not among the first wave of prospective EU entrants, with a likely accession date of 2004.

Landaburu rejects his logic. 'There will be no political intervention in making our assessments, in particular of the economy. We will put on the table what is the real picture and we will treat Bulgaria, as the others, in the most objective way possible. The deputy prime minister can be assured we will take into consideration what he told us [in a recent meeting].'

'The adhesion of a country is not only due to fulfilment of economic criteria. A country can be considered ready to join us if it finishes all steps in the negotiating process.'

Turkey is alone among the candidate countries in not yet being involved in formal talks with the EU on closing the thematic chapters on which accession pivots.

Ankara desperately wants to rectify that situation; the mainly Muslim country is pushing for a date when talks can commence to be announced by the end of this year. Most EU observers think this call will be spurned and Christianity will remain the predominant creed in the Union for some time to come.

'We know the Turkish government is waiting for a date to be fixed in Copenhagen,' says Landaburu.

'But the Commission has to take a position according to the rules of the game. We've decided that when a country complies with the rules of democracy, negotiations will start.

'We've applied the same rules for all candidate countries. My own country was outside Europe for some years because we had a dictatorship.

'The European Union is not a club of Christian people or non-Christian people. It is a club of democracies.'

He welcomes the reforms aimed at transforming Turkey into a Western-style democracy - rubber-stambed by its parliament on 3 August - especially the abolition of the death penalty.

These are all measures the Union has been demanding before accession talks can be countenanced. 'But we not only measure the readiness of a country according to laws but according to what is really happening on the ground,' says Landaburu.

Another headache for the Union's policymakers is provided by Cyprus. The island was told in 1999 that a settlement of the historic differences between its Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities was not a precondition for EU membership.

Günter Verheugen, the Union's environment commissioner, has repeated this line with the regularity of a monk chanting a mantra. Yet he's also made plain that the EU would prefer it if Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash and Giafcos Clerides, the official president of Cyprus, could bury the hatchet before this December.

Landaburu has been liaising closely with the UN's special envoy to Nicosia, Peruvian diplomat Alvaro de Soto, who is sponsoring an ongoing series of face-to-face talks between Clerides and Denktash.

'We are hoping that between the Turkish election on 3 November and Copenhagen, we will have the conditions to have a settlement,' Landaburu says.

A deal enabling both parts of the island to join the EU in a spirit of unity would create some extra work but the director-general would relish this.

For example, the Commission would have to seek more money for funding enlargement to honour a pledge for allocating aid to the Turkish part of northern Cyprus should it embrace the EU.

However, some Cypriots to do not share his optimism about an imminent settlement. Not enough common ground has been established between Denktash and Clerides, they say.

Is Landaburu worried that the entry of a divided Cyprus into the EU would destabilise the Eastern Mediterranean, an already volatile region?

'It would not be a stabilising factor,' he responds. 'It would provide some difficulties with our Turkish friends.

'Things will depend, of course, on how Turkey will react and that's not in our hands. But our position is very clear.

'It's been well known for years, so you will not have a surprise factor in order to weaken the situation.'

A further niggling question relates to Russia's Baltic territory of Kaliningrad.

Strictly speaking, Kaliningrad's people will need visas to travel across its border into Lithuania or Poland once they join the Union and sign up to the Schengen agreement on border control.

Eurocrats feel this should be a technical question yet Moscow has turned it into a politically charged issue by stating it will not accept anything that hinders its citizens in Kaliningrad from travelling into mainland Russia.

For its part, the EU insists it must protect the integrity of its external frontiers. Vladimir Putin's government has, however, recently hinted it could accept a deal in which car drivers in Kaliningrad would require visas but train passengers could use other travel documents to cross its border.

Yesterday (18 September) the Commission appeared to accept some of the Russian demands.

It published a proposal stating that a special transit document could be issued to Russian citizens who need to travel frequently to and from Kaliningrad.

This 'Kaliningrad pass' would be valid with an internal Russian travel document until 2004, but an international passport would be required after that date.

'We're trying to meet some of the preoccupations of the Russians,' says Landaburu.'Our position is, first of all, to defend the sovereignty of Lithuania [the main border crossing for travellers from Kaliningrad]. In any case we are working on a technical basis and we're trying to have a proposal, which would not be an obstacle to Lithuania becoming a member of Schengen.'

From money to Moscow, there are plenty of hurdles still to be crossed before the EU ceases to comprise only of Western European countries and starts to genuinely encompass a continent stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals.

Time will only tell if the those last awkward pieces can be fitted into that jigsaw puzzle called enlargement.

Major interview with Eneko Landaburu, Director-General of DG Enlargement. Article is part of a European Voice survey on enlargement.