A diplomat who speaks from experience as the EU moves east towards ‘a different world’

Date: 01/10/1998

The man who headed Greece's successful negotiations leading up to membership of the Union in 1981 talks to Simon Taylor about the tasks facing the EU in its current ambitious enlargement programme

EXPANDING the EU into central and eastern Europe will be a “totally new experience”, despite the lessons learned over the past two decades from admitting low-income countries, says Constantinos Lyberopoulos.

His views carry some weight. As head of Greece's department of European integration from 1977-81, he led the team which negotiated the terms on which his country entered the Union. He went on to serve as the first Greek permanent representative in Brussels for five years.

Even though the five front-running applicant countries in central and eastern Europe have income levels at around 40&percent; of the EU average, Lyberopoulos does not accept that this wave of enlargement is comparable with the accession in 1986 of Spain and Portugal, which had income levels of 50&percent; of the median.

Indeed, he argues, Austrian, Swedish and Finnish entry in 1995 was tougher. “Politically, Spain and Portugal were closer to the EU than Austria and the Scandinavian countries with their attitudes to neutrality and reluctance to join a political union.”

The EU is looking at a “different world” in contemplating the integration of the former Soviet bloc countries, he adds.

The diplomat-turned-consultant, who has recently returned home after eight months in Romania, maintains that some of the applicants are just not ready to carry out the fundamental reforms needed to qualify for Union membership.

“These countries have terrible difficulties in getting used to thinking in European ways,” he claims. Spain and Portugal, on the other hand, had no such problems.

Even if the EU hugely increased its aid budget to eastern Europe, Lyberopoulos doubts whether it would be enough to enable the laggard countries such as Bulgaria and Romania to become real market economies, given their reluctance to bite the bullet of reform.

Last week, Romania's reforming Finance Minister Daniel Daianu was dismissed from the cabinet when he lost the support of his Liberal Party backers after less than a year in the job. Fears are growing that Bucharest will be unable to raise vital financing worth 3.5 billion ecu next year.

Lyberopoulos believes Romania is seven years behind in transforming itself into a market economy. Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic started their transitional programmes earlier and have achieved a lot more in that time.

Nevertheless, the EU must continue to send a positive message about the prospects of membership to those countries trailing behind the front runners, he insists, pointing out that the “political élite has difficulties getting the message through to its own people”.

The European Commission's approach is to reassure the back markers that they could still join the first-wave candidates, provided they make sufficient progress in adopting the body of EU law - the acquis communautaire.

“We could not be more encouraging to the second wave,” he claims, “but they have to do their homework.”

Lyberopoulos believes that 2002 is a realistic accession date for at least three of the first-wave candidate countries: Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. Estonia, Slovenia and Lithuania could be ready on time provided they push through the necessary reforms, he adds.

Naturally, as a former Greek diplomat, Lyberopoulos would like Cyprus to be in the first wave of new members. But he acknowledges that this will depend on finding a political solution to the divided island's problems.

In any case, he argues that the next wave of enlargement should take in as many new countries as possible.

But the problems on the road to enlargement do not just come from the applicant countries themselves. Lyberopoulos insists that the EU must agree to reform its own institutions before it can take in more countries because it will be impossible to do so afterwards, given the difficulties involved in finding a compromise between member states' rival interests.

He points out that in 1991, the then 12 members of the Union failed to agree on constitutional reform during the Maastricht negotiations and found it even more difficult four years later in Amsterdam with three extra governments at the negotiating table. Applicants have to know what type of club they are joining, he insists.

Although the EU is concentrating on the Agenda 2000 package of spending programme reforms, Lyberopoulos says that overhauling the Union's institutions is a far greater challenge.

He maintains that reworking the Union's agricultural, regional and budget policies is “basic work”, adding: “The EU cannot survive with policies which were the basis of the Union in the beginning. If we spend more than half of the budget on agriculture and not on areas like science and research, we will lose out increasingly to our competitors.”

Lyberopoulos believes that the EU must integrate politically to increase its credibility with the applicant countries and highlights its failure to develop a foreign policy profile to match its economic standing. “You cannot pretend that you are a global power with one currency and economic union without political support”, he insists.

This means finding some continuity on who represents the EU in foreign policy issues. “You need to find a more stable figure, so Richard Holbrooke knows who to call,” he says, suggesting that one possible solution might be to end the Union's practice of rotating the presidency of the Council of Ministers among the Union's member states every six months.

While acknowledging that EU governments have so far refused to give greater control of foreign policy to the Council itself, he still believes there are workable options.

For example, the Council could establish a “political orientation” for policy abroad and then mandate a permanent foreign affairs representative to operate within it.

LYBEROPOULOS warns that Europe could pay a very heavy price in the future unless it boosts its political presence in the world. “We did nothing in Yugoslavia and we are absent from areas where the EU is directly affected like Albania,” he argues.

He also insists that the Union cannot continue to rely on the US for political and military support across the world because there will be areas where US interests are different to those of the Union.

A glaring example is the Middle East, he says, where the lack of a coordinated EU presence left Europe exposed to dangers which made little impact on Washington. “Destabilisation in the region could lead to problems like migration which would not affect the US,” he explains.

So why are member states so unwilling to pool their powers over foreign policy in Brussels, given that some of the most important policy decisions, on interest rates for example, will soon be taken at European level?

For the ex-diplomat, it was the collapse of the Soviet Union which made bigger member states such as Germany and France pursue a more nationally orientated foreign policy.

On one of Europe's biggest foreign policy headaches, the former Greek ambassador believes that his country will become less obstructive.

“It is in the interests of Greece for Turkey to integrate with Europe provided that bigger countries are prepared to pay,” he says, pointing out that average incomes in Turkey are just 11&percent; of EU levels.

But, he insists, Turkey will have to come halfway. “Simply signing up to international agreements and pacts like NATO is not enough of a commitment to Europe,” he argues. Ankara must push through economic and political reforms now because it will take the country at least eight to ten years to get ready for membership.