Applicants face up to sober reality

Date: 11/11/1999

By Simon Taylor

AS PREPARATIONS for next month's summit of EU leaders in Helsinki gather pace, people in the applicant countries are marking the anniversaries of a series of historic events in the dismantling of Communist regimes across Europe.

The collapse of the Berlin Wall was celebrated this week. The end of this month sees the tenth anniversary of the resignation of Czechoslovak Communist leader Milos Jakes. The end of December marks the execution of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu in 1989.

But the end of the decade has seen euphoric notions of a reunited Europe sour into a sobering confrontation with the reality of what it means to be a member of the European family.

The view of the EU from central and eastern Europe has certainly changed in the ten years since east Berliners tore down the Berlin Wall, the most powerful symbol of the rule of undemocratic Communist regimes.

Returning to the mainstream European fold after 50-odd years of Soviet domination was seen by those countries as reaching a golden land of prosperity and freedom.

But a couple of years in the Union's waiting room has made their populations realise what existing members have known for a long time - that life in the EU is not all plain sailing.

Despite very painful steps to move from the bankrupt but socially secure economic structures of the Soviet era to the competitive environment of global capitalism, citizens of countries from the Baltic to the Adriatic and the Black Sea have had to learn that sacrifice always precedes reward in today's European Union.

The six candidate countries denied a place at the Union's negotiating table by EU leaders in Vienna a year ago are confident they will be invited to take their seats alongside their neighbours at the Helsinki summit.

A positive decision from the Union's great and good is essential to send a signal to the electorates of those countries that the factory and mine closures, and increases in food, fuel and accommodation costs are a price worth paying for the eventual goal of a place within the EU's political core.

After all, only that seal of approval can ensure the continued flow of inward investment essential to create new jobs to replace those lost by the clear-out of old, over-manned and outdated heavy industries.

Ever since the campaign to protect the Kosovars against Serbian aggression led to the first German bombs being dropped in anger since the end of the Second World War, Union leaders have realised that they must hold out the prospect of EU membership even to the least well-prepared countries on Europe's fringes.

As the debate in Helsinki will show, the Union is prepared to overlook - for the time being - the economic and political shortcomings of countries such as Romania and Bulgaria in order to keep their membership hopes alive. Otherwise, the political will to continue with tough reforms will falter.

Helsinki will also discuss what to do with those countries with even more distant hopes of joining the EU club: Turkey, with its particular challenges; the states of the western Balkans; and the Ukraine and Moldova.

Union leaders will have to find a way to encourage the process of economic and political reform in those countries, binding them into European structures with common values of democracy and economic freedom but without stimulating unrealistic political demands.

But Helsinki will demonstrate that it is not just the weaker performers such as Sofia and Bucharest who face a difficult time at the hands of the EU in the years ahead.

Although the European Commission recommended last month that negotiations on terms of entry should start with the six candidates now excluded from the front-runner group next year, Enlargement Commissioner Günter Verheugen demanded a high price in return, insisting that the negotiating process should become more demanding and rigorous.

While Commission President Romano Prodi evoked visions of “the first opportunity of reuniting Europe since the fall of Roman empire”, his colleague was transmitting a signal to the south and east that the price of joining the Union had just got higher.

In future, progress in the negotiations - which are already showing signs of stumbling even before the second-wave candidates come to the table - will depend on what applicants are actually doing on the ground to reshape their economies and societies along west European models.

Verheugen is a likeable man whose role in selling enlargement to an increasingly sceptical, if not outrightly hostile German-speaking electorate, will be crucial.

But his message to the applicants was unmistakably stern: the EU will not give would-be new members an easy ride.

The Commission's latest annual reports on the appli-cants' progress towards meeting the requirements for Union membership illustrated the concerns underlying the EU's uncompromising position.

Even the strongest performer, Hungary, was told that despite “notable progress”, there was still a great deal more work to be done across a whole range of areas. But there were sterner warnings still to other countries whose enlargement bids are politically very difficult to resist - Poland and the Czech Republic - that they will have to smarten up their acts.

Warsaw's progress report reads like the school report of a talented but somewhat lazy schoolchild, peppered with the equivalent of 'could do better' and 'must try harder'. For Prague, the Commission's comments were enough to make even the most loving parent shed a tear. “The pace of legislative alignment has not picked up significantly and progress is uneven across all sectors”, were the institution's opening words. It did not get much better from there.

The reports are, of course, backwards-looking - a snapshot of what the applicants had achieved by a certain point earlier this year. But a wide range of very difficult issues lie ahead. Many of the most politically difficult topics have not even been dealt with, and negotiations have already faltered over seemingly innocuous issues such as transport and television quotas.

One major topic has already been broached: whether farmland can be freely bought and sold once the applicant countries are part of the EU's single market. But even bigger battles are still to come.

Extending the Union's costly farm support policies to the applicants will cost them and EU taxpayers billions, while the issue of whether Polish farmers will enjoy the same protection as their French counterparts has still not been properly addressed. The applicant countries will also need years and tens of billions of investment to bring themselves into line with the Union's environmental standards.

Fears that the EU's eastern and southern borders could become Europe's equivalent of the Rio Grande dividing the US and Mexico will require the applicants to spend scarce resources on defending the border against illegal immigrants. Despite the painful changes the applicants have already made, more factories and mines will have to be shut before they can join the Union.

So despite the evocations of grand historical visions and the resonance of key dates in the dismantling of Communism, the drive for EU membership has become in part an uninspiring bureaucratic process of bid and counterbid, offer and counter offer.

But 'big picture' politics still matter most. While the Commission's new approach means each country's membership's hopes will depend on its individual preparations for entry, it is hard to imagine that Union leaders would agree to a first wave of accession which only took in economically strong contenders such as Estonia and Slovenia and left out Poland and the Czech Republic because their performance was not quite up to scratch.

Despite fears that the technocrats have taken over the enlargement process, the final decisions on EU expansion will not be taken without at least a good measure of the vision which followed the events of ten years ago.