Charlemagne: The end of enlargement

The risk that the death of the constitution may also kill off further expansion of the club

BELIEVE it or not, one of the most exciting and positive stories in the modern world is taking place in Europe. The headlines in western Europe may be full of gloom: economic stagnation, political confusion and Islamic terrorism. But in the eight central European countries that joined the European Union in May 2004, this is a time of optimism. Belying Europe's image of economic sloth, their economies grew by an average of over 5% last year. More important than the figures is the mood. Central Europeans are still, on average, poorer than western Europeans - but they are also a lot more hopeful about their future. Where the French, Germans and Italians worry about pensions, jobs and the spectre of economic reform, central Europeans have gone through a wrenching change from communism to capitalism, and emerged optimistic that the next generation will be richer and freer than they are.

Given that this enlargement has been such a success story, you might expect the EU to be eagerly pressing ahead with the next wave. You would be wrong. On the contrary, enthusiasm for further expansion is fast draining away. Bulgaria and Romania, which have signed accession treaties with the EU, are likely to join as planned, but this week the enlargement commissioner, Olli Rehn, suggested that the date may be postponed from 2007 to 2008 because they have been slow to implement reform. Meanwhile, the next wave of countries in the queue - the five west Balkan countries (Bosnia, Croatia, Albania, Macedonia and Serbia), plus Turkey - see their chances of EU membership receding. And though the Ukrainians may feel that their “orange revolution” deserves to be rewarded, the reality is that the EU is doing all it can to discourage talk of Ukraine's membership.

The newly crabby and negative attitude in western Europe is intimately connected to the defeat of the EU constitution in the referendums in France and the Netherlands. There were many motives behind the no votes. But even mainstream politicians have concluded that a big one was discomfort over EU enlargement. The French no campaign harped on the fear that living standards would be undermined by competition from the east (famously symbolised by Polish plumbers). Dutch rejectionists capitalised on fear of further Muslim immigration into the Netherlands if Turkey were to join the EU. Politicians in both countries are now extremely wary of taking further liberties with volatile voters on European issues.

Some political leaders are losing their enthusiasm for enlargement in any case. Angela Merkel, the favourite to become the next German chancellor after elections in September, wants Turkey to settle for a “privileged partnership” with the EU, rather than full membership, as does Nicolas Sarkozy, who is a front-runner to become France's next president in 2007. Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think-tank, argues that countries such as France tolerated past enlargement of the EU in return for a commitment to deeper political integration; but “now that deepening has stopped, the leadership of several EU countries is likely to veto further enlargement.” Indeed, France has already set a deep booby-trap by amending its constitution to ensure that any further enlargement after Romania and Bulgaria must be approved by French voters in a referendum. Austria has also promised its people a vote on Turkish membership. Given the popular mood in both countries, it is hard to see such votes resulting in a thumbs-up. Europe's new-found taste for referendums, which has already killed the constitution, may now do the same for enlargement.

Naturally, officials in Brussels, as well as in the applicant countries, are extremely reluctant to accept this. As one senior EU official notes, negotiations with Turkey and the western Balkan countries may take a decade or more, adding that “by 2016, we will be living in a different world anyway: who knows what the political situation in France, or the rest of Europe, will be.”

There is good reason for European diplomats to be reluctant to give up on enlargement. Most of those who deal with the Balkans are convinced that the only way to keep the peace, preserve democracy and strengthen liberals, while undermining the nationalists, is to hold out the prospect of eventual EU membership. As one Brussels official argues, “the western Balkans are hanging by a thread anyway. If the EU walks away, nationalists will walk straight into the gap.” The situation in Turkey is less alarming, since Turkey is far from being a failed state. Nobody believes that the country will collapse into civil war if its membership talks do not start on schedule in October. But supporters of Turkish membership still believe that they are playing for high stakes: anchoring the Muslim world's only stable pro-western democracy firmly into Europe.

In search of a good argument

The problem is that, although these strategic points may resonate with diplomats, they are much harder to deploy to persuade anxious voters. At a time when western Europeans are increasingly worried about security, the idea of extending the EU's borders to Iraq and Iran, and then scrapping frontier controls from there to the Atlantic - which is what full Turkish membership of the EU would lead to - would strike many as mad. (It would be the equivalent of an American politician arguing for scrapping all border controls with Mexico, with the added complication of a Mexico that was Muslim.) And at a time when western Europeans are increasingly fearful of losing their jobs, the plan to admit a range of ever poorer countries into the EU, where they can compete for jobs on a level playing-field supervised by Brussels regulators, is also a tough sell. Opponents of further enlargement of the EU may be wrong, but they are not obviously crazy. If the political leaders of Europe are to win the argument for expanding their club still further, they are going to have to become a lot more persuasive.

Commentary feature says that the possible death of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe may also kill of any further expansion of the European Union to include Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, the Balkan countries and Turkey.

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