Breaking the sound bite barrier

Date: 13/02/1997

SOMETHING very odd is happening to the debate about the EU's next wave of enlargement.

Although heralded by the Dutch presidency as among the top three issues facing the Union, much of the public discussion of the challenges involved in letting the countries of central and eastern Europe (CEECs) into the club remains shallow and ill-informed - despite the fact that bringing the ex-Communist states into western Europe will be of monumental importance for the continent's future.

Whether, on balance, expansion eastwards will bring increased stability and boost economic growth by opening up burgeoning markets to the EU, or usher in teetering administrations and rampant crime, could be the most crucial assessment western European leaders will make in the early 21st century.

One false step - either way - and this brief half century of peaceful growth could become an anomaly in the history books.

The merits or otherwise of enlargement are, however, not the issue here. The real question at this stage is why the debate has hitherto been generally limited to bland statements of support and sound bites.

One episode in particular demonstrates the shallowness of the discussion.

Last month, the European Commission produced a fact sheet containing the answers to 30 questions about enlargement.

One sharp-eyed journalist spotted that, in answer to the question: “When will enlargement take place?” the Commission had stated, in bold type, that: “The earliest realistic date for the first accessions is likely to be no earlier than 2002.”

Within the hour, news wires around the world were flashing up the revelation: “Commission says enlargement will not take place until 2002.”

Within another hour or so, the Commission issued an emergency response insisting that the inclusion of this statement in the fact sheet was a mistake, did not reflect its position and should be ignored.

The next day, countless column inches in the international press were devoted to analysing what it all meant. Was it an error or an orchestrated slip-up? Did it reflect Commission thinking or not?

A consensus has emerged that the Commission does in fact believe that 2002 is the earliest practical date, but has come under intense pressure from the EU's biggest member states - particularly France and Germany - to keep quiet about it.

Whatever the truth, the whole affair demonstrated the extent to which the real issues are being virtually ignored both by European politicians and by the international media.

Yes, the date is important - companies planning their investment strategies over the next decade and governments keen to assure their populations that the transition heartache will soon be over want a sense of the time-scale.

But it appears that the current mania for a firm timetable overshadows all else. Nico Wegter, the Commission's spokesman on enlargement, feels that it is missing the point.

“The press is concentrating too much on dates. I do not criticise journalists as they have little else to talk about, but they often appear to have little idea about the complexity of the debate. The important thing is that we proceed as quickly as possible,” he says.

Those whose job it is to prepare the ground for the next enlargement are quick to point out that accession will - political considerations aside - be only the final step in a long and arduous process of legal and administrative reform.

The key question which must now be answered is what concrete action the CEECs are taking to prepare themselves in the meantime. There is certainly no shortage of topics to debate - administrative evolution, environmental legislation, social policy, banking reform and policing, to name but a few.

These issues will have a profound impact on the ability of CEEC firms to do business - and yet they are being left largely to officials and consultants.

And with the real debate being conducted behind closed doors, potential investors anxious for information about the applicant countries' steady march towards EU standards are left with only vague pronouncements on timing to chew over.

Their frustration is compounded by the fact that, informally at least, everyone who understands the issues knows that 2002 is, if anything, optimistic. Thus, devoting time and space to the latest politician who suggests a new date, without some analysis of why he or she chose it, does not inform the public about the real issues.

But two major obstacles lie on the road to any substantive coverage by the media of the challenges involved in allowing up to a dozen more countries into the Union.

The first is a question of attention span. Until the EU has made some crucial decisions about its own internal agenda - in particular institutional reform - there is already more than enough for the decision-makers and those who monitor their activities to think about and comment on.

But critics insist this is misguided. Enlargement and the Intergovernmental Conference are inextricably linked, they say, and to talk about one without the other is a dangerous mistake.

The second obstacle is a simple lack of information.

Commentators say it is astonishing how reluctant the Commission - by far the body best-placed to discuss the big picture of enlargement - is to proceed past empty rhetoric.

Try to delve beyond general statements and you are met with a wall of silence. As one timid official once said: “We are under the law of omertà on this.”

This does not only apply to journalists' queries. Apart from the occasional leak, the applicant governments are being kept as much in the dark as anyone else.

To a degree, this is understandable. Eastern enlargement is more sensitive than anything the Union has done before and mishandled information could do more harm than good.

As soon as the Commission's analysis of the applicants' responses to the questionnaires it sent out early last year becomes public, it will be clear which countries are in the lead and which will face a long wait for membership.

That will have a profound impact on governments which have staked all their political capital on joining the EU.

The results, for some, will be extremely painful to say the least. Until it becomes essential to deliver that blow, both Union and CEEC governments may be quite happy to keep the process going with vague hopes rather than replace those hopes with concrete disappointment.

“It is so easy for these countries to fall back. It is so easy to continue subsidies, and to strengthen the conservative forces if you let off the pace,” says Max Kohnstamm, one-time adviser to Jean Monnet, one of the EU's founding fathers.

But the Commission might ask itself whether the precedent being set - information on a 'need-to-know' basis only - is the right one for an institution which constantly trumpets its commitment to transparency and democracy.

All that will change once the Commission's opinions are made public, says Wegter. Then the veil will be lifted. But what if the public wants to know what is happening now?

Commission officials argue that they have little leeway in this process - national governments are keeping a tighter rein on this round of enlargement than ever before.

But given the fragility of democracy in central and eastern Europe, its citizens might well feel affronted by the level of secrecy being applied by the West.

The come-down after a period of false expectations could be far worse than early acceptance of the mountain which remains to be climbed.