Current negotiation model is threat to enlargement

Date: 04/09/1997

By Mark Turner

EU ENLARGEMENT to eastern and central Europe will fail unless the Union adopts a new model of negotiation, according to a report by five leading European academics and politicians.

John Eatwell, president of Queen's College Cambridge, and four co-authors - including Swedish State Secretary Mats Karlsson - claim “the current approach is far too narrow and mechanistic, failing to take necessary political and economic factors fully into account”.

They argue enlargement can only work if it incorporates an element of European 'solidarity' as well as national economic interest. They also claim too little attention has been paid to the economic and trade interests of the applicant countries in comparison with internal EU challenges such as the Common Agricultural Policy.

Efforts to treat the next round of expansion as “just another accession” ignore the huge and unique challenges of transition, the inexperience of the region in international markets and the vast changes being wrought within the existing EU, they say.

There is also a danger that failure could create a new political and economic divide in Europe not present in previous enlargements. In short, current negotiating procedures “will not result in early or successful enlargement”.

The report, published by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) in London, comes as EU governments wrestle with the issue of how many applicant countries they should begin talks with in 1998 and to what timetable.

Although the European Commission recommended in July that negotiations be opened with only Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Slovenia and Cyprus, a final decision will not be taken until December's EU summit. Furthermore, the pace of enlargement for those that do start negotiations in 1998 remains unclear, with the Union apparently unwilling to lay down a clear timetable.

“We are very concerned that negotiations will begin and then stretch out indefinitely,” said co-author Michael Ellman from the University of Amsterdam.

But Commission President Jacques Santer rejected such claims in a recent interview with European Voice. “You cannot put the negotiations into a straitjacket, because the experience of previous enlargements shows that some negotiations take more time than others,” he said.

Eatwell and partners remain unconvinced and are calling for a high-level ad hoc committee to lay down a clear schedule, along the lines of the Delors committee on monetary union.

They also believe that “all the central and eastern European countries must be involved in the negotiations from the start to avoid creating a new division of Europe”.