New citizens greet EU accession with a shrug

By Gareth Harding

Date: 29/04/04

In retrospect, 1 May may not have been the best date to welcome the new member states into the European Union. In the eight former communist countries that used to lie behind the "Iron Curtain", International Worker's Day was marked with tedious speeches by party apparatchiks and endless marches from goose-stepping soldiers and flag-waving schoolchildren.

This year's 1 May should have been the complete opposite of all this. It should have been a day to welcome 75 million newcomers with open arms and celebrate Europe's unification after centuries of division, invasion and bloodshed.

Instead, it is likely to be greeted with a resigned shrug by most of the citizens of Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Malta, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Anna Kitkovska, a 73-year old Lithuanian farmer who has seen Nazi and Soviet troops fight over her land close to the border with Belarus, voted "Yes" to Europe in a referendum last year. But she does not expect big things of the EU. "My life won't change too much. I will carry on growing potatoes," she says, throwing another spud into a bucket.

Pavel Bartos, a 42-year old software-programmer from Prague, expresses the views of many central Europeans when he says: "I'm not excited about joining the EU. I know it's necessary and I know there's no alternative, but I'm not as positive as I would have been if we'd joined five years ago. The more I know about the EU, the worse it seems."

The initial wave of excitement about rejoining Europe after 40 years cut off behind the Iron Curtain has long since evaporated as membership talks dragged on, bureaucratic requirements piled up and more and more conditions were put on EU entry.

Even the region's leaders find it difficult to muster much enthusiasm for joining the world's biggest trade bloc with an economy only rivalled by the United States.

"We are quite realistic about EU membership," says Slovenian premier Anton Rop. "We have already achieved what we want in Slovenia, so entering the EU is much more of a formal act than something that is in reality very important."

Czech Prime Minister Vladmir Spidla compares it to being in the starting blocks of an Olympic final race after years of meticulous training. "It's not a comfortable situation but it's an opportunity you would not exchange for any other."

No one denies that 1 May is a historical date for Europe. For the first time in its history, the continent will be free, united and at peace - and the ghosts of Yalta that have haunted Europe for almost 60 years will finally be laid to rest.

But when ordinary people from Estonia, Slovakia or Malta wake up on May Day, they will notice few radical changes to their lives. They will still be using their national currencies for years to come and have to carry their passports when they travel around the EU.

Farmers will receive only a quarter of the subsidies their western colleagues pocket and job-seekers will be unable to work and live freely in most other member states for up to seven years. It is this last point that particularly sticks in the throats of the newcomers - not just because it violates fundamental principles of the EU, but because it is widely seen as discriminatory, unnecessary and more the result of tabloid scare-stories than based on empirical evidence.

Marek Elias, a building contractor from Prague, says 60% of his workforce is Ukrainian. "Czechs have a tendency to stay at home. They don't want to leave to look for work - there's enough here."

Slovenia is in a similar situation, according to Rop. The former Yugoslav republic has to import labourers from Slovakia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, says the prime minister, adding that there are already more Austrians working in Slovenia than Slovenes in Austria.

Most of the changes that Union membership brings have, in fact, already taken place. Billions of euro of foreign investment has flooded in as multinationals search for ever-cheaper labour with access to EU markets; air quality has improved as filthy factories have shut down and strict European laws have entered into force, and; border controls have been tightened to prevent illegal immigrants and bogus asylum- seekers entering the bloc through the Baltics, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. In total, 80,000 pages of EU law have found their way onto the statute books of the new member states.

Some of the new rules are deeply unpopular. Czechs will no longer be allowed to call their "rum" rum because it is made of potatoes, rather than molasses, VAT is set to rise on a shelf-load of products across the former eastern bloc and the EU's strict labour and environmental laws are seen as over- burdensome by many businesses.

However, many people credit the EU with helping to improve transport infrastructure, introducing more progressive laws to protect ethnic minorities, cleaning up the environment and cementing human rights, democracy and the rule of law in countries with often shaky pasts.

Says Czech novelist Ivan Klima: "We have been pushed to adopt many new laws which are much more democratic than ours. Joining the EU is not about money but about democracy."

It is also about identity. "It's a choice between East and West," says Estonian premier Juhan Parts, "and we belong to Europe."

When the leaders of EU-25 meet in Dublin to celebrate the club's enlargement on 1 May, there is likely to be a lot of high-flown rhetoric about chapters ending, destinies being fulfilled and families being rejoined. But the reality, as always, is a lot more nuanced.

It means shutting down Chernobyl-style nuclear power stations in Slovakia and Lithuania, but having to find alternative sources of energy that do not blow a hole in the EU's climate change commitments; it means replacing pot-holed single-lane roads with spanking new motorways, but watching congestion rise and exhaust emissions soar; it means adopting more efficient agricultural practices but seeing small farms disappear, and; it means better quality products but at higher prices.

In a series of referenda last year, voters in nine of the ten new countries weighed up the pros and cons of EU membership and overwhelmingly decided "Yes". Some did so out of fear (mainly of Russia) and others out of self-interest (to live and work abroad). But most said 'jah', 'ano' and 'tak'" to Europe because there was, quite simply, no alternative.

Article is part of a European Voice Special Report on EU Enlargement.