Rehn prescribes pragmatic expansion

The European Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn has urged member states and the European Commission to adopt a less defensive attitude to extending the EU.

He says the EU institutions should "move away from an over-focus on technical details to embrace a more communicative approach" towards the expansion of the Union.

In a book to be launched tomorrow (6 October) entitled Europe’s next frontiers, Rehn regrets that although EU enlargement is a success story, "the narrative was lost". During his time, the Commission has ­approved the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU on 1 January 2007 and launched accession talks with Croatia and Turkey.

Stressing that "the borders of Europe are more mental than physical", Rehn says that his goal is that "in 2009 the EU will comprise some 27 member states, with half a dozen Western Balkan countries firmly on their way to EU membership, led by Croatia as their champion and benchmark, and Turkey on track towards the EU through rigorous reforms and a profound implementation of European values".

The book is written with the aim of making Europe more understandable for citizens and is peppered with comparisons from football and quotes from popular songs.

Rehn criticises the ­"ostrich attitude" of many Europeans.

"Even a committed European must admit there is something rotten in the Union of Europe today: our utterly defensive attitude to change," he says.

"Many believe that our problems could be solved simply by pulling up the drawbridge on Fortress Europe, shouting ‘Stop the world, I want to get off!’"

Rehn urges a change of focus in the debate on the future of Europe from "borders and limits" to "the next frontiers of the European Union". "Borders limit our minds, change our actions and reduce our influence. Frontiers are innovative. Frontiers free our minds, stimulate action and increase our influence."

Rehn concentrates on three frontiers: rebuilding confidence in the European economy, by improving competitiveness to enhance employment rates, the "political revival of Europe", through political reforms to make the Union more effective and democratic, and "extending the European zone of peace, liberty and prosperity", through a gradual, rigorous and carefully managed enlargement process.

The Finnish commissioner argues that the EU "cannot take a sabbatical from our wider responsibilities just because we feel bad ­inside in our ‘old’ European societies". Instead, "we need to work for the economic and political revival of Europe with full determination, and not make enlargement the scapegoat for domestic failures."

On the subject of the EU’s absorption capacity, often used to highlight the limited means the Union has to expand, Rehn quotes his Spanish colleague, commissioner Joaquín Almunia, as saying: "The only absorption capacity problem we have is a mental one."

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso called earlier this month for a freeze on enlargement until the EU has sorted out its institutional reforms. But Rehn writes that "enlargement policy should not be kept hostage to a theological debate about the ideal shape of the perfect Union or the final borders of Europe".

The commissioner, who made a two-day visit to Turkey this week, ahead of the publication on 8 ­November of a report on the country’s progress ­towards meeting EU ­standards, attacks those European politicians who insist Turkey should be offered a privileged partnership with the EU, rather than full membership.

"It means playing with fire in the critical corner of the common European house," he writes, adding that "the main consequence of this talk has been that Turks, both on the street and among the elites, have become more sceptical about the EU".

"Too many Turks have set themselves free to ­embrace ugly nationalism and some are seeking ­political redress through Islam," he continues.

"It has already strengthened the hand of anti-­reform forces in Turkey."

Using a similar argument to that deployed by Ali Babacan, the Turkish chief negotiator with the EU, in an interview with European Voice last month, Rehn warned that a breakdown in negotiations with Turkey would inevitably damage EUTurkey relations, "stimulate Turkish nationalism ...weaken Europe’s role in the Middle East and ­probably deepen Muslim ­hostility towards Europe".

Predicting that Europeans will be "getting tired of enlargement fatigue", Rehn writes that instead of a "tightly knit European federation", a "network ­Europe based on demo­cratic functionalism", pragmatic rather than ideo­logical, is the solution for the future of Europe. ­Although the federalist path would be more ambitious, a functionalist solution, while less elegant, would be more efficient, says Rehn.

• Europe’s Next Frontiers is published by Nomos, Baden-Baden.

The European Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn has urged member states and the European Commission to adopt a less defensive attitude to extending the EU.