助成Institute forInternational Policy Studies
・Tokyo・IIPS International Conference“Enlargement and Future of Europe 2002”
Tokyo, 12-14 November

PaperbyChristian Lequesne
Deputy-Director,Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales,
Paris, France

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IIPS International Conference"Enlargment and future of Europe 2002"
ANA Hotel, Tokyo,
November 12-14 th 2002

Session 1: Future prospects of EU enlargement

Christian Lequesne
Deputy-Director, Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales,
Paris, France

Enlargement is not an unknown process in the European Union (EU). Born in 1951 with 6
member states, the EU moved to Fifteen member states in 1995. Four enlargements took placein 50 years.
On October 24-25 2002, the European Council of Brussels officially designated Tencandidates countries able to conclude negotiations at the European Council of Copenhagen inDecember 2002, sign Accession treaties in April 2003 in Athens and -after ratifications- bepart of a first wave of accession in 2004. These countries in question are: Poland, Hungary,Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus. Bulgaria
and Romania will have to continue negotiations in order to join the EU in 2007. Regarding
Turkey, the European Council of Brussels noticed the progress made by the government
towards the respect of political criteria as well as regarding economic and legislativealignment, but did not recommand a concrete date for the opening of negotiations with the EU.

I. Five introductory statements regarding the current enlargement

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1. Beyond the quantitative question of the number, the current enlargement process is not
equivalent to the previous ones in terms of political change. It is marking the politicalreunification of the continent and the end of the Cold war. Contrary to some analysts whostress the fact that a EU of 25 members means the end of the original project of the Treaties ofParis and Rome, I see in this event an historical continuity. The values of peace anddemocracy which were at the basis of the Treaties of Paris and Rome can now be applied tothe countries which had been put on the "bad" side of the Iron Curtain in 1945. The
enlargement in 2004 is the confirmation of a history making change which nobody reallyconsidered feasible in the mid-1980s but for which the EC theoretically worked since its
origins.

2. There is a paradox between this peacefull reunification process which takes place for 13
years in Europe and an increase of violence in the rest of the world. Europe is in a situation
where, because it does not consider large scale wars possible on its territories, has sometimes
problem to engage heavily in security matters in the rest of the world. European public
opinions prefer that their governments spend money for welfare state rather than for military
matters. This is a regular source of tension with the traditional ally of Europe, the USA, which
considers Europe as unefficient and not supportive enough to fight "rog states" and new formsof terrorism which emerged after September 11. Therefore, enlargement should lead theEuropeans to think more about their weaknesses in the management of global governance.

3. The enlargement process is putting on the agenda the question of solidarity within theEuropeans themselves. The question of financial solidarity is fundamental. Are the current
member states prepared to finance the adaptation costs of the new ones, whose economic
GDP only represents 39% of the EU average, and under which conditions?

4. The enlargement means managing diversity among citizens. Some sociologists consider
that 16 to 30 years will be necessary to have the same economic standards in the candidate
countries than in the EU countries. Economic and social differences will remain more or lessimportant from one candidate country to another. That means that unequal societies will haveto coexist in the EU 25. Even more than in the past, policies would have to make thedifferences between citizens of the European polity socially acceptable. That will necessarily
create fears and doubts which are reflected in the opinion polls. According to the last3"Eurobarometer" n° 57 published in october 2002, 47% of the citizens in France are against
enlargement, 36% in Germany and 36% in Austria. In Austria. In the candidate countries,
there are also some doubts about joining the EU. The referenda which will be organised in all
the 10 candidate countries in 2003 will show that the public opinions are not unanimous in
their wish to join the EU. It is particulary the case in some countries like Estonia or the Czech
Republic.

5. If enlargement brings more heterogeneity, it will also require more differentiation in thebuilding of common policies, or at least in the implementation. With enlargement, the EU has
to face the challenge of institutionalising more differentiation but without creating theconditions of hegemony for the "old" or "big" member states totally unacceptable for the"small" or "new" member states.

II. Preserving the capability of the EU to act

Getting more member states into the EU means thinking about new decision making rules topreserve the capability of the EU to deliver efficient and democratic public policies.
Adapting the EU institutions to the increase of member states is not a new question; it was
already at the agenda in 1995 when the EU decided to move from 12 to 15 Member states.
The Nice treaty, which will be implemented after the second Irish referendum, and, moreover,
the Convention on the Future of Europe, are adressing the questions of institutional reforms.
The candidates countries are participating in the debates in the Convention which will
normally produce a draft constitutionnal treaty in January-February 2003. The text will thenbe discussed again and finalised by the "Conventionals ", and afterwards by an
Intergovernmental Conference. The final constitutional treaty should be implemented -after
ratifications in each Member state- in 20041.

1The president of the Convention, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, already presented to thepublic on October 28, 2002 a draft project which consists in the structure and chapters of
the future text.

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Professor Shoji will analyse in details the institutional reforms necessary to have an efficientand democratic EU with 25 member states. I will just stress what I consider the mostimportant topics for the Convention.
1. Expansion of majority voting to matters which are still ruled by unanimity. If thisexpansion does not take place, each member state will use veto to block the decisions. I
am not sure that the CFSP should be ruled by qualified or superqualified majority in thesame manner than the other policies. I would suggest a rule like consensus minus 1 orconsensus minus 2 as it is the case for OSCE.
2. We have to be more precise on what the European external policy is. As it has been statedby some other experts, I am in favor of a list in the constitutional treaty stating clearly
what are the objectives of an external foreign policy, compared to what remain in thecompetences of the Member states. The domains of a European foreign policy should
cover mostly the management of globalization (WTO, development policy, etc..) and themanagement of conflicts in the neighbourhood: Balkans, Caucasus, Mediterraneancountries.
3. I am in favor of reinforcing a governmental representation of the EU. That means having
an elected President for Europe nominated by the European Council and working with a
Minister of Foreign affairs who cumulates the current positions of both the High
Representative for CFSP and the Commissionner for External Relations.
4. The Convention has to make "enhanced cooperations" workable. The Economic andMonetary Union with 12 member states demonstrates that an institutionalized
differentiation could work in the EU. It has the democratic advantage to respect the wishof the citizens who don't want to join a policy without closing definitely the door to achange of positions. I don't believe in a scenario, like Schauble and Lamers or Delors
proposed, which stated that a "core Europe" should be set inside the enlarged EU around alimited number of countries to push the EU towards more federalism. But enlargement
will encourage groups of countries to develop functional "enhanced cooperations" in thesense of the Amsterdam and Nice treaties. The conditions to realize efficient "enhanced
cooperations" should be stated clearly in the constitutional treaty to make them possible infields like defense or economic governance.

5III/ Thinking about the "real" conflict: the financial package of 2006

The enlargement does not cost so much money to the EU budget and to the Member statesbudgets. We consider that enlargement will cost 0,15% of the EU 15 wealth. But there is a
debate in the member states, especially in those who are net contributors for many years or, atthe opposite, who benefit significantly from the CAP or from the structural funds, about theconsequences of the enlargement for the new share of financial resources.
This issue is politically very sensitive. Legitimacy of the EU has a lot to do with the questionof distribution or redistribution. What is at stake at the EU level also exists at the State levelin the competition between the regions or the subnational units of territory to attract parts of
the national budgets. Populist movements in the Member states or in the candidate countries
use the issue of financial distribution to contest the legitimacy of EU. In Austria, Haider, theleader of the Free Party, says that Austrian taxpayers have not to support enlargement as they
do now. In Poland, Lepper, the leader of the Farmers' Movement "Selfdefense" says because
his country will not receive the same amounts of agricultural aids than the rest of the EU, it
has not to join the EU.

In the European Council of Brussels (October 24-25, 2002), The Fifteen agreed to propose thefollowing common negotiating positions to candidates on the financial and budgetary
elements still pending:
1. The new members will benefit from "phasing in" of agricultural aids according to ascheme and timetable proposed by the Commission, that is 25 % in 2004 to 100% in 2013.
This phasing-in should be accomplished in a "context of financial stability" on the basis ofthe 2006 expenditure.
2. The overall financial volume of commitment appropriations earmarked for the StructuralFunds and the Cohesion Fund for the years 2003-2006 is said to 23 billion euros. The
budget will be shared between the new member countries according to the percentages
that have already been the subjet of an agreement in the context of accession negotiations
on "regional policy".
3. Compensation to the new net contributors was accepted. Compensation is forseen in every
case where a future member finds itself, in 2004, in a net financial situation that is lessfavourable that that just before its accession in 2003. It should be the case for Slovakia,
Slovenia, Malta, Cyprus, and maybe Hungary.

6The European Council, on the basis of a bilateral agreement reached by France and Germany
only a few hours before the meeting, also agreed to set a ceiling for agricultural spending
between 2007 and 2013 at the level of spending provided in 2006 (increased by 1% a year totake account of inflation). This a big step forward, if we consider the defensive position ofFrench President Chirac on CAP and the readiness of Chancellor Schroeder of resisting to
any compromise on CAP. The Franco-German deal has been seen as a "fait accompli" byPrime Minister Blair which feeled himself excluded from a Franco-German deal followed bymost of the other member states.

In 2006, the principle of stability decided for the Common agricultural policy must also serve
as principle in other fields of Community fundings. That must include the Structural and theCohesion Funds and will probably lead to difficulties with Spain, Portugal, and Greece. Thatmust also include "specific expenditure" like the budgetary correction to net contributions
which the United Kingdom benefits from since 1984.

In 2006, the new financial perspectives for an EU 25 will be highly conflictual. Decision atthe end will be very complex, because the coalitions and alliances will not consist simply inthree groups which are the current net contributors, the current net beneficiaries and the newmember states. New member states include net contributors and net beneficiaries, they
include countries which would like to benefit from a conservative CAP (like Poland) andcountries who have little interest for the CAP price supports (like Hungary and Slovakia).

IV./ Setting a special policy for the periphery

As conflict seems to increase everywhere in the world, peace and democracy areparadoxically progressing in the EU.
A big temptation for the EU is to enjoy its peacefull prosperity and to forget what is going onin the rest of the world, especially in its periphery.
The EU 25 has to consider the relationships with its periphery in a more systematic manner,
to set a special policy for its neighbourhood.

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1. The EU has to state more clearly which country can become once a member of the EU
and which country cannot.
There are no objective criteria according to geography or culture to define the conditions
for EU membership. The only criteria are political and economic ones. They have been
institutionalised in Copenhagen in June 1993 and they have been for twelve years now
important elements of domestic adaptations for the candidate countries. Nevertheless, theCopenhagen criteria do not answer the question of where the EU should stop. The limitsof the EU can only be defined by a political decision. If not, how could the EU resist todemands from Marocco, Israel, or Canada, as they respect the Copenhagen criteria, tobecome members of the EU?
This will oblige the EU to take concrete decisions on Turkey, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine,
the Caucasian countries, West Balkans (Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Albania).
Does the EU want that those countries become full members once? The question should
be adressed in taking into account what is going on between the EU and Turkey. For
fourty years now (the Treaty of Ankara was signed in 1963), the EU and Turkey areplaying a cat and mouse game on enlargement which is extremely counterproductive for
their relationships. If the EU does not want to have Turkey as full member, it would havebeen preferable to say that clearly to its governments and public opinion. The unclear
relationships, made of hope and mistrust, between Turkey and the EU is creating more
frustration than cohesion.

2. For the neighbours which are outside the limits fixed by the EU, the latter has toinvent a political status which goes beyond the current tools of association, stability pact,cooperation agreements, etc... For countries like Turkey, Marocco, Ukraine or the
Caucasian Republics, I would suggest to think about a status of partial membership,different from the full membership, but which will bring those countries with the EU todecide on questions like environment, foreign policy, or migration. Partial membershipwould not necessarily give the right to become a full member. The idea of a European
Confederation, which was proposed by the French President Mitterrand in 1991 in anunclever manner (it included Russia and excluded the USA) could be revisited. This new
setting putting together the EU and its direct periphery should be the interlocutor of theUSA and Asia on global security problems and contribute effectively to the future ofmultilateralism.

83. The EU should continue to take the responsability of peace-keeping operations in its
periphery when necessary. The EU has developed a "savoir faire" on helping countries tobuild the peace after conflicts. In regions like the Balkans or Caucasus, the EU whoshould be able to manage alone peace keeping operations. Governments and public
opinions of the candidate countries, even when they are members of NATO like Poland,
Hungary and the Czech Republic, are prepared to accept that role.