On must open up the bonnet and look at the motor. A new CEPS study confirms this view with particular reference to the budget of the EU and its main spending policies on agriculture and regional funding. Delors is also arguing that the EU is not yet facing up to its challenge of institutional reform. Today we do not know what the IGC will produce. But to proceed with massive enlargement without either policy or institutional reform would indeed be the height of political irresponsibility.
Popular opinion is particularly hostile to enlargement in Austria.
Since Helsinki the Haider party has entered the government. It is not necessary here to return to the question of the best political response of the EU to this event in the short-run. Let us be clear nonetheless. Haider Politik says no to enlargement in brutal nationalist, racist terms. If this policy were to prevail, through extreme right political forces getting into a position to block either enlargement negotiations or ratification, then the European idea will be shattered, with horrendous implications for ideological strife within the EU and for political destabilisation of the post-Communist transition of central and eastern Europe.