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Phase 3: The ongoing enlargement process (as of October 2005)
So, we have arrived at what will be the last section of Basic Course 5, the ongoing accession process. The best way to start this section is with a geographic overview that summarizes developments from the EEC in its original form to the 25-member Union of today.
When looking ahead to how things are likely to develop in the near future it makes a great deal of sense to start with those countries with whom negotiations have already been finalized – Bulgaria and Rumania – followed by those holding official candidate status – Croatia and Turkey.
Overview of contents
Bulgaria and Rumania
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Signing of the accession contracts in April 2005 |
I would like to limit my comments with regard to Bulgaria and Rumania to just a few brief statements. Negotiations with both of these countries have come to an end and the accession contracts were signed on the 25th of April 2005 in Luxemburg. According to these contracts, these countries are due to join the EU on the first of January 2007. There is, however, a clause in the contracts for both countries which allows membership to be postponed for a further year should these countries fail to implement resolutely the reforms demanded by the EU!
And the EU in the shape of its Enlargement Commissioner, Olli Rehn, has made it clear on a number of occasions that it still has reservations in this regard.
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Relationship between the EU and domestic politics |
An event in Rumania is particularly interesting in this regard. The government in Rumania has been very resolute in its efforts to push forward the reforms demanded by the EU; these reforms, however, were stopped by its constitutional court. The Rumanian government's reaction was to resign and announce new elections. This demonstrates clearly just how close the relationship is between the EU and domestic politics.
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Croatia
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Accession application - February 2003 |
How has the relationship between the EU and Croatia developed? What is the current situation with regards to the accession process? Croatia made an official application for EU membership on the 21st of February 2003, before asking the Council of the Commission to make a statement on this application in line with the contract provisions.
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Thessaloniki Summit Meeting 2003: The countries of the Balkans with prospect of membership |
The so-called Thessaloniki Summit in June 2003 represented an important development for all countries in the Balkans incl. Croatia. The European Council re-emphasized its view that the western Balkan countries could become an integral part of the EU as soon as the relevant criterion had been met, meaning the Copenhagen accession criterion that we have already touched upon in this Main Subject Group.
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2004: candidate status for Croatia |
Then, in April 2004, the Commission published its opinion on Croatia's accession request. While the EU's statement was positive and supportive for the most part, it also mentioned areas demanding a great deal of work on the part of the candidate such as in environmental policy and on the adoption of the so-called Acquis, meaning EU law in its entirety. This led to the European Council awarding Croatia official candidate status in June 2004.
Shortly before Christmas 2004, the European Council set a date for accession talks to begin on the 17th of March 2005, provided, that is, that Croatia agreed to cooperate in full with the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in Den Haag.
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March 2005: EU cancels negotiations |
Because in the view of the head war crimes prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, Croatia had failed to comply with this demand by March, the EU decided to cancel the negotiations. At the same time, however, the EU sent out an encouraging signal to Zagreb by setting down framework conditions for accession talks in which it was made clear that negotiations could re-start at any time once the conditions for cooperating with Den Haag had been met.
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01.02.2005: Stabilisation and Association Agreement comes into force |
Another positive development from a Croatian point of view
was the coming into force of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) on the first of February 2005. This agreement forms the contractual framework for the relationship between the EU and Croatia until completion of its membership and covers areas such as political dialogue, regional cooperation and moving Croatian law closer to the acquis of the EU, as well as cooperation in a large number of EU policy areas.
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July 2005: 1. SAA committee convenes |
In
addition to this, a large number of committees were established at different levels including an Association Council at minister level that convened for the first time on the 26th of April 2005 and a Stabilization and Association Committee which convened for the first time in mid July 2005. During this meeting representatives of the EU repeated their demands for Croatia to improve its cooperation with the War Crimes Tribunal in Den Haag.
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Early October 2005: Decision to begin negotiations |
In early October following intensive talks and arguments between EU member states, in particular with regard to the controversial issue of whether negotiations should begin with Turkey, it was decided that Croatia now met all the requirements for talks to begin. The Commission started the process of scrutinizing Croatian law at the end of October 2005, which was expected to take a year to complete. Chapter 35 negotiations will begin when this has been completed.
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Turkey
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Turkey as a special case |
That which applied and applies to Croatia, namely that we should be particularly interested in on-going accession processes, is far more relevant for the second of the current membership candidates, Turkey. Turkey is a very special case indeed for a large number of reasons, which I would like to go into here in some detail.
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Historical developments leading up to the beginning of negotiations |
I would like to begin this section with a brief history that restricts itself to the recent past. In actual fact, Turkey made its first association application to the EEC as it was back then in September 1959, but neither do we need nor want to go that far back in time. No, we will begin our look back at events in December 1999; this was the month in which the European Council for the first time declared that the Turkey was a candidate for membership of the EU, provided, that is, that it could meet the same accession criterion (Copenhagen) as all the other membership candidates.
As the illustration above demonstrates, two significant events happened in March 2001. First of all agreement on the the accession partnership between the EU and Turkey. In addition to this, Turkey passed its own national program for implementing EU laws, encompassing no less than 500 small-type pages! The online address where you can download this paper is provided as a link on the illustration - highlighted in red.
This is extraordinarily interesting and important in so far as it illustrates once again the significance and enormous impact of the accession process, which we touched upon at the beginning of Basic Course 5.
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Steps taken by Turkey to meet EU demands |
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Steps taken by the EU |
These steps were received very positively by the EU. This was reflected in the report presented by the Commission in October 2004 and in the decision by the European Council in December 2004 to begin accession negotiations with Turkey on the 3rd of October 2005.
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Reaction following the referendums in France and the Netherlands |
Set against the negative result of the referendums held in France and the Netherlands, confirmation of this date by the European Council on the 17th of June 2005 deserves our special attention. Confirming this date was in actual fact quite remarkable. After all, if one thing had become clear during the referendum it was that the population as a whole was against further enlargement of the EU, especially with regards to Turkey. This is also in line with what we have already discovered during Basic Courses 2 and 3.
Yet you only have to look closely at the negotiating framework issued by the Commission on 29.06.2005 to see that scepticism demonstrated by the population had indeed been taken on board. The document included wording to the effect that because of the reservations shown by the citizens of the EU, moves should be made to establish dialogue between civil society in the EU and the accession candidates. In another passage the document also stated explicitly that negotiations with Turkey represented an open process, the outcome of which could not be forecasted in advance! |
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Problems particular to the case of Turkey |
When it comes to the possibility of Turkish membership, the scepticism demonstrated by EU citizens in several countries clearly shows that this issue is linked to a number of particular and difficult questions. I will now outline the most important of these.
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Size of population |
One of the first reasons for reservations about Turkish membership is the fact that Turkey would become the most populous country in the EU in the foreseeable future. At the moment Turkey has a population of 71 million. According to forecasts, however, this number is set to increase to between 80 and 85 million over the next 20 years, meaning that it would have a higher number of citizens than the current largest member of the EU, Germany, which is expected to have a population of just 80 million by 2020.
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Geographic location
Part of Europe
Human rights situation |
Secondly, other reservations include whether or not Turkey is actually a geographic part of Europe and, thirdly, the strong religious and cultural differences. And, fourthly, significant reservations still exist with regards to the human rights situation in Turkey - despite all the changes that have already been introduced into Turkey's political system.
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The Cyprus issue |
And finally there is also the fact that Turkey has still not officially recognized Cyprus - which is now a EU member state! -
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Applying the analysis model to the circumstances surrounding Turkey
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The analysis model and the case of Turkey |
And it is set against this background that one of the most interesting questions has to be how Turkey's membership request will proceed. Unfortunately, we do not have a crystal ball and are unable to look into the future. What we can do, however, is refer back to the analysis model involving the determinants of enlargement that I presented at the beginning of Basic Course 5. We can add all the facts concerning the "Turkey" case and attempt to arrive at a well-founded forecast based on the finding of the analysis.
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An example of how to use the model |
Let's start by reminding ourselves about the graph that we saw in the overview. To illustrate its benefits, I would like to limit myself to two closely connected components, which I will use to provide an example and to demonstrate how it can be used. These two components will be the contract situation (point 1) and, in a more detailed way, the determining factor of "national interests“ (point 3).
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Treaty requirement for unanimity |
This means the Treaty requirement for unanimity and the approval needed from the EU Parliament and the parliament in Turkey, as well as the requirement for a positive outcome in referendums in a large number of member states. And this set against a current EU membership of 25 - soon to rise to 27 - and the fact that the influence of the population on EU policy has increased enormously!
Set against this background, then, the decisive factor is whether and to what extent national interests can be united. And it is for this reason that we now want to take a brief look at the current positions of several member states as an example as of September 2005.
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National interests
Germany
The UK
France
Poland |
Under the "Red - Green" coalition headed by the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Germany was one of the strongest advocates for entering into accession talks with Turkey and for the membership of Turkey. The former CDU/CSU opposition in Germany, however, held the opposite position. Following the election of a new German government, which resulted in a so-called "Grand Coalition", Germany is no longer expected to be as active in its advocacy of Turkey as it was under the leadership of chancellor Schröder.
The UK, which would like to see the EU being more about cooperation between nations than as a close federation, supports quite strongly the membership of Turkey for this reason among others.
In France both the government and the population in general is unusually sceptical towards membership of Turkey, a stance that only seems to have intensified following the "No" vote on a European constitution. Another point to consider in this regard is the fact that France and Austria have announced referendums on Turkish membership. Combined with the requirement for unanimity, this could become an insurmountable obstacle.
Let us take another look at one of the nations that joined the EU recently on the 01.05.2004, Poland. Very realistically in my opinion, in Poland there is a feeling that Turkey would put a serious drain on EU funding should it become a member of the EU, resources that would be diverted away from Poland and other countries. In addition to this, Turkey is simply considered to be far too large for the EU to cope with in reality. This also concerns one of the particular issues related to Turkey that we have already touched upon.
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Summary |
In summary it can be said that national interests and individual positions are sometimes so fundamentally far apart that it is inevitable that the accession process now faces serious problems and difficulties. The failure of the European Constitution caused by the No votes in France and the Netherlands has also conspired to derail completely the balance between enlargement and closer cooperation. This is because, as several examples in Basic Course 3 have shown, the institutional structure and the ground rules that are laid down in the Treaty of Nice are completely insufficient to deal with a Union made up of 25 members. And, over the short and medium term at least, there seems to be little chance of progress in this area.
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Closing words
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Complexity and momentum of the EU |
This brings us to the present day and to the end of our look back over the way in which the enlargement process has developed and its central aspects. We have also reached the end of the Main Subject Group on the European Union. Instead of summarizing all the aspects that we have covered again, I would like to finish by mentioning what I believe is the most important issue when looking at the EU.
If you have arrived at this point after working through all the Basic Courses in this Main Subject Group, you will have been able to experience clearly the unique characteristics of the EU. Such as those described in
Basic Course 1, which explain that the EU is completely unique in its structure and that it is a multi-level system in which all levels need to be taken into account and that it is a system in continual change.
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Requiring a fundamental understanding based on models |
Given the enormous and incomparable complexity and momentum of the EU, only those with a fundamental understanding of the EU will be able grasp the importance of developments. It is also important that this understanding is based on core scientific questions and the answers that result, enabling the most important cause and effect relationships to be identified. Indeed, one of the main objectives of this Main Subject Group was to draw on the "models" running through each Basic Course to highlight the causes and effects in each area. |
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Europe needs the EU |
We very much hope that we have been successful in our efforts to provide you with a fundamental understanding and perhaps even a deep interest in this new and ever more important form of politics set against a world that is changing dramatically - to quote the closing words of Basic Course 1. We also hope that you will pass this knowledge on to others. Europe needs the EU - if for no other reason, of which there are a large number, than its ability to secure the peace! In return the EU needs - especially in these difficult times - citizens that are able to follow and accompany developments with a sense of understanding. |
[Author: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schumann]
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