Global Debates

Kirsty Hughes 

As all EU-watchers know, Finland now has its turn at the helm of the great EU ship for the next 6 months (its official website is at  http://www.eu2006.fi ).  What can we expect with this Nordic nation in the lead? At least relative to its near neighbours Sweden and Denmark – or Norway who could never face joining – Finland has been a rather positive pro-European country.  But with the EU still in denial on its living-dead constitutional treaty (Germany may try to start to figure out a solution next year, leaders may actually talk about in 2008) what is there for Finland, or the EU, actually to do?

Finland says it’s going to focus on enlargement. This could be a good idea. Enlargement, often seen as one of the EU’s more successful measures, brings in new members and thereby, with the carrot of membership, helps to stabilise and ensure their democratic systems and economic prosperity. But not only did the ‘big bang’ enlargement of 2004 when 10 new members joined help to unsettle the French and Dutch and contribute to their twin ‘no’ votes last year on the constitution, but actually, except for Bulgaria and Romania who’ve already finished their seven year negotiations and are coming in next year,  there are no countries due to join any time soon. Croatia might perhaps in 2010, Turkey if it ever joins won’t be in before 2015. So what’s going on, why focus on enlargement now?

Well, what’s going on underneath all this is a number of debates about where the EU is going, whether it should ever have agreed to negotiate with Turkey, whether it can stop the Cyprus problem derailing negotiations with Turkey in the autumn, and also what to do about the western Balkans, all in theory eligible to join one day, not just Croatia, and whether this is a good idea. There’s a lot of talk around about enlargement fatigue – but even so, if there’s no new members due til 2010 what’s the politics behind all this?

The main politics behind this is that on current trends there will be a mega crisis by EU standards in the autumn over Turkey’s failure to recognise the Republic of Cyprus, which unless it is solved soon, will bring negotiations to a firm halt.  One thing for sure is that, if negotiations do break down, the EU’s foreign policy reputation in the wider world will be zilch.  It’s already clear that by bringing Cyprus into the EU without solving the  over 30 year problem of its division, it has made finding a solution there more difficult not more easy – the UN has attempted to broker plans in the past but after the rejection of the last one in 2004 by the Greek Cypriots in a referendum, though the Turkish Cypriots voted yes, the UN is very wary of getting its fingers burnt again.

Meanwhile, if talks stop, the EU’s foreign policy aims behind negotiating membership with Turkey which were multiple will start to fall apart. They included helping to support and encourage the considerable democratic, human rights and economic reforms that have been going on in Turkey for the last ten years, and so also contributing to stability in a country that neighbours not only the EU but also the Middle East, and also showing that the EU is (as it is) a secular organisation not a ‘Christian club’ and that a secular country like Turkey, with a predominantly Muslim population can join. Some such as former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer also used to talk of Turkey’s membership as vital in showing the EU could be a strategic global player.

Despite a brief meeting a few days ago between Greek Cypriot president Tassos Papadopoulos and Turkish Cypriot president Mehmet Ali Talat (see BBC report on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5142850.stm ), noone is expecting a big breakthrough on the Cyprus problem any time soon – not least as, now that the Republic of Cyprus is in the EU, its leaders see much less reason to negotiate via the UN for a compromise deal if they think they can get a one-sided deal through insisting Turkey recognise Cyprus now as an EU member state. A deal could yet be done this autumn on the Turkey row, if in return for Turkey opening its ports to Greek Cypriot shipping, the Greek Cypriots allowed northern Cyprus to trade with the rest of the EU, but the Greek Cypriots argue they do not need to negotiate that, Turkey should give in unilaterally.

But there is more to this than the Cyprus dispute. Hiding behind Cyprus in EU discussions on Turkey, are
Austria and France, and others such as the Netherlands and Luxembourg, and increasingly Germany.  These countries are unhappy with the unanimous commitments the EU made – and that yes they too signed up to – from 1999 through to 2004 that said Turkey could join the EU if it met all the criteria through successful negotiations.  They are now looking for ways out of this. France, copied by Austria, has already said it will have a referendum on whether Turkey (or any other country after Croatia) can join – foreign policy by referendum, a new approach.

And Austria, supported by, yes you guessed, France, has insisted successfully, that the EU look more closely at whether it can ‘absorb’ new members at its December summit (even though noone else is joining soon).  But the EU has always looked at absorption – that is, how much it will cost to bring in new members, how institutions like the European Commission or Council of Ministers (that makes the EU laws) may have to change, or how policies like regional funds will have to be reformed. None of this is new. So why bring it up again now? Answer – if you are Austria or France – to try to make it more difficult for
Turkey to join at every stage of the negotiations (all this even though Turkey won’t join at the earliest til 2015 – who said politicians are short-termist?).

Interestingly, once it comes to the western Balkans – a region where the EU hardly covered itself in glory in the 1990s as it failed to prevent or stop the devastating conflict in the former Yugoslavia – some countries change sides. Austria is a firm backer of Croatia (anything to do with the Austro-Hungarian empire?) and its fuss on absorption criteria is not meant to cause problems for Croatia.  But other countries are not so sure. Interestingly in Spain for now there is a bipartisan political consensus in favour of Turkish negotiations but many more doubts on bringing in Croatia, and so eventually all the other small new western Balkans states, with all these micro-states having a seat and votes at the main EU council of ministers negotiating table.

Likewise in Germany, many are not only unsure on Turkey but also worry about up to 7 more small western Balkan countries coming in.  And while the current EU member states drag their feet worrying about their damaged constitution, none of these countries are going to be getting a very strong positive signal that they are welcome to join one day – the EU still failing on its near-abroad foreign policy. As for countries to the East, such as Ukraine, for now don’t even look for a sensible or focused EU policy here, let alone talk of membership one day, however much the Poles would like to see that.

So the EU is in a mess, and don’t look for the best efforts of the Finns to solve that. The EU has committed itself to 3 or more years of worrying away at how to deal with its constitutional problem, and is adding to that unnecessary wrangling over enlargement – a wrangling that will simply expose its failure to have any effective or outward-looking foreign policy in its region, let alone in the wider world.

Some say this is all a problem of expanding so fast to 25 member states (and 27 next year) – but it was hardly fast since the Berlin wall came down in 1989. And the EU has managed to function at 25. But many insiders do say that the simple question of numbers is a problem. 25 ministers round a table mean meetings take a long time and real negotiations go on in the corridors while ministers increasingly get civil servants to substitute for them – so much for democracy….and the same story is told in the European Commission, of business being done in the corridors and a more ‘presidential’ system unfolding (not good news give the mediocre assessments that most observers give of Commission president Baroso). 

And while the newcomers in 2004 are mostly seen as being ‘good’ member states – with 8 of them rapidly ratifying the draft constitution for example – that doesn’t apply to all. Poland and the  Czech Republic were looking likely to have problems with ratifying the constitution before the process ground to a halt, and the current Polish government is seen as worryingly eurosceptic by many. Meanwhile – see above – new member Cyprus may be the proximate cause of a breakdown of negotiations with Turkey in the autumn. So perhaps not such a good record from the 2004 enlargement.

Of course in an ideal world all this could be solved – the EU could rapidly find a way to agree a new version of its constitution which will help it function with 27 or more members, so solving both enlargement and constitutional dilemmas in one go. And with a lot of international political attention perhaps the
Cyprus problem could be solved, and Turkey negotiations kept on track.   But back in the real world, all these dilemmas are going to lead to many problems and much navel-gazing for the next few years…and the EU is not going to be taking the lead on other more pressing issues either internationally or at home.  It’s not a pretty picture – the EU trying to keep its show on the road and little hope of any serious international political presence for many years to come.