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Journalism of Courage
AMSTERDAM, Oct 1: Growing doubts about the European Union’s commitment to bringing in the new democracies of eastern Europe will overshadow the formal signing of a new treaty intended to prepare the bloc for enlargement here on Thursday.
Finally agreed at a bad-tempered summit here in June, the new treaty inevitably reflected a compromise between the ambitions of federalist-minded states like Belgium and the Netherlands and those, like Britain, Denmark and Sweden, who are wary of ceding any further national sovereignty to Brussels.
But the price of the deal clinched in the early hours of June 18 was that key issues relating to the balance of power between large and small states in the EU’s decision-making were left unresolved.
At Amsterdam in June, EU leaders queued up to reassure eastern Europeans that their failure to agree a re-weighting of voting strengths in the Council of Ministers or on the size of the European Commission after 2000 would not lead to delays in their accession.
But it is difficult to see now how such an outcome will be avoided. In a declaration to be annexed to the new treaty, Belgium, France and Italy will warn that no new members will be allowed to join until the outstanding institutional questions are resolved.
“We do not want to dilute Europe to a bloc incapable of functioning,” French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine recently warned his EU colleagues.The three countries’ stance means the EU will have to hold a new inter-governmental conference (IGC) before any of the ten eastern European candidates or Cyprus can come in. The last IGC, wrapped up here in June, took 15 months to conclude, despite a full year of preparatory work by senior officials.
A series of rows linked to the financing of enlargement have also come out into the open over the summer, presenting another potential barrier to candidates’ membership aspirations.
Germany and the Netherlands, the two biggest net contributors to the EU’s collective budget, are demanding a reduction in their payments after the current financing accord expires in 1999.
This is being fiercely resisted by countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain, who are already deeply concerned about the impact of bringing in much poorer countries, on the huge handouts they currently receive from Brussels.
Little wonder then that promises to countries like Poland that they could expect membership around the year 2000 are now regarded as laughably optimistic in Brussels. EU leaders will decide in December which countries they will begin membership negotiations with early next year.
The Commission, the EU’s executive arm, recommended in July that only the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia had made sufficient progress in reforming their economies and political systems to make it worthwhile starting talks.
