The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war has made old global balance-of-power models redundant. Tomorrow will witness the end of the European Union, as we know it. Its strength will now increase to 25 member states from the existing 15. This will be the biggest expansion project in the last 45 years of European history and is likely to have a far reaching impact on international geopolitics.The EU had committed itself to this expansion in 1993, when the Copenhagen European Council decided to enlarge the Union to include countries of central and eastern Europe. Thus, on May 1, part of Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Malta, Lithuania, Latvia, and the Slovak Republic, with their combined 75 million population, will be joining the EU. Bulgaria and Romania are expected to follow suit in 2007, while five western Balkan states wait in the wings. Turkey’s fate, however, remains undecided.The idea of the unity move was to bring stability and prosperity to the continent. The countries were chosen after a lot of deliberation within the EU, and only those fulfilling several political and economic criteria were considered. The political stability of a country was one such factor, as was the state of its democracy, human rights record and market economy. Compatibility with the existing European structure was also kept in mind.The EU expansion must not, however, lead to the conclusion that it will now emerge as a stronger politico-economic bloc. There are a lot of snarls that still need sorting out. Russia looks at the process with suspicion. Then there are serious fractures within the EU over various issues. For instance, Poland and Spain are not happy about the voting rights structure. Most important, the character of the EU Constitution is still being debated and the matter was given a new twist with UK’s Tony Blair suddenly deciding to hold a referendum on the EU constitution.Does India benefit from an expanded EU? The country has been able to shrug off the post-Pokhran tensions it had with the EU and, today, its relations with the Union are on a new high. The EU is India’s largest trading partner, and the expansion is likely to provide more opportunities. Software is clearly a growth area, with Indian companies like Infosys are already well established in the region. With the EU seeking to emerge from the shadow of the United States, India needs to develop partnerships with it, especially in areas of common interest, like the fight against terrorism, the environment, information technology, and space technologies. An expanded Europe will offer India more opportunities to strengthen existing ties and, who knows, India may even succeed in internalising the European model in order to help form the much talked about ‘Asian Union’.
