14 - 20 December 2000
Issue No.512
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 14 - 20 December 2000 Issue No.512 |
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Eastern Europe's riviera dreaming
According to the official Web site of the Nice European Union (EU) summit, "there is no doubt about our success throughout the world." The representatives of the 13 candidates seeking to join the European Union hope that this will apply to last weekend's summit. However, the integration of post-Communist Eastern Europe may prove to be a marriage that, yet again, tears the continent apart.
European Union leaders meeting in Nice, France, finally clinched a milestone treaty on Monday for Europe's club of rich nations to welcome poorer East European countries. International journalists collapse with exhaustion
(photo: DPA)
Enlargement has been at the heart of discussions over the future structure of the EU. With the union set nearly to double from 15 member-states, it is proposed that the decision-making process be streamlined. This notably involves the reduction of each member-state's entitlement to European Commissioners -- responsible for formulating and implementing EU policies -- and the extension of majority voting on the Council of Ministers, the EU's main decision-making body. Vetoes on legislation concerning such matters as tax and immigration will be scrapped, while the number of votes enjoyed by each member-state will be re-weighted in an approximate reflection of their number of inhabitants.
The decision-making structure created in 1957 by a core of six founder states is, therefore, changing to accommodate the other side of the former Iron Curtain, as well as Malta, Cyprus and, perhaps, Turkey. But the readiness of Eastern Europe to compete and prosper in Euroland is far from convincing.
Candidate states must prove that they are 'functioning' democracies and market economies. The latest economic survey by the European Commission judges that Poland and Estonia are the closest to EU compatibility, followed by Hungary and the Czech Republic, with the likes of Romania and Bulgaria far behind. With the exception of Slovenia, the benighted countries of former Yugoslavia are totally off the screen.
The Euro club makes tough demands on prospective members: strict adherence to rules on trade, the environment and safety; respect for limits on inflation and budget deficits; deregulation and privatisation of state industries; and the free circulation of people, goods, and services. It is not difficult to see the destructive effect this will have on countries with a legacy of planned economies, already reeling from the neo-liberal 'shock therapy' of the '90s.
The case of Poland illustrates the possible opportunities and dangers of EU enlargement. Arguably, Poland embarked on a radical reform process before 1989. The Polish electorate recently re-elected as president the former Communist Alexander Kwasniewski on a platform of EU integration. In Nice, the Poles were noisy in their pleas to be admitted to the EU by 2003 -- although 2005 seems a more realistic date.
Germany, the dominant force in the EU, has been vocal in its support for Poland's candidacy. On the day the summit opened, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder visited Warsaw. It was a symbolic date: the 30th anniversary of Chancellor Willy Brandt's visit to the site of the Warsaw Ghetto, where he wept for the victims of the Nazi Holocaust. Schröder, too, spoke of Germany's debt to Poland, and Eastern Europe in general: EU membership would help pay it. At the same time, German ministers did not hide their own interests: young qualified Polish immigrants could offset the stagnation of Germany's population.
However, if the average German feels guilt for the events of 60 years ago, he does not necessarily feel a debt to the Polish economy today. Poland's grossly inefficient farming sector, which still employs 20 per cent of the working population, would put a massive burden on the Common Agricultural Policy, already straining to subsidise farmers in the existing 15 states. It is inconceivable that this sector, like that in other Eastern countries, could withstand a flood of cheap and superior products, with all the social problems that would entail. On the other side of the Oder-Neisse rivers, Polish immigration into Eastern Germany, itself still in painful transition, could exacerbate already dangerous racial tensions.
The entry of the first Eastern European candidates will take place after the general elections in France and Germany. This reflects the caginess of those leading the tandem at the heart of European unification. Admittance of Eastern Europe to the EU would mean a shift of funding from the poorest parts of the West; increased immigration by the poor; and the dilution of western voting power in the Council of Ministers. On the other hand, delay in EU enlargement would encourage the xenophobic currents rife in the East. The electoral breakthrough of Romania's ultra-nationalist right haunted the summit of Nice.
The future face of Europe looks very familiar: a largely prosperous but anxious West and Centre; a poor, excluded, sullen East. This reflects divisions that have existed for centuries rather than decades. In the face of such a stubborn reality, the enlargement decided at Nice may be seen as over-extended ambition.
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