Joschka Fischer, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, has put the final goal of European integration on the political agenda. He is the first leading politician who has ventured to outline the definitive institutional architecture of the European Union. He calls for a federation with its own constitution, a strong government and strictly defined competences.
The debate about the finality of the integration process that has evolved in the wake of Fischer’s Humboldt speech largely centres around the institutions and competences that should characterise the future EU. However, in the shadow of these two issues there looms a third one that is a logical part of the debate on finality: the question of the ultimate borders of the EU. Where will the EU end? Which countries should be given the prospect of eventual membership, and which should not?
Before long these explosive questions will inevitably turn up as central themes in the debate on the future of Europe. The controversy is fuelled by the current enlargement process. Brussels is conducting membership negotiations with no fewer than ten countries in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as with Cyprus and Malta. Polls have shown that public support for enlargement is rather meagre. Indeed, in the run-up to the accession of the candidates – the first accession treaties may be signed as early as in 2002 – reluctance among citizens of the present EU is growing. Many fear their prosperity and safety are at risk. Politicians are tempted to allay those fears by setting clear limits to any further enlargement plans.
Geography
Where does the EU end? The answer presented by geography is obvious: the group of candidates must be restricted to countries that form part of the European continent. It appears that the founders of the EU envisaged such a limitation. In the Treaty of Rome they laid down that 'every European state that observes the principles of the European Union may submit a request for membership.’
The geographical approach imposes a limit on the number of candidates. It torpedoed, in 1987, Morocco's application for membership. Moreover, the text of the treaty clearly states that the EU is under no obligation to admit countries even if they do form part of the European continent. It is up to the current members of the club to decide who can join in and who cannot. The EU would welcome such countries as Switzerland, Norway and Iceland as new members – if their splendid isolation were to become more of a burden to them than a blessing – not just by virtue of their geographical location, but also because their wealth would qualify them as net contributors to EU coffers.
At the same time, however, the geographical argument also strongly favours the impoverished republics of the former Yugoslavia, as well as Albania. By the time the current enlargement process is completed, about a decade from now, the Balkans will be entirely surrounded by EU member states. "One glance at the map is sufficient to see that the EU cannot leave the Balkans out," according to the Dutch State Secretary for European Affairs, Dick Benschop." Indeed, these countries are already being offered the prospect of some kind of membership in the form of the Stabilisation and Association Agreements that the EU is currently negotiating with them."
The EU is investing billions of euros in the Balkans to promote reconstruction and cooperation among former enemies. It is doing so because, due to the proximity of the region, the suffering of its peoples also affects the EU itself. EU countries have had to cope with millions of refugees fleeing from ethnic conflicts in the region. In addition, the civil wars have produced experienced criminals whose sphere of activity now covers the whole of Europe. Neither have Western Europeans remained insensitive to the violations of human rights that accompany each Balkan war. The military interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo have even more firmly anchored the Balkans to Europe. "Bombs create obligations," to quote Dutch columnist Paul Scheffer.
The EU has also entered into certain obligations vis-à-vis Turkey. In spite of resistance from Christian Democratic quarters to the accession of this 'Muslim country', the EU government leaders reaffirmed Turkey’s status as a candidate country in 1999. Ankara has not yet come anywhere near meeting the political and economic criteria for accession, however, and it may be another twenty years or more before the EU can welcome Turkey as a member.
This does not alter the fact that by offering Turkey the prospect of accession, the EU has crossed the Bosporus, which forms the border of Europe as a geographical entity. A secular state modelled on Western European states, Turkey is seen by many politicians as a stronghold of the Western world in the Near East. The country was granted NATO membership as early as 1952. Moreover, Turkey is the home country of millions of people who now live in Western Europe. The successful integration of these migrants into European societies partly depends on the integration of Turkey into the EU.
The invitation extended to Turkey has left Morocco with a bitter pill to swallow. After all, some of the considerations that plead in Ankara’s favour also hold true for Rabat. If the EU thinks it can bridge the Bosporus, what keeps it from reaching across the Strait of Gibraltar? Is it geographical bad luck on Morocco’s part, given that not even a small part of its territory is on the European continent? While favoured by many politicians, this argument does not satisfy certain thinkers. Timothy Garton Ash, an expert on Central and Eastern Europe, seems at a loss when asked to indicate the southern border of the EU. " We crossed a tiny bit of sea at first to offer membership to Turkey. We would be crossing a lot more sea to offer to Morocco," is his hesitant response.
The problem with Morocco is not that it is situated entirely within North Africa, but that there are four other countries north of the Sahara – Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt – that might no less convincingly claim membership. Not to mention Israel. It is inconceivable that the EU can incorporate all of these countries – with a total population of more than 130 million – within a single generation. It would require more than an average dose of optimism to believe that these countries are able to complete the required political and economic transformations within that period of time. The letter of rejection sent by the EU to Morocco on an earlier occasion should not be seen as irrevocable and even less as implying the country's incompetence to share European values. Even so, we should discourage Rabat from focusing exclusively on the EU. Indeed, it is high time that Morocco and its neighbours seriously set about the task of promoting their own regional cooperation so as to increase prosperity and stability in the region. By proving their ability to achieve regional integration, the countries of North Africa will automatically reduce their distance from Europe.
Cultural divide
There is no need for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldavia to prove that they are part of Europe, as they are all situated on the European continent. By the time the current enlargement process comes to a conclusion, they will all share borders with the EU.
Nevertheless, many European politicians wonder whether there is not a significant barrier between candidate country Poland and its neighbour Ukraine. An invisible wall between new democrats and political swashbucklers, between a state that is able to conform to the rule of law and the market economy and one beset by autocratic abuse of power and ingrained corruption. These doubts about our future neighbours apply all the more to giant Russia, which is half European and half Asian.
The cultural divide between Central Europe and the former Soviet republics does not merely exist in the minds of politicians, but is a subject of investigation by numerous scholars, who trace the origins of the divide to the schism between Rome and Constantinople in 1054. Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment contributed to the evolution of a value system in the Latin part of Europe that supports such concepts as democracy, rule of law and private initiative. These values even survived in Central European countries that laboured under the yoke of Communism for forty years. In the Byzantine part of Europe, however, these humanistic values proved no match for the centuries-old traditions of serfdom and collectivism. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, says Samuel Huntington, the best-known author in this school of thought, Europe discovered the Velvet Curtain of cultural difference.
The most alarming aspect of this cultural divide is that it also cuts across the current enlargement process. Candidate countries Rumania and Bulgaria are on the wrong, i.e. orthodox side of the divide. This means that the enlargement of the EU may not even reach as far as the Balkan peninsula, in which case there is little hope for other countries aspiring to become candidates.
In the current group of candidate countries, Rumania and Bulgaria are clearly well behind the other candidates, which lends credibility to the theory of a cultural divide. The EU government leaders were generous when they stated, in 1997, that these countries came close to meeting the requirements of democracy, rule of law and protection of minorities. Both in Rumania and Bulgaria serious politicians are no match for populists during elections. The fight against corruption has barely come off the ground. Minorities such as the Roma have every reason to complain.
This raises the question of whether Rumania and Bulgaria would be able to function properly in the legal community that is constituted by the EU. The EU is the most successful of all international organisations for the very reason that its member states usually comply with the rules that have been agreed upon. Thanks to this respect for supranational law, the EU is also a security community in which the distinction between domestic and foreign policy is gradually being lifted: wars between member states have become unthinkable. An ill-considered enlargement process would undermine these foundations of integration, and also seriously jeopardise progress in any of the projects currently under way, including the construction of the political, the social and the ecological communities.
However, there is some hope to be drawn from the example of Greece. After twenty years of EU membership, this country has made considerable progress both politically and economically. While there is no denying that Athens sometimes is a nuisance in Europe, it has now put things in order to such an extent that it has even been admitted to the monetary union. Greek politicians have also begun to realise that there is more to be gained from consultation than from military threats in settling conflicts with arch-rival Turkey. This has been achieved even though Greece is on the wrong, i.e. Byzantine, side of the Huntington divide. This demonstrates that cultural identities and value systems are less immutable than political anthropologists would have us believe.
Geopolitics
There is no reason, therefore, to assume that the enlargement of the EU will inevitably get stuck in a clash of cultures. This is why the enlargement process should be given a fair chance, even on the Balkans. The success of the process is one of factors that will determine whether Ukraine, Belarus and Moldavia can ever become EU members.
The other factor is Russia. Most politicians find it difficult to conceive of Russia as a member of the EU, if only because of its size. With its 150 million people and its immense surface area, Russia simply seems too big to fit in. Even as a democratic state under the rule of law Russia would obliterate any sense of balance within the EU. At least, this is the view expressed in a joint study completed in June 2000 by a think tank organised by Joschka Fischer’s Ministry and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The authors expressly state that they do not represent the position of any government on this matter and that their study 'may neither be quoted nor reproduced'. Their purpose is to exclude the possibility of Russian EU membership once and for all. Even an EU that comprises Central Europe, the Balkans and Turkey, they argue, would be less heterogeneous than Russia alone. In other words: by taking Russia on board, the EU would import more contradictions than it would be able to cope with.
We too find it hard to imagine an EU that stretches all the way to Vladivostok. In political debates we dismiss pleas for Russian EU membership as naïve, voiced as they so often are by people who are completely ignorant of what EU membership involves. For example, the implementation of eighty thousand pages of legislation, as well as the ability to enforce the laws formulated in those pages. Even so, thinkers such as Timothy Garton Ash and Norman Davies advise us to leave the door to Russian EU membership open. 'Never say never' is their motto.
Davies, historiographer of the European idea, has thought out a scenario that is both ominous and optimistic: "Putin is waging a campaign to restore the Russian Empire, albeit in a different form. This campaign is likely to fail, as Moscow no longer has the means to impose its will on the former Soviet republics. After such a failure, Russia might well disintegrate. Vladivostok is further from Moscow than Madrid. And if the Russian colossus fell apart, a democratic and much smaller Russia would, quite conceivably, initiate the process of accession to the EU. But that would not happen until at least fifty years from now."
The diplomatic sensitivity of the French-German study not quoted above does not arise from the fact that it places a Russian EU membership under a taboo. Many policy makers in Moscow would agree, after all, that EU membership is no more than a thought experiment. The point is that the French-German co-production also states emphatically that the EU should not invite Belarus or Ukraine to become members either. Not because these countries are intrinsically incompatible with the EU, but rather because their membership would create a sense of isolation in Moscow. That would be a geopolitical blunder.
Moreover, the authors claim, public support for the current enlargement process will crumble in proportion to the speed at which EU contours fade. The current candidate countries, the Balkans and Turkey must be hauled into the EU by expressly ruling out the accession of others. In his Humboldt speech Joschka Fischer resorted to a similar incantation to appease the German Länder that object to their powers being eroded by Brussels. He won their support for his aim to establish a European government by simultaneously pleading for restrictions on the competences of such a government.
In Warsaw politicians view the border issue from a very different perspective than in Berlin or Paris. The Polish debate has taken a remarkable turn. Until some years ago Polish politicians in Brussels invariably stated that their eastern border marked a cultural divide. This was intended to convey the following message: we are true Europeans, while further east barbarism reigns supreme. Now that the Polish accession to the EU is only a matter of time, the country’s politicians have become very romantic about their connections with neighbouring Ukraine. The reason is clear: Poland does not like the idea of permanently being the EU's frontier state. Polish politicians emphasise in chorus that the EU is an open concept. They are consistent in their defence of this view. In that concept, there is even a place for a democratic Russia, says – amongst others - Bronislaw Geremek, former dissident, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and celebrated historian. Indeed, one of the reasons why Brussels should leave the door open to Ukraine is to support democracy in Russia: 'The fate of Putin’s imperial idea depends on Ukraine. Without Ukraine, there is no Russian Empire.' An independent Ukraine seduced to opt for democracy would prevent Putin and his supporters from establishing a new czarist regime. It would rescue democratic tendencies in Russia. Would Berlin and Paris have the courage to play that card? 'The EU lacks an Ostpolitik,’ says Geremek. ‘Is it Russia first or is it democracy first? In my view a Russian Empire would be dangerous for both the EU and the Russian people.'
Geremek’s opposition to the view that the EU should give up Ukraine so as not to stress relations with Russia is convincing. If Europe were to forsake the few democrats in Kiev it would cast 50 million Ukrainians into outer darkness and abandon them to many more years of suffering under the corrupt regime of president Kuchma – or worse. In Belarus, too, the chances of a democratic, Otpor-like revolt to oust the potentate Lukashenko in Minsk depend on what perspective the EU is prepared to offer the democratic opposition.
Whatever prospect Europe holds out for Ukraine and Belarus, it is clear that it will not include guaranteed EU membership. It may take as much as a generation before these countries, as well as the EU, are suitably prepared for such a step, and before Moscow realises that it too stands to gain more than it stands to lose from stability and prosperity in Ukraine and Belarus. Nonetheless, future European generations should be allowed to make their own choices. History has taught us that no border in the world is as volatile as the eastern border of Europe.
Border regime
The blueprints drawn up by Joschka Fischer and his advisers for the future of Europe are forcing other politicians to face the challenges that the EU is being confronted with. Nevertheless, it would be pretentious to assume that we could ever produce a definitive design for the architecture, the powers and the borders of the EU, even if only to reassure voters. Finalities do not satisfy the intellect. Even the federation envisaged by Fischer is a snapshot of the current balance of power between Germany and France. Berlin and Paris regard the EU as, respectively, an alternative to, and an extension of, their national ambitions. By proposing a compromise between these two approaches, Fischer has certainly made a daring move, but not one that could ever predetermine future developments. The future must remain open.
Considering the ultimate borders of the EU is a useful exercise, because it highlights a number of gaps, especially in European policy towards countries that have no chance of becoming member states in the near future. Once Poland is an EU member, that country will close its borders to Ukrainians. For Poland will adopt the Schengen regime, which prevents Ukrainian nationals from entering the EU without a visa. And most Ukrainians can afford neither the money nor the time to apply for a visa and collect it from a Western embassy.
The Schengen regulations are intended to keep contraband, criminals and illegal immigrants out of the EU. The question is whether the adverse consequences of Schengen for the economic, cultural and family ties between Poland and Ukraine should be taken for granted. Can we really improve security in the EU by increasing the isolation of our neighbours in the east? While accepting the stringent EU requirements on customs inspection, Polish politicians also call for prompt and cheap multiple entry visas, at least for inhabitants of the border regions.
Politicians must guard against the reflex to seal off the EU from the big and evil outside world. This has become all the more urgent now that terrorism, after the attacks on the United States, has risen to the top of the European agenda. The most important lesson to be learnt from 11 September is that we cannot afford to allow any blind spots on the world map, and certainly not on the map of Europe. We should redouble our efforts to offer a credible perspective of stability and prosperity to the unstable fringes of Europe. This calls for exchanges rather than isolation, and for porous rather than hermetically sealed borders. For the sake of our own security.
We should try to see our borders not as a form of armour but rather as a skin through which we can breathe. The more successful we are in this respect, the sooner the issue of the EU’s ultimate borders will lose its threatening undertones. That would facilitate a more open-minded and in-depth debate on the issue; one in which thinkers could extend borderlines drawn by politicians. And vice versa.
Joost Lagendijk is a Member of the European Parliament for GroenLinks, the Dutch Green Left party.
Jan Marinus Wiersma is a Member of the European Parliament for the PvdA, the Dutch Labour party.
The quotations are from interviews conducted by the authors in preparation for their book 'Brussels – Warsaw – Kiev, in search of the borders of the European Union,'. This book - in Dutch - was published by Balans publishers in November 2001. ISBN 90 5018 565 7
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- Dossier: Grenzen van de EU