The European Union has been the most dynamic political and economic project of the post-Second World War Europe. Seven enlargement rounds since the creation of the three communities in the 1950s and the designation of new candidate countries at the dawn of the 21st century epitomise its strong ‘power of attraction’ to third countries. Initially, the institutionalisation of an ever closer cooperation between nation states in Europe drew on the political will to avert a future destructive European war by creating a nexus of political and economic interstate relations. This evolved over the years into an attempt to spread liberal democracy and economic interdependence to other parts of Europe as well, such as Greece, Spain and Portugal. History held a much bigger role for the European Union though. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s the European Union appeared to be the only potential geopolitical stabilizer for Central Eastern Europe. The EU seized the moment and it embarked on its most ambitious enterprise of enlargement. This concluded to the so-called big bang enlargement of 2004 which included eight countries from Central Eastern Europe among others.
However, at the moment of its biggest inclusionary policy, political voices from within EU member states such as France and Germany were getting stronger in disputing the purposefulness of enlargement for current and future candidate countries. The designation of Turkey as a candidate country in 1999 has been the main battleground. Turkey is too big, too poor and culturally incompatible with a very small fraction of its territory being part of the European continent, have opponents of the candidacy argued. Instead they opt for a “privileged” partnership. The EU cannot have primary role in global affairs without the integration of Turkey, a country with a young population and a key player in the Middle East, Caucasus and Balkan affairs, have proponents of the candidacy postulated. Nevertheless, what lies behind euphemistic expressions for or statements’ of support to Turkey’s candidacy is a deep division within the EU countries on the basis of political and national preferences.
The EU countries have been facing a plethora of challenges that range from how the EU institutions can accommodate the dialogue between 27 countries to issues of global scale, such as global warming, instability in the Middle East and North Africa and immigration. On the top of that, Eurozone countries have now been in the epicentre of the global economic crisis that threatens the very existence of the Euro and by extrapolation the levels of political cooperation and economic interdependence that were achieved with its circulation. Therefore, the question about the role of enlargement regarding all these developments is more emphatic now than ever. Can the EU enlargement form part of a broader agenda that can revitalise the internal and external capacities of the EU or is it itself an additional burden to its further development?
The answer to this question cannot be straightforward as rational accounts that sketch the costs and benefits of such a policy cannot give us a conclusive answer without defining first the points of departure or the priorities in the EU framework. In other words, both sides are trying to present their arguments as an orthodoxy which in reality does not exist and therefore the answer should come only through political dialogue between EU citizens, EU institutions and national governments which will be revealing for the parties’ points of reference in their cost/benefit calculation. It will be only then clear how EU institutions and national governments envisage the relations of the EU towards the citizens and the rest of the world. This dialogue cannot be predetermined by national governmental politics which try to conceal their points of departure behind stereotypical national political discourse. Certainly, this does not mean that a decision vis-à-vis further enlargement should not take into consideration possible implications that derive from decisions regarding the EU enlargement. However, what I suggest is that since the EU is not a minor actor in global politics, its citizens should start thinking about and participating in the formulation of points of reference that determine EU’s foreign policy activity. The EU is not simply subject to the external environment but it has the ability itself to shape it and integrate it when it is believed that it advocates its values.
