1. This memorandum addresses only some of the political and institutional issues raised by the EU enlargement process. It recognises that there is an interaction between these and the economic issues, and also argues that the "third pillar" and Schengen issues need to be better connected to the political and institutional issues. The memorandum addresses mainly issues raised by eastern enlargement, although the Turkish, Cypriot and Maltese applications also raise important questions, especially relating to foreign policy.

I. THE APPLICANTS AND THE ACCESSION PROCESS

  2. Accession negotiations, with their highly focused emphasis on the technical and legislative acquis and budgetary costs, give a misleading picture of the issues at stake in this round of enlargement. The overarching political and foreign policy dimensions are crucial elements, which need to be kept at the centre of the discussions. EU conditionality as regards the timetable for accession and the preparedness of individual candidates induces a form of asymmetrical discrimination that carries political consequences. Disagreements among the existing members over the EU budget risk adding to the delays and creating additional obstacles to the accession of new members.

  3. While recognising the demanding character of full EU membership and the pressures on the EU budget, we stress the importance of according sensitive and thoughtful attention to all of the candidates (both southern and eastern applicants). There are risks of the timetable for accession slipping, of misunderstandings and resentments in the candidate countries, and of the EU losing its opportunity to anchor political and economic stabilisation across the continent.

Choices between applicants

  4. Which candidates in which order is unavoidably a tricky question. More effort needs to be made to develop a process of engagement for those applicants not yet involved in full accession negotiations. In particular this process needs to be both substantive in its content and multilateral in its character. A more developed and more operational version of the European Conference needs urgently to be established. This should include Turkey; it should provide more acknowledgement of the efforts of central and east European candidates not yet in full accession negotiations; and it should develop pre-accession co-operation in selected policy areas on a multilateral basis, for example on third pillar and Schengen issues.

The applicants and their neighbours

  5. A variety of historical, geographical, political and economic connections link the current applicants with neighbouring countries. It is crucial to strengthen efforts to build "good neighbours" and cross-border arrangements, and not to disrupt these by creating a new "wall" of discrimination between likely accedents and distanced neighbours. One example is the link between eastern Poland and western Ukraine, where economically dynamic links and some historical and political kinship risk being blocked counterproductively. More generally countries such as Russia, Belarus and Moldova should not be alienated by and from the EU as the enlargement process proceeds. The potential for political, security and economic damage is considerable.

Relations between applicants and their "acquis"

  6. A number of important and embedded links also exist among the applicant countries. There is, in other words, a kind of central European acquis, which has so far been neglected by the EU. This acquis includes (amongst others): the Central European Free Trade Association (CEFTA); the customs union and common travel area of the Czech and Slovak Republics; the Hungarian-Romanian bilateral treaty (much insisted on by EU policy-makers); and a visa-free travel regime across the region. These various arrangements need to be recognised by the EU as constructive forms of multilateralism and bilateralism of a kind that have been hugely important in west European integration. Ways need to be found of accommodating parts of this central European acquis within the enlargement process. One suggestion that deserves attention here is whether a way can be found to develop a "pan-European" regime for freer trade and personal movement.

II. ISSUES NEGLECTED IN THE ACCESSION PROCESS

  7. Many issues relevant to membership and post-accession are neglected by the narrow and technical focus of the accession negotiations. Changes on the EU side to reform its own policies remain crucial, notably the common agricultural policy. However, it should also be noted that the EU risks moving policy goal posts in ways that could have especially severe consequences for candidates. From now on new EU policy proposals should be accompanied by an assessment of their likely implications for the applicant countries. Similarly the applicants should be associated with EU policy developments in areas that bear directly on them, e.g., the preparations for the next WTO round.

The scope for constructive 'particularism'

  8. The EU should avoid seeking to impose an onerously uniform policy template as part of the conditionality exercised vis-à-vis the candidates. Room needs to be left for individual countries facing the challenge of rapid modernisation to develop their own national adjustment strategies, both economically and politically. Ireland after all provides a strong and positive example of dynamic particularism within a European framework.

The foreign policy dimension

  9. Much more attention needs to be given to how the accession process links to the efforts of the EU to develop a more rounded and effective foreign policy, particularly in relation to the three key regions: Russia, Ukraine and the rest of the post-Soviet family; south eastern Europe, especially the former Yugoslavia; and the Mediterranean basin. More effort needs to be made to make distinct the processes of Nato and EU enlargements, as well as to signal the opportunity for both Baltic and Balkan countries to be drawn into the European democratic family.

  10. The new European defence debate, especially in the light of the recent British initiative, needs to be extended to include consideration of how it might apply to "pan-Europe". We should recall, for example, the scope for building on recent peace-keeping operations that have included combined units with military personnel from the applicant countries.

The third pillar and Schengen issues

  11. The provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam give particular importance to the development of the area of freedom, justice and security. Their application to the applicants is unhelpful coloured by nervous assumptions within the EU about the porousness of east European borders and the dangers of influxes of migrants and illegals. It should be noted that these assumptions are only that; they do not rest on either thorough examination of the patterns of movement or cool-headed assessments of the effectiveness of particular kinds (or locations) of border regimes.

  12. In addition, three particular dimensions of this domain are relevant to the candidates in ways that touch on foreign policy issues. First, the EU needs to resist the temptation to regard the distinction between likely early accedents and others as a distinction between civilised and non-civilised Europe. Second, as indicated above, the EU needs to be prepared to modulate its policy to allow constructive cross-border arrangements between neighbours to persist (e.g., Czech-Slovak, or Hungary-Romania) as has been done in the Nordic region. Indeed ways need to be found of mitigating the negative impact on non-candidate neighbours. Third, countries across the region need to be drawn into multilateral regime-building in this difficult and sensitive domain. In the process it needs to be recognised that these border management issues have large foreign policy implications, and hence that the different EU institutions that deal with them need to work more closely together.

III. PREPARING FOR "POST-ACCESSION"

Issues for new members

  13. The extent of adjustment required for the potential new members is enormous. It is in the interest of the UK, as of other current EU members, that the new members be as well prepared as possible. The British Government should give a high priority to facilitating this process both bilaterally and multilaterally through both continued British programmes and multilateral programmes, such as those being developed under PHARE. These efforts need to extend beyond the governmental sector (the main current focus) to include other sections of society in the candidate countries. And these efforts need to be sustained on a consistent and medium-term basis in order to involve people and organisations from the applicant countries in a kind of "European public space", which gives more scope for them to engage in the discussion about how their democracies and human rights' regimes are developing.

Issues (and non-issues) for a larger EU

  14. Care should be taken not to exaggerate the crude impact of the number of potential new member states. Some concerns are overstated and require mostly "in-country" efforts by candidates to develop the necessary regulatory, legal and administrative infrastructure. Here much of the effort on the EU side consists of strengthening monitoring and supervision capabilities or extending language capabilities and in-depth country knowledge within the EU institutions. Encouragement should be given to enhancing expertise and staffing on the EU side to respond to these demands.

  15. "The institutional problem" as defined by Amsterdam—amending Council voting rules (weighting and QMV) and the composition of the college of commissioners—is an overly narrow and misleading summary of the institutional adaptations required. A good deal could be set in train now without an Intergovernmental Conference to equip the Council and the Commission to deal more effectively with their responsibilities (with or without early enlargement). A more tightly focused Commission might have a better grip on the issues that might facilitate smooth enlargement. A Council that worked more coherently and strategically would have a better chance of drawing together the accession process with related other areas of policy or relations with other European neighbours. Particular attention needs to be given to the declining effectiveness of the General Affairs Council (of foreign ministers and their deputies) and to bridge-building with the now hyperactive Council for Justice and Home Affairs.

  16. Enlargement as such remains critically important, but so also is the need to devise more satisfactory, rounded and inclusive arrangements of partnership with the not-yet-ready candidates, not-yet candidates, and other neighbours. Here more work needs to be done at all levels to generate more productive and more reassuring forms of partnership than those that currently obtain. Turkey provides a salutary and disturbing example of the difficulties of developing and delivering worthwhile partnership.

IV. CONCLUSION

  17. Enlargement and partnership with other European countries will be core concerns for the EU and its neighbours over the next decade and beyond. There are both huge opportunities to stabilise the continent and huge pitfalls. A more strategic policy need to be developed both in Britain and more widely in the EU: to avoid policy drift and delays to the timetable; to prevent counterproductive discrimination between applicants; and to prepare better for post-accession by engaging applicants now in a multilateral discussion of "pan-European" policy issues (e.g., CFSP, third pillar, and links to eastern neighbours).

December 1998