THE TIMETABLE FOR ENLARGEMENT

49. Referring to the Polish target date for accession of 1 January 2003, Mr Saryusz-Wolski said that there was "plenty of time" for full implementation. Despite his confidence, the scale of the tasks which have already been described must raise the possibility that enlargement might be delayed. Reports in the press have suggested that political leaders in some Member States still wish to see full implementation upon accession[32]. Dr Lehnguth, for the German Government, pointed out that "there is no fixed timetable, at the moment, for enlargement". Mr Fortescue, asked whether the JHA acquis could cause delay, replied "I think the answer must be yes" (QQ 207, 266, 297).

50. However, delay would carry a price. Mr Saryusz-Wolski insisted that January 2003 was the Polish target: "We think it should be 2003. It is so obvious, if the Union is going to be ready as of 1st January 2003 we want to be ready, and if both sides are ready why should it not happen? Why should we need a fall-back position?" The Polish Government wished to have a "Nice declaration[33] on time perspectives", but "we already know that we will not get it". The Poles had originally hoped for accession in 2000—delay had led to a substantial drop in public support for EU accession, thanks to "waiting fatigue syndrome". A delay beyond 2003 would create further problems: "it would probably go deeper, that would also mean the rejection of the political leaders who are pro-European Union. You have misled us, you were promising us something which was not realistic, so rejection". In contrast, Mr Saryusz-Wolski argued that Schengen standards of border control "would be reached sooner under membership status than outside membership status … By the Union not admitting us it does not escape from the consequences. By admitting us it will escape from the consequences". He roundly criticised political leaders within the Union for failing to support enlargement adequately: "they are not doing their job properly" (QQ 230, 207, 234, 228).

51. However, even if full implementation upon accession should prove impossible, the nature of the Schengen acquis provides some reassurance that enlargement itself need not be delayed. In Mr Fortescue's words, "There is a very clear distinction in the Schengen system between the moment a country joins, signs up to the Union, and therefore to Schengen … and the moment that the frontier controls come down on the other". "Implementation" of the Schengen acquis, in other words, is a two-stage process: a formal acceptance of the acquis upon accession to the EU with full implementation, satisfying the requirements for external frontier control on the one hand, and opening the internal border on the other, only following later. Mr Fortescue cited the examples of Italy, Austria and Greece. In each case there was a gap of some seven years between "signing up" to the Schengen Convention, and the removal of internal border controls. Italy, for example, signed up in 1990, but internal border controls were only lifted in 1997. Such a lapse of time would not be a formal "transition period". The state concerned would be a full member of the Schengen group, but its implementation of the acquis would be subject to regular appraisal by the "Schengen Evaluation Committee". Only when the Committee was satisfied that the state was, in Dr Lehnguth's words, "fully and demonstrably fulfilling the requirements of Schengen", would internal border controls be removed. Dr Lehnguth continued,

This step-by-step implementation mechanism must be retained in future and should be regarded as an integral component of the acquis to be taken on by all accession countries. Only thereby can we be sure that accession will not lead to unjustifiable security risks (QQ 297, 266).

52. Witnesses from the UK made the same point. For the Foreign Office, Dominic Martin confirmed that "We do not expect these countries to take on the full Schengen acquis, to be full members of Schengen when they join … there is a period of monitoring of some years maybe before a country acquires full Schengen status". On the other hand, candidates for accession would have to "provide serious evidence of their ability and political will to implement … the acquis". The United Kingdom would participate in the evaluation process; indeed, Mr Bailey confirmed that an NCIS representative had already taken part in Schengen evaluation missions in Greece (QQ 11, 35, 281).

53. Mr Järviö gave the Committee a particularly helpful summary of some of the areas in which full implementation of the Schengen acquis would be necessarily delayed after accession. The "official" Finnish position was that the "Schengen acquis on external border controls should already be practised at the time of entry". In reality, however, important parts of the Schengen standard were "so closely connected to the abolition of internal border controls" that they could not be applied from day one. For instance, the requirement to rebuild airports, to allow for the separation of Schengen and non-Schengen traffic, could be postponed until the lifting of internal border controls. The new states would also "not be issuing a Schengen visa which is valid for travel in all Schengen areas from day one of their EU membership". A technical barrier existed in the structure of the Schengen Information System ("SIS"): the present system only allowed for connections to 18 countries[34], and the upgraded SIS 2, which would allow for "an unlimited number of connections", would probably not be available for new members until 2005 (QQ 243-4).

54. However, there remains some uncertainty as to exactly what standard of frontier control, short of the Schengen standard, would be required as a pre-condition for accession. Mrs Pallett, for the Home Office, told the Committee that "There will be some areas where the EU will expect [the candidate states] to be delivering the quality of control in Schengen before they accede to the European Union … and, obviously, operating external frontier controls I judge will be part of that". In supplementary written evidence Mrs Pallett clarified the apparent implication that full Schengen standards on frontier control would be a precondition for accession:

I intended this to refer to the need to see the applicant countries having in place, before accession, generally effective and secure border management, and an ability to demonstrate an underlying capacity to meet the Schengen standards in full over time, including in those areas (for example, data protection legislation) which would be required by the Schengen Information System, in which participation would occur after accession. The Government and other Member States have not yet defined precisely what standards would be required to allow the UK to be satisfied that such generally secure and effectively managed borders existed.

It appears therefore that the precise requirements for accession (summed up as "generally effective and secure border management") have yet to be defined (Q 26, p 10).

55. Even if these requirements were to be defined, the two-stage process for full implementation of the frontier control acquis would not necessarily be without problems. Before the Treaty of Amsterdam incorporated the Schengen acquis into the EU framework, the Schengen Convention was distinct from the treaties establishing the European Community and European Union. States such as Italy or Greece applied to join the Schengen group from a position of full and unquestioned membership of the EU. This is no longer the case. There is a risk that accession to the EU without full participation in Schengen and early removal of internal border controls might be perceived with resentment within the candidate states as "second-class" EU membership. Mr Stachanczyk, Under-Secretary of State at the Polish Ministry of the Interior, told the Committee that Poland would ask for the Schengen Evaluation Committee to look at Polish frontier controls "upon the date Poland becomes a member". He continued, "We do envisage a period between Poland's accession to the European Union and the lifting of all controls on the Polish/German border, however that period should not be too long". Mr Saryusz-Wolski, asked whether the Polish Government would ask for transitional periods between accession and the removal of internal border controls, replied, "We are not asking. We are not expecting. We are suspecting the European Union intends to ask for them" (QQ 135, 222).

56. Other potential problems were highlighted by Dr Deubner, of the German Government-sponsored Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. He said that since the Treaty of Amsterdam there had been "an official discourse … which says the Schengen system is part and parcel of the European Union". Although existing Member States, such as the United Kingdom, had been able to negotiate partial entry into the Schengen system, this flexibility would not be granted to future members: "Everybody who comes in the future has to swallow one and all". This requirement, together with the realisation that the candidate states were "not at all as far advanced as we had expected" had forced the EU to look at the possibility of transitional periods. However, Dr Deubner doubted whether the system of Schengen evaluation, as carried out hitherto, would be sustainable in the future:

In the past we could refuse … because the Schengen group was its own master … But the more we have in, the less the Schengen group is able to impose this kind of "We will look at you very closely and then permit you" attitude. My feeling is that, after the transfer of the Schengen system into the EU, we have even less possibility … It is the EU which wants to impose the Schengen system and, therefore, the question becomes politically more … negotiable (QQ 75, 78).

Dr Deubner's remark appears to imply that it may be impossible for the Schengen evaluation process, once it comes to be imposed with EU frameworks, by EU Member States on other full EU Member States, to remain as rigorous as hitherto.

57. The possibility that there may well be several waves of accession to the EU creates additional problems for the applicants. As Mrs Pallett said, citing the example of the Czech-Slovak frontier, "it is too early really to decide where the external borders of the European Union will be". Therefore the EU had "asked the applicant countries to focus on those borders which we know will remain external borders, and we shall come back to what needs to be done at those borders which will eventually be internal borders". On the other hand, where it was clear that there would be "new external frontiers between old partners" (for example, between Hungary and Romania, which are very unlikely to join the EU at the same time), candidate countries would "be expected by the EU as a whole to operate external border controls". It is questionable whether the candidate countries will in fact be content to wait and see indefinitely. Mr Kendernay confirmed that the Hungarian government had not yet been told whether external controls would be required on Hungary's frontiers with Slovenia and Slovakia: "This is an open question, but we hope that the Union will make a very clear position on that". However, he agreed that controls should be imposed on the Hungarian/Romanian frontier. Mr Fortescue went further, arguing that the candidates would at some stage have to make political decisions: the Hungarians would have to decide whether the "desirable objective" of seeing frontier controls with Austria removed was "worth the candle if it means having to set up an enormously expensive and provisional full Schengen external frontier between Hungary and Slovakia and Hungary and Romania". The danger is that such uncertainties will lead to misdirected, indeed useless, expenditure. Mr Saryusz-Wolski alluded to the fact that large sums of foreign money had been spent on the Polish/German frontier—building facilities which would be defunct should Poland join the Schengen group. The Commission had at the time regarded Polish accession as "such a distant thing … that they did not take it very seriously" (QQ 6-7, 378-9, 336, 208).

THE HELP BEING OFFERED BY THE EU AND MEMBER STATES

58. As indicated above, the costs of preparing the candidate states for accession, as regards frontier controls and related areas, are enormous. Mr Saryusz-Wolski gave the Committee the Polish Government's estimate of some of these costs, taken from the Polish Government's "Strategy of Integrated Border Management"[35]. For the customs service, some 35 million Euros in 2000, falling to 23 million Euros in 2002; for the Border Guards, 120 million Euros in 2000, rising to some 225 million in 2002; for transport related expenditure, 65 million in 2000, rising to 110 million by 2002; expenditure on voivod (local government) level, around 30 million Euros a year. Lesser sums were required for the police, visa reorganisation, and other areas. The total is given as some 350 million Euros for 2000, rising to 400 million for 2002. As Mr Saryusz-Wolski made clear, the Polish government has already allocated all this money. Its needs are great and the question remains the same: "What is available? What is needed? What is the balance? The balance is always zero" (Q 238).

59. It is clearly the wish of the Polish Government to reassure the EU that they will be ready for accession by 1 January 2003. It is therefore fair to assume that the estimate of costs is conservative, and that the financial arrangements may be less straightforward than they appear. The evidence given by Mr Zieba, of the Lublin Voivodship, revealed not only the wealth of projects for which funding was required, but also the unpredictability of this funding. Police from Lublin were undergoing training both at home and in the Netherlands. This was being funded bilaterally through the MATRA programme. On the other hand, little EU funding had reached the region, although Mr Zieba hoped that the 2001 Phare project might provide assistance not only for training, but for improvements in the infrastructure of border crossing points. Bilateral British help had been received for small and medium enterprises; American help had concentrated on local democracy. It appeared, in fact, that local authorities were living almost a hand-to-mouth existence: "the municipalities … and the border crossing authorities are always looking for some external funding for improving the situation. The infrastructure there really needs money to be improved, so any kind of funding is welcome, be it European, American or any other kind". Economic development was vital: "if the border region is economically better developed it can diminish many of the problems we are discussing" (QQ 102, 110-16, 89, 118).

60. The bulk of EU funding comes through the Phare programme. Mr Fortescue told the Committee that total Phare funding now came to around 1.5 billion Euros a year (compared with 1,153.9 million Euros committed in 1998, the latest year for which precise figures are available[36]). Some ten percent of this Phare funding goes towards JHA issues—Mrs Pallett was more specific, stating that in the current year some 130.7 million Euros were being used on JHA projects. About half of this in turn goes towards "border issues". Poland, the largest of the candidates, has tended to receive some 20 percent of total Phare funding. Poland may thus receive aid of about 15-25 million Euros specifically aimed at improving border management in 2000. This shows that the competition for Phare funding is such that it is in practice spread very thinly. A comparison with the costs outlined in the Polish Government's "Strategy of Integrated Border Management" shows how small the funds made available by the EU to assist in raising frontier controls to the Schengen standard are in relation to the expenditure required. Nor can Phare funds merely be diverted from one area to another. Mr Saryusz-Wolski, asked whether more funds should be devoted to the development of cross-border regions, responded hesitantly: "encouraging [cross-border regions] does not increase the volume of money, it moves money from one pocket to the other". He also made the point that assistance to states after joining the EU is likely to be more effective than any form of assistance granted to candidates: "keeping us longer outside will not make the solution come quicker". He argued that whatever standards are required will be "achieved sooner under membership status than outside membership status" (QQ 327, 31, 229, 226).

61. Mrs Pallett, in supplementary written evidence, went into more detail on Phare aid to help upgrade Poland's eastern frontier controls, and in particular the role played by "twinning" projects. She stated that since 1996 over 100 million Euros had been made available to help improve the Polish eastern frontier. This covered "all border issues, apart from Customs". It was divided into three areas: "provision of equipment; twinning projects; and horizontal issues". Mrs Pallett gave details of twinning projects in which the UK had been involved: for instance, in 1999-2000 the UK had led a project on "Eastern border management and infrastructure", in the course of which training on frontier management had been delivered by Germany, France and the Netherlands. Aid on horizontal issues included a project scheduled for 2001-02, covering ten Central and Eastern European candidate countries, to focus on "practical training on Schengen (including the SIS), combating illegal immigration and overall harmonisation with the EC visa regime". The budget for this project would be three million Euros (pp 9-10).

62. The EU is not, however, the only source of aid available to candidate countries. As Mrs Pallett told the Committee in her oral evidence, the UK itself not only takes part in Phare-funded twinning projects, but gives "some bilateral assistance" through the Department for International Development and HM Customs and Excise. The UK is particularly prominent in providing liaison officers—officers of the police or Customs and Excise who are accredited as diplomats in the local embassy. Their role, as Mr Bailey told the Committee, is "primarily as intelligence gatherers", passing information back to the United Kingdom authorities via NCIS. This is an important role, given that the exchange of such intelligence is vital in combating organised and international crime. It is clear, however, that liaison officers also help to influence local policing methods and to foster the co-operation among police forces and between police forces and other law enforcement agencies that is an essential element of the Schengen system. Mr Bailey commented that the "traditional response" of police forces in the candidate countries had been "reactive to offences" rather than to rely on "intelligence-led policing". Closer co-operation and exchange visits had shown Hungarian police "how we handle intelligence and how we actively work on proactive intelligence gathering". Liaison officers are supplied by NCIS, and, as Mr Bailey said, "if I send two officers to one of the applicant countries for six months I have two empty desks back in London". Indirectly, therefore, liaison officers are paid for by the United Kingdom's Local Police Authorities, which fund NCIS (QQ 4, 280, 284, 292).

63. Other Member States are at least equally active in providing bilateral assistance. The training supplied by the Dutch, through the MATRA scheme, has already been mentioned (see paragraph 59). The German Government has given particularly generous assistance. Dr Lehnguth, arguing that "we need programmes and financial assistance" for the candidate countries, referred to annual payments given by Germany to help them equip their frontiers properly, which have totalled "120 million marks to Poland and 60 million marks to the Czech Republic". Indeed, Inspector Borek of the Polish police told the Committee that "There are two countries which we are particularly indebted to, Germany and the United Kingdom, in that order. Were we asked to name a third country we would have to mention the US". Other candidate countries have established fruitful partnerships with particular Member States. Thus Mr Järviö described how Finland had "given extensive assistance to the Estonian Frontier Guard", with the result that the Estonian eastern frontier was now, in his judgment, "entirely Schengen conformed". He emphasised that "the applicant states can never do it alone, we must give them assistance". Finland had also now started a twinning project in Latvia, funded by the EU. In his view it was "money well spent by the European Union" (QQ 274, 157, 254-55).

64. It is clear from the evidence received by the Committee that aid to the candidate countries is being supplied from a range of sources. Equally, Mr Zieba's comment, already quoted, that "any kind of funding is welcome, be it European, American or any other kind", demonstrates that the potential recipients of assistance are keen to seek it out from any available source[37]. There is inevitably a risk that aid from so many sources will be poorly co-ordinated. This risk was underlined by Dr Bruggeman, of Europol:

Member States are going there with the best intentions, helping the countries but not always in a co-ordinated way and sometimes they get similar offers from different Member States and so on.

Dr Bruggeman further suggested that bilateral aid should be co-ordinated "within the Third Pillar structure" in order to identify duplication of effort. He expressed the hope that within the Third Pillar the Member States would allow the Commission to have a role co-ordinating aid. This complicated picture would of course change after accession, when Poland and other new Members would become, in Dr Deubner's words, "fully entitled to receive help for implementing central EU policies … from the budget of the Union in which every member country shares" (QQ 349-51, 77).

CO-OPERATION IN FRONTIER CONTROLS

65. The Committee also looked at possibilities for enhancing co-operation in the future management of the EU's frontiers. In the area of visas such co-operation was sketched out in the Presidency Conclusions to the Tampere summit in October 1999, which envisaged "closer co-operation between EU consulates in third countries and, where necessary, the establishment of common EU visa issuing offices"[38]. The Committee went further, raising with a number of witnesses the possibility of joint EU frontier controls. Hitherto, the maintenance of the common Schengen frontiers has been the responsibility of individual Member States alone. This has meant that Germany, in particular, has always had to assume the heavy administrative and financial burden of guarding the Schengen zone's eastern frontier. Upon enlargement this burden will be shifted to the new Member States. However, it is clear that the Poles are determined to accept this burden, and indeed that they would resent any attempt to interfere with their sovereign right to control their own frontiers. Mr Stachanczyk was categorical: "it is a Polish border and Polish officers are responsible for managing that border. As with other countries which have joined the European Union, once it becomes an external border it will be manned by the Poles". Mr Zieba agreed, arguing that while joint controls on a shared (e.g. Polish/German) frontier were acceptable, common EU controls would be offensive to the Poles (QQ 127, 94).

66. The Committee raised the possibility of financial co-operation between Member States to spread the burden of policing the external frontiers. Dr Lehnguth was unenthusiastic about the EU assuming such a funding role: "we have indeed long borne the costs for the policing of the eastern border to Poland and the Czech Republic, and we feel that on accession the applicant countries must bear the costs of policing the border and of security. In principle, I could not speak out in favour of an EU pot". Germany would have to contribute the lion's share to any common pot (some 29 per cent) and, in Dr Lehnguth's words, "the German Finance Ministry would not be very pleased about that". Some Member States (such as the Benelux countries or France) clearly benefit from not having to contribute significantly to financing and managing the EU's land frontiers. Others (Germany, Austria and Italy) will benefit in this respect from enlargement. But as Adrian Fortescue said, "it is quite difficult to get people to admit that they are saving money on the system". He also felt that the idea of transferring frontier guards from one Member State to another "could run up against every instinct" (QQ 274, 302, 313).

67. Mr Fortescue put forward as a more modest form of co-operation one of his "personal hobby horses"—a "European border police college". This, he argued, was "something where common training might make even more sense than in ordinary policing because they will be applying the same procedures according to very strict rules". Given that the Schengen manual sets out common standards at great length, there would be "advantage in learning how to do it together". The role of this college might be similar to the proposed European Police College[39], which Dr Bruggeman described. While it would be at "too high a level" to train normal frontier guards, it could "train the trainers" to European standards, and so help to co-ordinate training throughout the EU. Special attention could be given to staff from candidate countries, which would "help to prepare them for their new tasks when they are integrated into the European Union" (QQ 313, 325, 352).

THE EASTERN NEIGHBOURS OF AN ENLARGED EUROPEAN UNION

68. It will be clear from what has already been said of the numbers of illegal immigrants being turned back at the Polish/Ukrainian frontiers, compared with the numbers being turned back at the German/Polish frontiers, that the EU's eastern neighbours already form a crucial first line of control for the Schengen zone. Furthermore, the evidence of Mr Järviö demonstrated that efficient frontier controls relied in large part on close co-operation with neighbours—in Finland's case, with Russia. The Committee therefore devoted part of their inquiry into considering the question of the EU's relationships with its future neighbours, in particular Ukraine. This report has already alluded to the economic difficulties that might be faced by Ukraine were cross-frontier links with Poland to be disrupted. The Committee also asked questions concerning other problems which Ukraine faces or might face as a result of enlargement. Mr Pawlyczko, the Ukrainian ambassador in Warsaw, reminded the Committee that Ukraine's "strategic aim" was membership of the EU. He admitted there were formidable problems to be overcome—not only economic problems, but the moral challenge of redefining Ukraine's place in Europe, overcoming the "legacy of 300 years of slavery and dependence" on Russia. There was the possibility that Ukraine might have to seal itself off from Russia, were democracy there to falter—the ambassador accepted that in any case the frontier with Russia would have to be strengthened. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian economy was still heavily dependent on trade with Russia, and a section of the Ukrainian/Russian frontier around the Azov Sea had yet to be defined. More joint crossing-points on the Polish/Ukrainian frontier were needed. Furthermore, as Mr Saryusz-Wolski pointed out, the problem of low salaries in Poland was trivial compared with the problem further east: "As seen from the Russian … side, we are superbly rich and superbly well equipped … it would be in our interest to have good, high levels of good performance of guards and custom officers in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia". Mr Pawlyczko told the Committee that Ukraine was now co-operating actively with Poland on frontier control—illegal crossings had fallen, an agreement on fighting organised crime had been signed, and Czech, Polish and Ukrainian customs officers worked together. Inspector Borek confirmed that co-operation along the frontier was "fairly animated" in fighting "petty crime and all forms of cross-border crime"—however, there was less co-operation in fighting serious organised crime. The ambassador expressed concern lest the close relationships with Poland should be disturbed by the imposition of the Schengen regime on Ukraine's western frontiers. He also pointed out that upon Polish accession an ethnic Ukrainian minority of some 150,000 would become EU citizens (QQ 173-82, 221, 161).

69. On the question of EU assistance to Ukraine, the ambassador was not optimistic: "Assistance from the European Union would be helpful, however there is very little being done in that area". Mr Fortescue conceded the point, accepting that frontiers would be much more easily controlled with "the goodwill and co-operation of the big neighbours further east". While some aid was being given by the EU, it was only "a little bit". He agreed that it would be a "very sensible suggestion" to put more effort into co-operation with these countries. Mr Järviö went further, saying that "the idea is to build an atmosphere of a joint task"—one had to help with infrastructure and training, while encouraging "commitment from the authorities on the other side". On the question of Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave surrounded by two candidates, Poland and Lithuania, he urged the importance of "early enough discussion", both with Russian central authorities and with the regional authorities. The Russians, he said, "think the main purpose of Schengen is to isolate them from Europe", and it was vital that the alternative view be presented—"if we keep on explaining this to them they will come around". Dr Bruggeman also emphasised the need to counterbalance the impression that the EU was creating "Fortress Europe". For example, it would not be possible to deal with illegal immigrants coming from Russia unless we were confident they could "go back to that country and be received in humane conditions" (QQ 174, 315-8, 262, 265, 358).

THE FUTURE SHAPE OF THE EU

70. Enlargement exemplifies a fundamental change in the political structure of Europe. Where once the Iron Curtain divided the continent in half, enlargement will push the EU to the frontiers of the former Soviet Union and beyond. The Union's immediate neighbours to the East will be Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and—after Romanian accession—Moldova. All are at present both politically and economically weak; Belarus in particular lacks much of the basic structures of law and order needed for a modern state and functioning economy. Enlargement therefore poses a moral as well as a practical challenge. Mr Saryusz-Wolski suggested that "mentally west Europeans are not prepared for enlargement". For too long the division of the continent had allowed them to live in an "island of happiness", and they had come to see it as "normal and rational … a God-send". Now they were "slightly afraid of poor cousins knocking on the door". The Poles wanted "nostalgically … to be members of the European family". But it would demand a huge cultural change—for example, in the way the history of Europe was taught in schools and universities—before the west would instinctively accept them as members of that family. He argued that "there should be public debate, public campaigning, public information and education with proper resources, structures and institutions involved. The time is right to do it now". This was the task of the EU—"we will not do the job for the European Union in this respect" (QQ 236, 227).

71. Such an enlarged EU, incorporating Central and East European states, would be a very different Union to that we see today. Dr Deubner offered a personal speculation on its future shape. There would be some countries fully participating in the security and economic structures, countries "who can bear the load and whom we trust". There was also the fact that "we do want as many European countries as possible to accede … because we think the EU is the best structure for Europe to be in, to stabilise Europe". Then there were other countries—Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and perhaps Turkey, even though Turkey was formally recognised as a candidate by the Helsinki European Council in December 1999—who might never be ready to join the EU. Putting these factors together, he envisaged "a union with zones of different degrees of integration". Mr Saryusz-Wolski, on the other hand, envisaged a Union with a new cultural openness. Once admitted, Poland could become "a gate and a bridge, not a closed door towards the east". Ultimately enlargement offered the chance to "occidentalise the Ukraine and Russia" (QQ 76, 207).

33   At the forthcoming Nice European Council, in December 2000. Back

34   This allows for the 15 Member States, Norway, Iceland, and one spare line. Back

35   Strategy of Integrated Border Management (Warsaw, 2000), 188 ff. The figures in the Strategy are given in Polish zlotys; divided by four this gives an approximate Euro figure. Back

36   See The Phare Programme-Annual Report 1998 (Commission document 7569/00 PECOS 51, 6 April 2000), p. 21. Other EU funds available include aid for agricultural development (SAPARD) amounting to some 500 million Euros per year, while structural aid will total around 1 billion Euros per year (figures taken from the Commission's Enlargement web-site). Thus total EU pre-accession aid, as Mrs Pallett told the Committee, is over 3 billion Euros a year (Q 31). Back

37   This is vividly illustrated by the example of the International Law Enforcement Agency, set up in Budapest in 1995 by the main American law enforcement agencies. Despite American requests, the European Union took no part in this project-a lapse blamed in a Presidency document on "inertia or lack of political will" ("European Union Strategy for External Relations in the field of Justice and Home Affairs", document SN 2574/00 (18 April 2000), p. 10). A comparable project, the Southeast European Co-operation Centre, was launched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1999 to foster police and customs co-operation. Despite having no direct EU involvement, this American-led project embraces not only a number of applicant countries, but an EU Member State (Greece). Back

38   Presidency Conclusions, paragraph 22. Back

39   See the Presidency Conclusions to the Tampere Special European Council, paragraph 47. The Portuguese Presidency proposed a "Council Decision on the provisional establishment of the European Police College (EPC)" (document 9679/00, ENFOPOL 44, 27 June 2000). Back