The Expanding European Union A Continental Power

1
The Expanding European UnionA Continental Power

• Graham Avery
• National Centre for Research on Europe University
  of Canterbury, NZ
• 12 May 2006

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Summary

• Why has EU enlarged so often?
• Recent expansion from 15 to 25
• The process
• The results
• Future expansion what limits?
• Prospective members
• Possible members
• Unsolved problems of expansion
• Why is EU enlargement interesting important

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Why has EU enlarged ?

• Success of European method of integration
  magnetic attraction
• Globalisation small countries in big world
• Reunification of continent after Cold War
• Extending prosperity security
• EUs enlargement strategy
• reactive, not proactive

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Previous expansionsFrom 6 to 15

• First round (1973)
• United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark
• Southern round (1981, 1986)
• Greece, Portugal, Spain
• EFTA round (1995)
• Austria, Sweden, Finland

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Recent expansionFrom 15 to 25 (2004) Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic,
Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Cyprus, Malta

• Hesitations of existing members
• Conditions (Copenhagen 1993)
• Long preparation for membership
• Complex accession negotiations
• Conditionality wonderful leverage
• Differentiation tough love

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Results

• Population 20, economy 5
• Not a dramatic increase
• From 15 to 25 actors
• A quantum leap
• Effects on EU policies
• Agricultural policy
• Cohesion policy
• Budget

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• Effects on EU foreign policy
• Relations with USA, Russia
• Creation of European Neighbourhood Policy
• Coverage
• Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt
• Israel, Jordan, Palestine Authority, Syria
• Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Russia (nyet)
• plus Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia
• Aims instruments
• Encircle EU with a ring of friends
• More than partnership, less than membership
• Action plans

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Future expansion

• Prospective members
• Bulgaria Romania
• 2007 or 2008
• Western Balkans
• Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Albania
• Turkey
• the big question
• The forgotten enlargement
• Norway, Iceland, Switzerland

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• An important reason for further enlargements on
  strategic grounds (is that) the Union has no
  other equally effective foreign policy tool to
  shape its unstable environment.
• In other words, it can hardly do without further
  enlargements

Jan Zielonka, Europe as Empire, 2006
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• Possible members
• A long list
• Where are the EUs final frontiers?
• Is Europe in the heart, or on the map?
• Should we fix the limits now?
• Unsolved problems of expansion
• Neighbourhood policy how to provide security
  prosperity without EU membership
• Governance how to ensure that widening does not
  weaken EU

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• The problem is to reconcile our tradition of
  national sovereignty and democratic
  self-government with our attempt to create a
  system of continental scale, so as to achieve
  goals which go beyond the power of the nation
  state.
• The basic dilemma for the EU is to reconcile the
  expansion required for its economic efficiency,
  its security, and its external power with a sense
  of solidarity and legitimacy among its
  multinational citizens

Dominic Lieven, The Russian Empire and its
Rivals, 2002
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Why EU enlargement is interestingfor European
studies

• Systematically interrogative
• What ? How ? Widening vs. deepening
• Existential in nature
• Not foreign policy
• Transformative in character
• Soft power at work
• Institutionally illuminating
• Intergovernmental process, but
• Ongoing
• An unfinished journey

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Why EU enlargement is importantfor New Zealand

• Europe is an important partner of NZ
• Economically for bilateral multilateral trade
• Politically shared values interests
• EU now operates on a continental scale
• NZ can access new member countries
• Economic effects of enlargement
• Expands market, drives growth in EU
• Political effects of enlargement
• Reconfigures EUs role as actor in world affairs
• with or without the Constitutional Treaty

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My bibliography

• The Commissions Perspective on the EFTA
  Accession Negotiations, Sussex European Institute
  Working Paper no. 12, 1995
• Avery G. Cameron F., The Enlargement of the
  European Union, Sheffield Academic Press, 1998
• Chapter on Enlargement Negotiations in Cameron
  F., The Future of Europe Integration and
  Enlargement, Routledge, 2004
• Chapter on Enlargement Wider Europe in
  Bomberg E. Stubb A, The EU How Does It Work?,
  Oxford University Press, 2nd ed. forthcoming

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The Expanding European UnionA Continental Power

• Graham Avery
• National Centre for Research on Europe University
  of Canterbury, NZ
• 12 May 2006