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Olli Rehn Fights EU Enlargement Fatigue

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  • Olli Rehn Fights EU Enlargement Fatigue

    Olli Rehn Fights EU Enlargement Fatigue
    By Alison Smale and Dan Bilefsky

    Focus News, Bulgaria
    June 22 2006

    22 June 2006 | 20:07 | International Herald Tribune

    Olli Rehn, the European Union's expansion commissioner, issued a
    strong call Monday to European leaders to sell enlargement to voters
    and not make it a scapegoat of larger policy failures such as high
    unemployment and globalization.

    "Enlargement blues could be called 'unemployment blues' or
    'globalization blues'," Rehn, a Finn, said in an interview at his
    office. "The origins are much deeper in our social fabric."

    Rehn, who has been responsible for enlargement for almost two years,
    acknowledged that the policy was a tough sell. On vacation last summer
    in France and Germany, he said, he heard popular criticism. "I am not
    blind or deaf," he said. "I could see there is a certain enlargement
    fatigue."

    But, he argued, Europeans are often "more rational" than their
    governments and can be sold on the notion that the absorption of eight
    former communist countries and Cyprus and Malta - all of which became
    members in May 2004 - has been a success story, uniting a Continent
    previously divided by the Cold War.

    "We should not make enlargement a scapegoat for our domestic policy
    failures," he said, adding, "The European Union has been better at
    doing enlargement than communicating enlargement."

    For instance, the EU summit meeting last week ended with a statement
    trumpeting the success of the May 2004 expansion. "That's the kind
    of thing I want to hear," Rehn said.

    Asked whether European politicians were doing enough of that kind
    of talk once they left the summit halls of Brussels, Rehn mentioned
    President Jacques Chirac of France as an example of someone who had,
    in his view, done that, but declined - in the characteristic manner
    of EU officials who must please 25 constituencies - to single out
    countries that were not playing their part. When reminded that Chirac
    must leave office within a year, he smiled and acknowledged that Chirac
    would not be a candidate in next year's race for the French presidency.

    Enlargement "has been a success story," Rehn said. "The EU should
    have all the reasons to be proud of it." Asked, therefore, why this
    pride was not more palpable, he said it was linked to "bad feelings
    and social discontent in many EU states."

    He also noted that the expansion in May 2004 was essentially
    "yesterday's news" when it happened because the EU and the new member
    states had been so careful to negotiate economic, social, political
    and other reforms in advance of membership.

    That pattern, he noted, is continuing in the efforts to include new
    members from the Balkans and in the case of Turkey.

    The summit meeting was also dominated by talk of the 25-nation bloc
    having reached its capacity to absorb new members. Rehn stressed,
    however, that this was not so much a sign that Europe should not
    expand but proof that it could not function smoothly without altering
    institutions and operations to reflect that it was no longer a cozy
    bloc of a dozen or 15 overwhelmingly West European states.

    Romania and Bulgaria are the two nations due to join next, with a
    review process this fall to determine whether or not the EU will
    stick to the current date of Jan. 1 next year for their admission.

    Turkey, which is not expected to complete membership negotiations
    for another 10 to 15 years, poses much bigger questions.

    Rehn said Turkey had made significant progress in reducing systematic
    torture but that the pace of judicial reform guaranteeing freedom of
    expression was "more schizophrenic."

    The prosecution of the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk last spring for
    remarks acknowledging Turkey's role in the genocide against Armenians
    in the early 20th century was "a disappointment in the beginning,"
    said Rehn, who met Pamuk on his last visit to Turkey. Eventually,
    however, the case was dropped - resolved in a way, he said, that
    should serve as a benchmark for other cases concerning free speech.

    He added that skepticism toward Turkey appeared to be softening
    in the most unlikely of places, noting that France and Germany -
    two countries where politicians and voters are highly critical of
    Turkey's projected EU membership - each awarded the maximum, 12 points,
    to Turkey's act in the recent Eurovision song contest.

    Both Romania and Bulgaria have made progress in the key area of
    judicial reform, Rehn said, but the EU needs to be sure that the
    changes are genuine and likely to last.

    Romania has made large strides in the past 18 months, he said, and
    Bulgaria has started to do the same, but must stay the course.

    Bulgarian legislators had to forgo some vacation last summer to put
    necessary changes in place, he noted, and this summer it should be
    the prosecutors and judges who stay at work to make convincing changes.

    "We can't say yet that it's on the right track," he said. When asked
    to specify which changes would convince Brussels, he stressed: "We
    can't start a witch hunt and ask for a certain number of people to
    be arrested because that would be against European standards. But we
    need to be assured that countries, when they join, have functional
    judicial systems."

    As for other Balkan countries - Albania and former Yugoslav republics
    that are now independent - Rehn underlined the importance of sticking
    to standards set by agreements such as the Dayton accords that
    brought peace to Bosnia after the conflict of the 1990s or the likely
    international accord now being negotiated on the status of Kosovo,
    the Serbian province that has been under UN administration since 1999.

    Asked how Balkan leaders could be expected to stick to such criteria
    when the EU itself waives its own rules on such matters as national
    budget deficits, Rehn said simply, "Of course, applying double
    standards is incorrect and counterproductive." The difference, he
    added, is one of degrees.
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