Enlargement is one of the few EU policies on which every European has an opinion. It is also one of the few policies characterised by a consistent approach, if not always by a clear goal. Having followed closely the Fifth Enlargement, nEUrosis offers a Cosmopolitan-style guide to aspiring EU members - take notes, follow the steps and you might get in.
* Don’t cosy up with Washington
If you want to join our gang, you shouldn’t be too good chums with the Americans. This is particularly true since the brawls on Iraq, but is an old maxim - don’t forget that Charles de Gaulle vetoed Britain’s application for membership in the European Communities twice - in 1963 and in 1967, on grounds of geopolitics and too close ties with the US. If you want in, and if you are not Britain - go for the French fries, not the Freedom fries.
* Ignore what Commission experts think
Several candidates have wasted useful resources by wining and dining the Commission experts that come to assess their progress, hoping to secure a positive report. This is an exercise in futility, since the very mechanism for writing the progress reports is political, and not technical in character. The impressions of the experts are only used within the Commission; they are grouped, regrouped, altered and digested at several administrative levels, until they reach the College of Commissioners, who also add their impressions - and by the time the report sees the light of day, it is very different from the original experts’ contributions. According to the Commission’s political line, the final report underlines some criticisms, softens others, and veils yet others in vague wording. For example, a 2003 report stated that Romania ”can be considered a functioning market economy if the good progress to date continues decisively”. No Commission economist working on the field in a candidate country would come up with something like that. So, spare the fancy dinners and the bibulous 20-year-old translators. Warning: do not miss an occasion to wine and dine Commissioners themselves.
* Ignore what the Commission thinks in general
Anyone in the Commission from the lowest intern all the way to the President would deny that - but progress reports are not all that important to member states, who take the final decision on who goes in and who stays out of the club. Sounds too extreme to be true? Here is an example - in 1976 the Commission recommended to postpone accession talks with Greece and wrote a number of reports to this end. Nevertheless, negotiations started the same year and finished soon after. Somehow, at the time there were more important considerations that Brussels - for example the Cold War and the extremely eurosceptic socialist government of Costas Karamanlis, who was very well received in Moscow. See? At the end of the day, it does not really matter what Brussels says. Warning - cosying up with Moscow won’t help your membership prospects if you are Ukraine or Belarus.
* Make friends with the Brits, but make best friends with the Germans
Britain is one of the staunchest supporters of enlargement, with the not-so-cunning plan to weaken the continental push for closer integration. So, whoever you are, you have a friend there, but make sure you don’t have a legacy of illegal workers squatting in London’s parks and dining on Her Majesty’s swans.
Germany’s position is exactly the opposite, and hence you should really go on a charm offensive with it. Berlin has demanded stricter criteria for the countries of the Fifth Enlargement and has made life difficult for most new members during negotiations. But the good thing is, Germany is known to have favourites, and this is your chance - do as Poland did, and become Berlin’s sweetheart, and you are in. Warning - this does not work if you are Turkey.
* Tell the French that you love them
Jacques Rupnik has said it long before us - “France needs to be told that it is loved”. There is an endless supply of pleasant initiatives here - become members in the Francophony; exhibit affinity to French culture, art, food, women - it is not difficult. Warning - does not help if you are a socialist, but also if you don’t believe in the French social model; also if you are Turkey, do not speak French, prefer Italian wine, or believe Materazzi was right.
Today I was bidding my time in a warehouse in Luxembourg, wa iting alongside a hundred other bored journalists for EU’s foreign ministers to chew their lunch and deign us with a press conference. Bored, most of my colleagues were loitering around, munching tasteless sandwiches, reading papers, gossiping, calling their girlfriends in Slovenia, smoking in the sun and gazing vacantly in big tv screens. This is where it came from - no trigger went off, nobody gasped. But from one second to another, all eyes were nailed to the silver screens, all jabbering was cut. In silence we heard that one of recent history’s iconic figures had unexpectedly died.
And then, as if an electric spark went through the press crowd, the usual creative chaos ensued - phones were ringing, there was manic typing, cameramen dragging trioids were tripping over laptop cables. History had struck, now we had to tell the world about it without too much wavering, pondering and procrastination.
But Boris Yeltsin was not a person one can write about with a light hand and on the spur of the moment. He was a complex man, with a complex role in the history of the 1990s. I will not repeat what others will write elsewhere much better. I just want to tell you what an saintly-looking and alcohol-stinking old Russian once told me about him: “In Russia under Yeltsin, there was destruction, poverty, immorality everywhere - but we have never breathed so freely before or after that”.
Just like I predicted earlier today - the Belgian press agency Belga and RTBF Radio announced that exit polls grant majority of votes to Nicolas Sarkozy (29-34%), followed closely by Segolene Royal (with 24-26% of all votes cast). Statistics is ambiguous as to the third and fourth places - some agencies give priority to Francois Bayrou, while other say he is fourth, after Jean-Marie Le Pen.
It seems the most likely contenders at the second round of the elections are Royal and Sarkozy. This makes the event on May 6th all the more interesting - as both candidates have an almost equal number of supporters, the outcome will be determined by a small number of voters. In any event, all the presidential wannabe’s of the first round will have a second chance to make history at the second. Then, they will be able to call support for one of the two remaining competitors - a rather delicate situation, considering that they will have to betray their own campaigning programes and to defend one of their recent opponents.
The purpose of nEUrosis is to offer commentary and information related to Europe and the European Union (EU). We have decided to Europe 2020 competitionstart this blog for a simple reason – we are interested and involved in observing the events and trends that shape Europe, and we feel we h ave something to say.
A group of young professionals from different nationalities, backgrounds and occupations, we have decided to pool our interests and knowledge into a project that allows us to share, discuss, and learn. There will be analysis, commentary and first-hand journalistic reporting. There will be off-the-record quotes from the kitchen of Brussels. There will be some chatty numbers. There will be outrageous opinions. We will expand on stories covered in the media, search for new angles, and let our readers express and debate their own views. We will also give you an insider’s glimpse of EU affairs as we see them in our everyday jobs and lives. We hope to ignite discussions and offer you bits of information that might be of interest, but are not easily found in the conventional media.
nEUrosis will focus on EU affairs, but will not limit itself to the political ones. Rather, we will write about anything that catches our eye around Europe – possibly a rather ambitious and vague goal. But we like to think that the EU is much more than policy and politics.
This blog will ramble its way from a variety of places accros Europe – Brussels, obviously, but also Paris, Strasbourg, Budapest, and Sofia. We will try to avoid the common problem of Brussels-based EU observers to focus short-sightedly on what is happening in and around the European institutions. A variety of perspectives, from a variety of sources and contributors, is what we want to achieve. And we hope this project, started with huge enthusiasm and commitment, will turn into a lively and stimulating platform. Naturally, your comments and criticism are welcome and we are looking forward to engaging in a debate with you – but be prepared for the occasional sarky retort on our part.
We do not delude ourselves by thinking we can exhaust any particular subject here. The nature of this blog is tangential and its function is complementary rather than replacing. It should encourage you to delve deeper in the subjects we cover, and seek information elsewhere as well. We will try to give you links to good sources that you can consult should you want to learn more about a particular issue.
There is a plethora of publications on the subject in the blog space and other media. nEUrosis wants to contribute to this wealth of information in an opinionated, well-informed and interesting way. The birth of this blog, therefore, is not accidental – and neither is its name. The world of the EU is exciting and exasperating, sometimes neurotically dynamic, sometimes nerve-wreckingly sluggish in its evolution. We will follow its processes with the curiosity of explorers, who strive not simply to criticise or eulogize, but primarily to understand. And we hope that you will join us in this endeavour.
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