EU enlargement and Ukraine (update to correct date from 1999 to 2019)

A dispute over Ukrainian grain has shown how superficial the support in Poland and CEE is for Ukraine's EU entry.

I wrote on this topic for Visegrad Insight recently , focusing also on how the talk about CEE and Poland being able to become the new centre of gravity in Europe is a balloon ready to burst.

Actually, I saw this coming back in 2019, when I wrote an opinion for the FT in the aftermath of France’s blocking EU enlargement to the Western Balkans. The FT decided not to publish it because it seemed too radical at the time but I think it aged well. Here it is:

France is not the only culprit behind the enlargement debacle in the Balkans

There is much-justified criticism of France for blocking further EU enlargement this week. While dashing the hopes of reforming countries in the Western Balkans is contrary to the EU’s interests and has to do mostly with French internal politics, there are other culprits, too. First, a majority of EU countries have little appetite for enlargement and are more than happy to let the French front the resistance and take the blame. The same game was played around Turkey’s accession talks  -- when the Greeks stopped to be show-killers in 1999, the true opponents of bringing Turkey in (Germany and indeed France) emerged from the shadow to take the lead.

It needs to be said, however, that part of the blame for putting enlargement in a clinical coma falls on new ex-communist EU members. There are two reasons for this. One is that new member countries (with some notable exceptions) have become half-hearted advocates of enlargement once they themselves got in. Just like a nouveau-riche joining the country club, they seem to be looking down on new candidates more intensely than life-long members.

The dream of a reunited community of values in Europe, which was so potent in the east after the fall of communism, gave way to the mercantilist game of “each upon himself”, in which extracting the maximum benefit of membership trumps European solidarity. The common fate of Europe became a side issue for the political elites in the East, as they focused on internal identity wars and bridging the wealth gap with the West. It seems not to have occurred that there is no contradiction but the synergy between pursuing self-interest and vigorously supporting further enlargement.

The second and more consequential reason is the democratic and rule of law backsliding in some new member countries. It is not about ideology – populism, nationalism and Euroscepticism are sometimes more potent politically in the West than in the East. In fact, east European citizens are more Europhile than their fellow EU citizens in the West. They rightly associate the EU with prosperity, security, and yes, the rule of law.

It is only a superficial contradiction that despite this high support for the EU, Eurosceptic parties came to power in some countries such as Poland and Hungary. Plenty of domestic, economic and identity issues have contributed to that, reflecting legitimate voter concerns.

 What really weighs on enlargement is that some countries are brazenly flaunting club rules and disrupting its functioning. Riding gunshot over constitutional checks-and-balances, independence of the judiciary and free media in countries seen as poster children of enlargement sent a shock-wave through Western capitals.

A talk from Polish and Hungarian leaders that they will lead a “cultural revolution” in the EU to reverse its secular, tolerant and liberal character was received with a mixture of amusement and bewilderment, given the disparity between ambition and ability. But it also poisoned the atmosphere.

The two countries began to sit uncomfortably in the EU institutional set-up and broke ranks in dealing with external challenges. The disputes over migration and sudden cosying-up to China and Steve Bannons of this world were headline stuff but there is more friction in day-to-day working of the EU machinery.  At the core of this is a change of attitude of some new member countries towards the European Commission. Whereas initially most joined ranks with other smaller and medium-sized countries in a tacit alliance providing a counterweight to the Franco-German hegemony, now the Commission became enemy number one. Brussels-bashing for domestic political ends is of course as old as the union itself but usually it ends with policy compromises, or in the worst-case scenario, gets resolved in EU courts. This is how the system works. But in the case of Poland, Hungary and also Romania, compromise was abandoned by their respective governments in favour of full-scale confrontation over rule of law issues. This forced the reluctant Commission, backed by most EU governments, to take an unprecedented measure of opening proceedings under the now infamous Article 7 of the EU treaty against Poland and Hungary, which in theory could suspend these countries’ voting rights and deprive them of EU transfers.

This bruising confrontation continues to this day and has a disruptive impact on the EU’s ability to deal with challenges such as Brexit, China and President Trump.

There is no doubt France, always sceptical about enlargement, seized on this to prove her point. But it would be a mistake to ignore a wider backlash against enlargement caused by Budapest and Warsaw. Suddenly, the fading division into West and East in Europe got a new lease of life, with old stereotypes of “democracy and rule of law cannot take root in the East” resurfacing 30 years after the end of the Cold War. The notion that reunification of the continent was a mistake reared its ugly head, to the cheer of Russia who gleefully tells Western partners “We told you so”.

So, no wonder Moscow stands ready to fill the void in the Balkans as it is filling the void left by America in the Middle East. It is part of its strategic aim -- getting America out of Europe and striking a grand geopolitical bargain with the EU’s remaining big powers France and Germany. Britain’s inevitable departure makes it even more compelling. From Moscow’s point of view, this bargain should naturally exclude any further EU enlargement, especially to Ukraine. France and Germany may itch to agree but new member states should never acquiesce to this. It is high time the region got its act together, shake off blinders and return to the EU mainstream.