BRITAIN, EUROPE AND ENLARGEMENT
By Marcus Ormond.Despite its undisguised lack of enthusiasm for the European project, Britain has long been one of the main advocates of EU enlargement.
Successive UK governments have been among the keenest supporters of the expansions of 1995 (Austria, Finland and Sweden) and of 2004-07 (most of the former Communist states of eastern Europe). Support for Turkish accession is now so embedded in British thinking that any official visitor to Turkey (even the Queen) seems almost obliged to re-emphasise it, as if failing to do so would imply a sudden shift of policy.
Some commentators have struck out beyond the accepted frontiers of the old continent, calling on the EU to expand into the Caucasus, north Africa and the Middle East; even the name of Iraq has been mentioned.
In a strange reversal of the familiar pattern, it is London that has criticised its partners for a lack of boldness and European spirit. It is one of the contemporary world’s great ironies that Britain should be so eager to bestow on others something that she herself seems to value so little.
As ever, there are reasons for this apparent paradox. Firstly, it is a pretty good rule of post-1945 British foreign policy that any seemingly uneven road will invariably lead to Washington. The United States was also a strong supporter of the EU’s eastward expansion, seeing it as a guarantee of Europe’s future security and democracy (and, some would say, as a way of securing its own strategic interests).
The US takes a particular interest in the Turkish question, and has long pressed the EU to welcome one of its main Middle Eastern allies into the fold. Both Washington and London were stung by Turkey’s refusal to participate in the Iraq war, and have become even more determined to ensure that Turkey remains firmly within the Western alliance.
But Britain also has reasons of its own for its seemingly unquestioning support for any and all proposed inclusions. There is a long-standing belief that the issue of deepening or broadening the Union is an “either/or” one. Because of the sheer number of countries, and the disparities between them in terms of both policies and circumstances, further significant integration will be impossible.
There is always a risk that a smaller group of countries will forge ahead on their own – this is already the case in the economic sphere – but at least the pressure on Britain, which reached its peak at Maastricht in 1991, will be relieved. The dream of “ever-closer union” across the entire continent has, British policy- makers confidently believe, been banished.
Better still, expansion opens up more constructive possibilities. Many of the new entrants, particularly the former Communist states, are seen as closer to the British point of view. Economically liberal, sceptical about integration and sometimes even more Atlanticist that the British themselves, these countries have certainly tilted the European balance somewhat. This was most obviously seen just after the first wave of eastern expansion, in 2004, when support from the east allowed Tony Blair to block the Franco-German candidate for the Commission presidency.
This of course followed on from the Iraq war, when the “Vilnius Ten” leaders infuriated Jacques Chirac by appearing to put their loyalty to America above any European considerations. While early visions of an influential bloc of pro-British member states have largely faded, partly because of Britain’s own semi-detachment, there are certainly hopes that an Anglo-Turkish alliance could counterbalance the familiar Franco-German axis.
However, there are drawbacks as well, as recent disputes over the EU budget have illustrated. David Cameron was keen to trumpet his success in keeping budgetary expansion below the level some had wanted, but his position was not popular among the newer member states; Poland in particular has become a trenchant critic of alleged Western meanness.
Then there is the question of immigration, a sensitive one for Britain’s new Conservative-led government, which has pledged to reduce the numbers settling in the UK. Many have questioned whether this tallies with support for Turkish accession, which would sooner or later allow Turks to live and work in the UK without restriction. While visiting Istanbul, where he inevitably restated the British view on Turkey’s EU aspirations, Mr Cameron was challenged on this very point. He gave the not entirely convincing reply that, since western and eastern European income levels were gradually converging, this would not be as much of a problem as people thought.
While Turkey’s economy is certainly doing well on paper, it will be many years before income levels reach those of western Europe; and in the meantime Britain, which has a substantial Turkish population already, would inevitably be an attractive destination.
There is also a distinct short-sightedness about British policy on enlargement, in that there is a casual assumption that broadening Europe must weaken it. This may not always be the case. Amid the eurozone’s recent troubles, it has passed almost unnoticed that, on January 1 this year, the currency area actually expanded with the addition of Estonia.
True, Estonia is a tiny country of barely one million people, and the debt crisis has put off many of the bigger potential entrants. But, if the eurozone survives, even in a different form, it is hard to see central and eastern European states remaining outside it indefinitely. Countries like Poland, the only EU member not to see its economy contract in 2009, would certainly offer a welcome infusion of new blood, not to mention a better fiscal record than some of the current eurozone nations.
This would certainly not be good news for British eurosceptics or for the UK government, which would see itself further marginalised in European economic discussions.
However, none of this is likely to alter the thinking of ministers and officials in London, who continue to give almost blanket support to accession for Turkey and the nations of the western Balkans, who are also in the waiting room. The policy, which crosses party lines, appears to be fixed in perpetuity. In some cases it may actually be counterproductive; for example, when the possibility of Icelandic accession arose, strong backing from eurosceptic Scandinavian countries did nothing to endear the proposal to the Brussels establishment.
The EU will inevitably expand in the future, if not as far or as fast as some would like, but it remains to be seen whether Britain will be among the beneficiaries.
posted by Euro-Korrespondent @ 8:38 PM
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