Natalya Shastik. European decadence

European decadence
EU enlargement as a failure of the European unification project

Natalya Shastik

Publication date: May 12, 2003

Europe is finally united. Contrary to the expectations of skeptics that the war in Iraq would somehow modify the processes of expansion of a single European space, Old Europe did not want to abandon the implementation of its long-standing and, perhaps, most ambitious program and, according to the previously agreed plan, reunited with the ten candidate countries. The signing of the Act of Accession to the EU by Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta took place in Athens on April 16. However, formally, these countries will become full members of the European Union only a year later, on May 1, 2004. Meanwhile, it is today that disagreements among current and future EU members have reached their climax. And it is possible that the long-awaited expansion of the European Union may mean the final collapse of the European unifying idea.

At the meeting in the capital of Greece, everything looked more than symbolic: the opening ceremony of the ceremony by Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis, the signing of the agreement by EU representatives in alphabetical order, the final speech of the President of the European Commission Romano Prodi. The signing ceremony was attended by the leaders of all 15 EU member states. The ten candidate countries were represented by a head of state, a head of government, or both. Before signing, each of them gave a three-minute speech. Thus, the entire procedure for registering European expansion took just over two hours.

The agreement, signed on April 16, will go down in EU history as the most comprehensive agreement. It is presented on 4,900 pages. Its full name alone consists of 44 words. Over the course of several months, a team of international translators in Brussels translated the draft agreement into 21 languages ​​of the enlarged European Union. It is significant that for printing it was laid out in such a way that it occupied the same number of pages in all languages.

The current enlargement is the fifth and most complex in the history of the European Union. All new 10 states are the youngest in Europe. They arose after the First World War, disappeared again 20 years later, were revived only after the Second World War as satellites of Moscow with varying degrees of limited sovereignty, and finally became completely independent only 13 years ago, almost immediately expressing a desire to become full members of the European Union.

After the inclusion of new candidates into the EU, its territory will increase by almost a quarter and its population by one fifth. In essence, the European Union will become the world's largest trading bloc with a total GDP of about 8 trillion euros. However, a united Europe will become much poorer: the average per capita income in the joining countries is only 40% of the existing level in the Union. Moreover, being a relatively homogeneous and wealthy entity, after enlargement the European Union will face the problem of a more than threefold gap between rich and poor countries, which will naturally create a colossal burden on the EU budget and its redistribution mechanisms.

However, economic difficulties frighten the Old World today to a much lesser extent than the political consequences of such a large-scale expansion of the single European space.

In mid-January of this year, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld came up with a very interesting interpretation of the geographical definition of the European continent. He said that Berlin and Paris represented the "old Europe", while the latest NATO expansion had shifted the center of gravity to the East. And, according to Rumsfeld, Washington has no disagreements with the “new Europe” on the Iraqi issue. Then the Europeans subjected such an ambitious statement by the head of the Pentagon to fierce criticism. However, after the entry of ten new members into the EU, the center of Europe has indeed shifted sharply to the East.

It is obvious that the inclusion of new members in the EU took place during one of the most difficult periods of global development. That Britain would support the US in the military campaign against Iraq could have been easily predicted. While standing in solidarity with its European partners in defiance of Washington on minor issues, London never allowed itself anything like that when it came to issues of a fundamental nature. The position of the countries of Eastern Europe was unexpected: no one expected such open anti-European and pro-American rhetoric from them just on the eve of the decisive stage in the process of accession to the EU. While France and Germany led the anti-war axis, Poland became the only continental European country to take part in the fighting in Iraq, along with the Americans, British and Australians. Moreover, in post-Saddam Iraq, which is supposed to be divided into three sectors, Polish troops will control one of the most strategically important regions of the country - either the north or the area between Basra and Baghdad. Two more sectors, respectively, will be under the control of the United States and Great Britain. True, Warsaw has been heading towards such a geopolitical triumph for a long time. It was Poland that was one of the first in Europe to support Washington’s intentions to create a new missile defense system and openly declared its readiness to deploy its elements on its territory. Of course, today Warsaw can rightfully be called Washington’s main ally in Central and Eastern Europe. Naturally, after 2004 its importance for the United States will increase even more.

The current confrontation between Old and New Europe has clearly demonstrated the transformation that the European unifying idea has undergone as it has been implemented. From the point of view of the Old World, the expansion of European space has always been seen as an alternative and counterbalance to the modernist pressure of the United States, for which globalization is only a condition for asserting its own world dominance, which does not imply any transformation of existing social relations. The European unification project, on the contrary, has always been oriented toward the formation of a unique community of states, an international cultural and religious unification of peoples, and “integral multilingualism.”

However, today European integration processes simply complement and continue American globalism. It is no coincidence that before becoming members of the European Union, the “new Europeans” were admitted to the North Atlantic Alliance. In fact, today the processes of European and transatlantic integration are almost parallel. The only NATO member state towards which Europe is showing obstinacy, despite obvious US pressure, is Turkey, which for several years has only been in associated relations with the European Union. But despite all the disagreements and contradictions that emerged between European states during the Iraq crisis, Old Europe was forced to continue the process of pan-European unification. Obviously, stopping it would cause the most negative reaction from the United States. Meanwhile, differences between the old and new EU members could significantly weaken the European integration center of power - the Franco-German alliance.

It is the strong symbiosis of Europeanism and Atlanticism, the strong link between the EU and NATO that today prevents Europe from becoming a real, alternative to “American-style globalization” integration project. However, Europe today cannot afford to sever relations with the United States. Since the end of World War II, European states have always been oriented towards the North Atlantic Alliance in the military-political sphere. It is significant that today four members of the European Union: Germany, France, Belgium and Luxembourg are trying to form their own European center of power within NATO: a contingent of rapid reaction armed forces designed to operate in crisis regions. As German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said at the summit in Brussels on April 29, “within NATO there is not too much of the United States and too little of Europe. It is this situation that we want to change through the proposals that we have made. These changes are important for the strength within the alliance and for its effectiveness." However, the Europeanization of NATO is unlikely to prevent the inevitable Atlanticization of the European Union.