Enlarging the European Union

JCMS 2005 Volume 43. Annual Review pp. 127–30

Enlarging the European Union

JULIE SMITHUniversity of Cambridge

2004 was a momentous year in the EU enlargement process as ten new Member States from central, eastern and southern Europe finally acceded on 1 May. This ‘big bang’ enlargement could easily have served to impede any further expansion of the Union as existing Members struggled to come to terms with the first wave of newcomers. However, it was clear from an early stage that the accession of the ten would not be the end of the process. Bulgaria and Romania began 2004 with the desire of joining their neighbours by 2007; Croatia and Macedonia sought acceptance as candidates by the Union; and Turkey was hoping to be given a date to start accession negotiations.

Bulgaria and Romania were recognized as candidate states in 1997 and began to negotiate membership when the Union decided to adopt a ‘regatta approach’ to enlargement, designed to ensure that states could negotiate and accede according to their individual progress. Neither state was able to catch up with the other central and east European applicants, but each hoped to join by 2007 and the Union offered them a clear strategy for completing the accession process in the form of road maps and revised accession partnerships.

The Commission’s Regular Reports on Bulgaria and Romania presented in October 2004 (Commission, 2004c, d) argued that both countries had made good progress towards meeting the Copenhagen criteria, political and economic. Much work was still to be done in terms of administrative capacity and judicial reform, but the Commission was satisfied that, if the two states continued along the same reform trajectory, they would be ready to join in 2007. The Commission indicated that the pre-accession strategy would remain until accession, and made it clear that Bulgaria and Romania would have to

© 2005 The AuthorJournal compilation © 2005 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

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© 2005 The AuthorJournal compilation © 2005 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

continue ‘reinforcing administrative and judicial capacity’ once they were members (Commission, 2004b, p. 4). The Commission pledged to continue to monitor their progress.

Negotiations between the EU and Bulgaria and Romania were completed on 14 December 2004,1 and the European Council accepted the Commission’s recommendations that they should join in 2007 (Council of the European Union 2005, pp. 2, 3) and called for the Accession Treaty to be signed in April 2005. However, in a change from previous enlargements, the EU institutions inserted a caveat that should either country fail to prepare adequately for membership, its accession could be postponed by a year. Agreeing to implement the acquis would no longer be enough, states would thenceforth have to demonstrate their commitment as well. The Commission adopted a favourable opinion on 22 February 2005, and the European Parliament gave its assent to the Treaty on 13 April 2005, paving the way for the Bulgaria and Romania to sign their Accession Treaty on 25 April 2005.

Croatia submitted its application for EU membership in February 2003, expressing its hope to join the Union at the same time as Bulgaria and Romania in 2007. The election in 2000 of a left-wing pro-European government and President had put Croatia on an apparently fast path to Europe (Commission, 2004a, p. 6). By 2004, the Commission could give a favourable opinion to the application and, in June, the European Council agreed that Croatia should become a candidate state and commence negotiations in early 2005.

Yet, there was one part of Croatia’s past, and present, that rendered prog-ress difficult. In 2001 it had signed a stabilization and association agreement with the Union, the provisions of which included regional co-operation and ‘co-operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugo-slavia (ICTY)’ (Commission, 2004a, p. 5). Continued co-operation with the ICTY was made a condition of opening accession negotiations (Council of the European Union 2005, p. 4). The issue for the EU was that the last indicted Croatian war crimes suspect, General Ante Gotovina, should be extradicted to The Hague. The Croatians denied that he was in their country and the EU postponed the opening of accession negotiations, which were due to begin on 17 March 2005.

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) submitted its ap-plication to the Union on 22 March 2004 and the European Council asked the Commission to produce an opinion on the application.

The country waiting longest to join the European Union is Turkey. Although only formally a candidate state since 1999, Turkey has had an association agreement since 1963. By the late 1990s, however, Member States accepted Turkey’s candidature in the belief that an outright rebuff could have negative 1 For details of the results of the negotiations, see Commission (2005).

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consequences, notably a move away from democracy towards Islamic fundamentalism. Despite its considerable economic progress, Turkey did not meet the political Copenhagen criteria, notably with regard to civil–military relations, human rights and attitudes towards minorities. Thus, no date could be set for negotiations to begin.

By October 2004, the European Commission deemed Turkey to have made progress towards meeting the political criteria and at its December meeting the European Council agreed to open negotiations with Turkey in October 2005 (Commission 2004e; Council of the European Communities 2005). Turkish EU membership nevertheless remained a far distant prospect, since the chapters with financial implications could not be opened until the financial perspective for 2014 onwards was agreed (Commission, 2004e, p. 8). Moreover, as the Commission noted, this was ‘an open-ended process whose outcome cannot be guaranteed beforehand’ (Commission, 2004e, pp. 2–3). In particular, it stressed that political reforms in Turkey must be irreversible, proposed annual reporting, and stated that ‘the Commission will recommend the suspension of negotiations in the case of a serious and persistent breach of the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law on which the Union is founded’ (Commission, 2004e, p. 6). The European Council accepted this proposal in December 2004. If that were not enough, public and elite opinion on Turkish membership remained deeply divided. By December 2004, Turkey had won the right to start negotiating membership, but its prospects of joining remained uncertain.

References

Commission of the European Communities (2004a) Communication from the Com-mission: Opinion on the application of Croatia for membership of the European Union, Brussels, 20 April 2004, COM(2004) 257 final.

Commission of the European Communities (2004b) Communication from the Com-mission to the Council and to the European Parliament: Strategy Paper of the European Commission on progress in the enlargement process, Brussels, 6 October 2004, COM(2004) 657 final.

Commission of the European Communities (2004c) 2004 Regular Report on Bulgaria’s progress towards accession, Brussels, 6 October 2004, SEC(2004) 1199.

Commission of the European Communities (2004d) 2004 Regular Report on Romania’s progress towards accession, Brussels, 6 October 2004, SEC(2004) 1200.

Commission of the European Communities (2004e) Communication from the Com-mission to the Council and to the European Parliament: Recommendation of the European Commission on Turkey’s progress towards accession, Brussels, 6 October 2004, COM(2004) 656 final.

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Commission of the European Communities (2005) Report on the Results of the Ne-gotiations on the Accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union, DG E1, February 2005.

Council of the European Union (2005) Presidency Conclusions. Brussels European Council 16/17 December 2004, CONCL 4, 16238/1/04 REV 1 (Brussels, 1 Febru-ary 2005).

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Enlarging the European Union