The new commissioner will take this on board. The new European Commission will soon be examining the future of the EU's budget and will therefore have to consider future EU enlargement. The arrival of new member states will impact on both the way the EU functions as an institution and on the funding of common EU policies. Irrespective of progress in current and future accession talks, the EU cannot afford to ignore the domestic implications of enlargement. While not decisive for countries like the Balkan states, for example, this cannot be ignored when it comes to other countries.
I believe it is highly positive that the domestic implications were mentioned this week at the hearing at the European Parliament of the EU commissioner-delegate for enlargement and neighbourhood policy, Stefan Füle of the Czech Republic. It was French MEP Hélène Flautre of the Greens/EFA Group who raised the question, asking whether a big country like Turkey possibly joining the EU in the future would have repercussions on European Union flagship policies like the common agricultural policy (CAP) and the cohesion policy and whether these repercussions would be properly examined (see issue 10054). Specific answers could not be expected about any particular candidate countries, of course, but Füle spoke plainly about the underlying idea, saying that the impact of future EU enlargement on the different EU policies would certainly be considered. He pointed out that his fellow commissioners were directly involved in the accession talks and that when the time comes, both the CAP and the cohesion policy would have to be adapted to avoid being in what he described as a “difficult situation”.
MEPs must examine the implications. Flautre's quizzing is very positive because she is encouraging the Commission to include the issue in its upcoming reflection and also because it should make member states and MEPs follow suit. I do not doubt that a number of member states used to share the views argued in the document “Reforming the budget, changing Europe”, (and some countries probably still do), because they want to see a slashing of EU funding for the CAP and the cohesion policy and they want the two policies to be scrapped in their current format. Some MEPs have simply not looked into the issue or are acting on a populist vote-garnering basis of voting automatically against everything. If the topic under discussion is foreign affairs, they will vote for free trade zones with the whole of the world; if the subject is EU enlargement, they will vote for all countries to join the EU, including Turkey and the Ukraine; and if the subject is cohesion policy or the CAP, they will vote for the two policies to be strengthened, without considering whether most of the funding for the CAP and cohesion policy would end up flooding to the Asian part of Turkey, and without stopping to even consider the impact on their own countries of Turkey and the Ukraine joining the EU. As far as I know, Füle is the first EU commissioner to voice direct common sense without beating about the bush.
And what about the impact on EU institutions? Similar thought should go to the institutional repercussions of a country with as big a population as Turkey joining the fold. It is true that the new Lisbon Treaty measures on how decisions are taken at the Council of the EU will not come into force until November 2014 (thanks to Prof. Delcourt, some transition measures will be in place until March 2017), but Turkey would not join until they are in force. When they are, all Council decisions will have to be voted through by at least 55% of member states representing at least 65% of the EU's population. The size of the population will be key when it comes to calculating whether decisions go through or whether there is enough of a minority to form a veto. Turkey will also have more MEPs than any other country.
In passing, I would like to point out that the EU Court of Auditors has criticised the pre-accession aid for Turkey (€4.9 billion for 2007-2013), because the Court argues that there is no evidence that this EU funding is actually being used to bring about changes in Turkey so that it can join the EU (see issue 10055). Not to mention the fact that the political situation in Turkey is fragmentary. The government is behaving impeccably and the prime minister and a number of other ministers are genuine and carry things through, but other institutions and forces in the country are pulling in the opposite direction, not wanting closer ties with the EU. At the same time, the Kurds increasingly see themselves as a separate community or nationality, artificially divided up between four different countries, three of which are not European in the slightest.
I therefore do not think it is feasible for Turkey to join - despite Istanbul's European miracle.
(F.R./transl.fl)