Applying the Community acquis within three years ? The countries that are in the process of negotiating their accession to the EU or which will begin negotiating in two weeks should be careful not to slip into a sort of trap that could imprison them for an undertemined period.
Very logically and legitimately, the EU has specified that accessions are not linked to the conclusion of negotiations, but to the evidence provided by the applicant countries of their actual capacity to implement the Community acquis. Subscribing to commitments is one thing; respecting them is another thing altogether. It is no coincidence that the Community institutions -apart from rhetorical statements by one government leader or another who, every time he meets a prime minister from Eastern Europe, promises accession for the following year, and then everyone goes home reassured and happy- are now refusing to mention a date or a deadline; the EU's commitment is to be ready to admit new states from 2003. The rest does not depend on the Union, but on the applicants themselves.
And this is where the danger lies. Are the applicant countries actually aware of what taking on the entire Community acquis means? Of transposing it into national law and applying it? According to the Commission's calculations, there are some 80,000 pages (yes, you read that correctly: 80,000) of directives, regulations and other texts covering all aspects of economic and social life.
An untouchable patrimony. Let's be perfectly clear: there is no criticism of the Community institutions in this remark. Behaving otherwise, admitting that any country may become a member of the Union without applying its legislation would compromise a half-century of European integration. Through successive approaches, sometimes difficult compromises, gradually refined and detailed legislation, the Member States have established an impressive patrimony of common rules. How could they allow this patrimony to be compromised or to deteriorate by allowing part of the future enlarged EU to apply it only partially or incorrectly? These rules are necessary for the proper functioning of the single market; they are absolutely indispensable for protecting the natural environment or restoring its balance before it is definitively damaged; they seek to maintain agricultural activity throughout the territory of the Community, a vital requirement; they guarantee the social acquis. This list could go on and on. Everything can be perfected but nothing is useless. The requirement of compliance with the Community acquis is the condition for preventing the dissipation of European integration.
But there may be only two or three Central and Eastern European countries capable of respecting this acquis within three to four years; for the others, it will be a much longer matter. The use of transitional periods is possible, of course, and perfectly legitimate (such periods have existed throughout the Community's history) but can only concern implementation of certain provisions and not the essentials. Community legislation has attained a degree of sophistication of which many seem unaware. A marginal but instructive exercise consists of reading the infringement proceedings initiated by the Commission against present Member States for failure to respect different provisions. Look at the precise, painstaking, meticulous nature of the obligations; note that the national administrations of the countries that have subscribed to them encounter difficulties applying them in all their aspects. And the Commission services monitor the texts line by line, word by word. If the Fifteen themselves do not even manage to apply everything in detail, it is legitimate to wonder how the countries where the administration has had to be rebuilt from the ruins left by the communist regimes claim to be able to do so. It is true that shortcomings will be inevitable, comprehensible and justifiable. But the essentials, the base, must be there. To say nothing of Court of Justice supervision and the fact that in the case of non-compliance with a Court decision, the Commission is now proposing fines.
The question is not merely administrative or legislative, it is essentially economic. Mrs Wallström's calculations about the cost of application of Community environmental rules in the Central and Eastern European countries are impressive. For some of these states, an appropriate transitional period could be a solution; for others, it is not a matter of a few transitional years, but of decades. And the environment is just one example.
Too bad for those who dare not say so. The obstacle of implementation of the Community acquis is fundamental but is not the only one. If it is confirmed that Poland believes it should benefit, from the outset, from all the aids, premiums and subsidies of the common agriculture policy, the negotiations on agriculture could be deadlocked from the start. In the current EU, these premiums, aids and subsidies seek to guarantee farmers an income and standard of living similar to those of other categories of the population, in order to protect or restore rural society and avoid desertification and the overcrowding of cities. Demanding for the farmers of Eastern Europe earnings on a level of those of German farmers would mean, on the contrary, the creation of a privileged class, to say nothing of the absurd and unjustifiable cost (there are as many Polish farmers as in Germany, France and the United Kingdom put together). The situation is similar for regional policy. With successive enlargements, the European Community has taken charge of the regional development of Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal. It is not serious to claim that today's rules can remain in force in a Union of 30 members or more. Too bad for those officials who dare not say so; they will have to some day.
Still another aspect needs mentioning, namely the "new frontiers" of the present EU, represented by the security and defence policy and the creation of a common area of freedom, justice and security. Most of the Fifteen want to go faster in these essential areas, and so much the better. But eveything they do in the next two years will be added to the Community acquis the applicant states will be taking on. Are they willing to accept everything involved in this additional acquis, notably in terms of shared sovereignty? In a joint article published last month by several European newspapers, Karl Lamers and Wolfgang Schäuble wrote: "How will peoples who have never had the right to self-determination, save for very brief periods, be satisfied with the idea of calling into question, 10 or 15 years after recovering it, a sovereignty they enjoy at last? Even though they will not lose their sovereignty again, they will nonetheless have to exercise it in concert with their European partners, i.e. share it."
The essentials are in confederation. The answer, of course, is up to them. That they are part of our Europe is obvious. But apart from two or three countries that can adhere within a reasonable length of time to the conditions currently foreseen, how many will have a long wait? So should they give up their priority political objective? Certainly not, but they should study the possibility that is taking shape in the minds of those in the EU who look beyond immediate interests and are concerned about the united Europe's long-term ambitions. This possibility, obviously, is the idea of a dual Europe, one confederal and the other federal, discussed at length in this column throughout this month of January. The Central and Eastern European countries should take part in such study, should seriously assess, over and above visceral susceptibilities, whether the wider circle of the dual Europe, the confederation, would correspond to the aspirations and needs of a good many of them. It would ensure everything that is truly fundamental: security, the political stability of the continent as a whole, democracy and the rule of law, the free movement of goods and people, a unified economic area and common institutions. And, of course, the doors of the federation would remain open to those accepting its principles and obligations. Their authorities should read closely how this project was conceived of and defined by Jacques Delors, who held long discussions with political leaders, intellectuals and academics in these countries, who understood them better than the false friends who put everyone on the same footing and give everyone false hopes (1).
This comment does not claim to solve anything. It is limited to presenting ideas for further reflection. Readers who believe that the ten Central and Eastern European countries are all capable of taking on and implementing the entire Community acquis in the next two years, and that the objectives and ambitions of a common security policy that includes military intervention instruments and a decision-making capacity corresponding to the aspirations and possibilities of all ten, doubtless have the impression that they have wasted their time reading this far. Those, on the other hand, who have doubts and who are sincere friends of Central and Eastern Europe, their civilisations and their contribution to our shared culture, may have found herein the imperfect beginnings of a necessary reflection. Ferdinando Riccardi
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(1) Lecture by Jacques Delors before the Aspen Institute. EUROPE reproduced passages of the lecture in the "Texts" column of 3-4 January. If there is a certain demand, we will reproduce the full text in our EUROPE/Documents series.