Has Mr Rehn gone beyond his mandate? It is not often that a document from the European Commission provokes such heated reactions as those greeting the new report on the accession prospects of eight candidate countries. The harshest criticism comes from the European Parliament's rapporteur on enlargement, Elmar Brok. It is true that Mr Brok has taken a precaution: his declaration does not cite the Commission as a whole but rather the commissioner in charge of accession negotiations, Olli Rehn. The College, nonetheless, has approved the document, which implies that it agrees. Or is it rather the fact that Mr Rehn's oral declarations to the press have gone beyond what the Commission actually decided? Elmar Brok avoids the question. Rehn's declarations and the main thrust of the report were summarised in EUROPE 9776, as was Mr Brok's response to it in EUROPE 9778.
According to Brok, the commissioner has gone beyond his mandate in several regards: a) the EU has explicitly indicated that the results of negotiations with Turkey remain open; the ongoing process is in no respect irreversible; b) it is untrue that there is no relationship between the Lisbon Treaty and future accession: the president of France and the German Chancellor have both in fact ruled out any further enlargement (except for Croatia) in the absence of this treaty; c) the EU's absorption capacity of new member states remains a valid and essential criterion; d) Mr Rehn's orientation would make enlargement into a problem and not an outcome.
Pierre Lequiller, the official voice of the French parliament (he chairs the European affairs committee at the National Assembly, which held a hearing for Mr Rehn last Thursday, immediately after the commissioner's Brussels press conference) reaffirmed that there is no question of further accession (apart from Croatia) before the Lisbon Treaty is definitively ratified: “It is much easier to expand rather than deepen. Europe has too often proceeded to running away before enlargement (without sufficiently explaining what these enlargements entail) to the detriment of deepening”.
The real problems. Mr Rehn says that he is aware of the importance of the Lisbon Treaty to all future and successful enlargements; what he rejects is the jumbling up of deadlines, given that the first possible accession (Croatia) would in fact occur after the entry into force of the new treaty. He therefore believes that it is pointless to slow down accession negotiations.
These quarrels about the calendar are not what really count. Other considerations are far more important. For example, do the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina feel that they are building a nation and do they really believe they can live together? Are Kosovo and Montenegro economically viable countries? Are the countries of the former Yugoslavia aware that settling their disputes represents a preliminary necessity to their accession?
Calls for prudence are, partly, at least, the result of problems encountered in the two most recent countries to join the EU, Romania and Bulgaria. Some MEPs have overtly affirmed that their accession was premature and they should avoid making the same mistake with the current candidates. This restrictive position is sometimes accompanied by a certain distrust of member states' intentions with regard to rapid accession processes: aren't certain governments aiming to make genuine European integration into a more remote prospect and drown it in an enlarged inter-governmental EU? If this hypothesis is true, “differentiation” with the Union will become inevitable and even salutary because it will only allow for the unity of Europe to progress among countries that want it. Seen in this perspective, the polemic surrounding Olli Rehn's position is but one factor in the differences of views regarding European integration.
Two conditions remain. These divergences should not create the impression that some member states and the European Parliament want the EU to close in on itself. This would be unthinkable and incompatible with its vocation. Further enlargement, however, must respect the two well-known fundamental conditions: it is imperative that deepening accompanies enlargement; candidate countries have to fulfil preliminary conditions as well as all the other ones laid down. In the meantime, the EU can and must ensure its support and tighten the links with all countries in the zone in question.
Tomorrow, this column will return to some different cases, including Turkey.
(F.R./transl.rh)