European Union embarks on expansion
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LONDON, England (CNN) -- Europe is on the verge of a period
of dramatic growth.
In May 2004, 10 new nations join the union, including eight
former communist states. Two more are expected to join in 2007
and a review of Turkey's application will be made in December
2004. By the end of the decade the EU's land mass could have
been stretched by a third and its population swelled by more
than 100 million to almost half a billion.
The European community has expanded four times in the half
century since six core nations -- Belgium, France, West
Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands -- agreed to
place their coal and steel production under a single,
supranational authority in 1951.
Until now, however, expansion has been an incremental
affair. In previous enlargements -- in 1973, 1981, 1986 and
1995 -- the union took on just three, one, two and three new
members, respectively.
In May 2004 10 new members will join -- Latvia, Lithuania,
Estonia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia,
Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus. The EU's population will be
swelled by 20 percent to 450 million.
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First wave
Negotiations with the leading wave of candidates mostly
from the ex-communist eastern bloc -- the Czech Republic,
Cyprus, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia and Estonia -- began in
March 1998.
The six frontrunners targeted an entry date of January 2003
-- the time they say their institutions and markets would be
ready for the rough-and-tumble of the EU's free market. But
analysts say this timetable was overly optimistic.
To join would-be members have to bring their national laws
into conformity with the union's strict criteria on everything
from human rights to the environment and ensure that the
political mood does not sour on accession.
Second wave
A second group of aspirants -- Romania, Bulgaria,
Lithuania, Latvia, the Slovak Republic and Malta -- began
negotiations in February 2000.
In October 2002 the European Commission gave its verdict.
In 2004 it would admit 10 of the 13 applicants -- not
including Turkey. The European Commission report said Turkey,
which has been an EU candidate since 1999, met political and
economic membership criteria but needed to clean up its human
rights record.
Romania and Bulgaria -- which faced greater difficulty than
some of their eastern neighbours tackling economic, political
and social issues after years under communist rule -- were
given a date of 2007.
At the European summit in Copenhagen in December 2002 it
was formally agreed to admit the 10 newcomers in May 2004. A
much-disappointed Turkey -- now with a new government -- was
told its case would be reviewed in December 2004 and entry
talks could begin shortly afterwards if there had been
significant improvements in the country's human rights record
and treatment of its Kurdish minority.
Turkey, a NATO member and decades-long EU aspirant, had
agreed in principle in December 2000 to the measures it had to
take to join the EU but had seen its EU talks stall amid human
rights concerns.
Turkey's decision to sentence Kurdish leader Abdullah
Ocalan to death in June 1999 prompted a formal objection from
European leaders. The sentence has yet to be carried out.
Still with only a distant hope of membership is Ukraine, a
country with a population the size of France -- 50 million.
After the accession of Poland, Ukraine will lie on the EU's
eastern border.
Ukraine received $3.72 billion in financial assistance from
the EU -- its largest overseas donor -- between 1991-99.
But the country is still coming to terms with its Soviet
legacy -- including the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986
-- and the EU has criticised government of President Leonid
Kuchma for the lack of political freedoms.
Logistical hurdles
The road to accession is strewn with logistical hurdles as
most EU institutions were designed for a smaller, cosier club.
Accommodating a dozen newcomers, observers say, means a
wholesale rethinking of issues ranging from the size of the
decision-making commission, to how to weigh and allocate votes
and what procedure to follow when tallying those votes.
Othon Anastasakis, a researcher at the London School of
Economics' European Institute, said: "Because there are major
internal problems (within the EU infrastructure), sometimes
the technical part of the negotiations and the technical part
of bringing those countries closer to the EU has been
delayed."
To rectify these problems, representatives from the 15
member governments met in a year-long inter-governmental
conference, which started in February 2000 and established a
blueprint for institutional reform which ended with the
announcement of enlargement of the union from 15 to 25
members.
Another inter-governmental conference will be held in
Germany in 2004 to discuss the next round of constitutional
changes.
Fears over growth
Membership of the EU means instant access to one of the
world's most competitive marketplaces -- 390 million consumers
strong. And for some EU leaders, the benefits of taking on new
members are not clear-cut.
"There is a problem with political will coming from the EU
and that has always been a problem," said Anastasakis. "The
most obvious excuse the EU gives is that there is a wide gap
between the economic and political development of eastern and
western countries."
Those who oppose enlargement cite a number of reasons:
Worries about the impact of cheap labour and goods from new
members' markets; a reluctance to shoulder the added budgetary
burden of an expanded Europe; concerns, especially prevalent
in France, that more members means a smaller portion of the
subsidy pie for domestic farmers in existing EU states.
And French President Jacques Chirac's plea before the
German parliament for a "pioneer group" of cutting-edge
European countries able to forge ahead with their own agenda
has heightened uncertainty.
"The EU wants to create a wider, homogeneous Europe," says
Anastasakis. "But when you see voices from France and Germany
calling for a Federal Europe, a multiple-speed Europe, that
means there is less political will to accept those countries
perceived as backwards."
The prospect of membership, however, carries enormous
symbolic weight for many of the candidates.
Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Foreign Minister of Estonia -- a
Baltic nation of 1.4 million people that will join in May 2004
said: "We were cut off from the union by being invaded by the
Soviet Union in 1940 and we have followed the development of
Europe since then without being a part of it."
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