Issues on European Union Enlargements - Coursework Example

Issues on EU Enlargements Outline of the Paper: A. History of European Union B. Issues on Enlargements a. Problem of EU conditionality b. Effects onEU institutions c. Political Considerations B. Conclusion History of the European Union Europe was for centuries, dominated by recurrent and bloody wars among the European states themselves. Terrible losses of lives resulted frequently and steadily. Peace, one that is lasting was therefore sought after. With the aftermath of the Second World War, in order to prevent further self-destructive nationalism and outbreak of future wars, a prominent idea among the leaders was to unite the European states economically and politically (EU Timeline). Setting the wheels going for such vision was the European Coal and Steel Community. Inspired by Jean Monnet, the French diplomat who envisioned the creation of a "Federal Europe" united along supranational lines and the acknowledged father of European Integration, Robert Schuman, the former French Foreign Minister, proposed that France and Germany, and other interested parties to combine their coal and steel resources. This Schuman Declaration was adhered by six states, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, thus forming the European Coal and Steel Community on 1951(EU Timeline). This community placed Franco-German steel production under a common "High Authority", putting into effect an intergovernmental cooperation with supranational authority (McGoldrick, 9). Treaties were signed as well to establish European Atomic Energy Community and the European Economic Community. With an enhanced institutionalized nature, the European Economic Community had four main bodies namely the Council of Ministers, European Commission, Court of Justice and Parliamentary Assembly (McGoldrick, 10). Up until 1985, the Community increased the number of its members progressively; Greece was actually the 10th member of this group. The now ten members of the group agreed in a European Council meeting held at Luxembourg to revitalize the process of European integration by drawing up the Single European Act (EU Timeline). The Act as could be seen, extended EC competence, made greater provision for qualified majority voting and laid down the objective of achieving an internal market by 1992 (McGoldrick, 10). Subsequent years witnessed further enlargement of the community and at the same time deeper integration of the Community. For example, with the German unification, the Community had to agree on a common approach to the effects of such event and its relations with Central and Eastern European countries as well. So that in a European Council held at Ireland, they concurred to establish the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the mechanism that would provide financial support to Central and Eastern European Countries. At some point, they even reached a decision to establish the European Economic Area between the EEC and EFTA member countries (EU Timeline). While economic goals were apparently met, political goals remained unfulfilled (McGoldrick, 12). On February 7 of 1992, the Treaty of European Union was signed in Maastricht by the Foreign and Finance Ministers of the member states, and while the ratification of the said treaty was voted against when put into referendum in Denmark, it was eventually ratified the second time and the treaty came into force on November 1993. The European Community formally evolved to the European Union. Earlier that year, on January, the Single European Market entered into force and accession of more states ensued (EU Timeline). Changes were introduced upon the evolution of the Community to the Union. The structure of the treaty of the European Union organized the Union's activities in three fields or subsequently called three pillars: European Community, Common Foreign and Security Policy and Judicial and Home Affairs (McGoldrick, 16). The European Union also introduced the subsidiary policy, in which the EU would only take action if the objectives of an action could not be sufficiently achieved by a member state alone. Therefore, during decision making, this policy had to be considered. Furthermore, decisions can now be taken by Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) where states are given a number of votes in accordance with their population, and decisions are carried when they are commended by a given percentage of the total votes (McGoldrick, 15). The European Union went through further enlargements since, and still until the present. Counting, there have already been five waves of enlargements. Issues on Enlargements Throughout the history of the European Union, a somewhat simultaneous pattern of enlargement and integration is taking place. By integration, it means that there is a process of intensifying the cooperation between EU member states as these national governments allow for the gradual growing and centralizing of power of European institutions set up. Enlargement signifies the increase in the number of member states. And it is apparent that with further enlargement, there seems to be a need for deeper integration and vice versa. Albeit the Union is a regional bloc considered relatively successful on holding out on its own, it could be seen that steady enlarging along with integrating can cause several issues to arise. Problem of EU conditionality One of these issues lies in the conditional nature of EU membership, in particular attached to the CEECs applications. In order to join the European Union, a state must satisfy the Copenhagen Criteria, or several economic and political conditions. An aspirant member has to be a stable democratic government and has a competitive market economy, and should demonstrate that it is willing, and of course able to take on all EU policies for the present as well as for the future (Grabbe, 249). Any enlargement requires ratification by the existing member states, the European Parliament and the applicant country in question. According to scholars, although these conditions may appear straightforward and simple, it is on closer inspection, complex and puzzling to political scientists. One of the questions surrounding these set of requisites is the questions of having double standards. It is known that diversity is a key feature of the Union, and respecting difference of each member while deepening the integration of the Union remains important. That's why the European Union did not come up with a uniform model of democracy or capitalism, and never even tries to define one. But, whether this principle of diversity applies to the aspirants can be disputed if they are asked to conform to something not even properly defined. It is in spite of everything, not self-evident what kind of economies or political systems really meet the Copenhagen criteria. And, as the early members never had been judged by the Copenhagen conditions, it could even be said that some of them would be unacceptable if they would be judged accordingly (Grabbe, 250). These conditions are there for practical and ideological reasons. These were designed to minimize, for the current members, the risk of having new entrants becoming politically unstable and economically burdensome that they would be affected. The conditions gauge whether the countries joining are ready to meet all the policies and ruled of the European Union. After all, an increase in number and diversity could inevitably impact the workings of EU institutions and mechanisms. The things is, all these stipulations before one can join the EU are very broad and open to various interpretations, or as well as misinterpretations. Assumption of what constitutes a "democracy" or a "market economy" are implicit rather than explicit. The ultimate award of accession is only given to those who satisfy completely the members that they are ready to be a member and there is no such thing as a partial readiness (Grabbe, 251). The EU is firm in demanding that aspiring members fulfill all the requirements before they join. It even assists the countries and monitors their progress to ensure proper implementation and enforcement. But, how then could it be reconciled that these aspirants are working towards undefined standards and judged by the same open-ended criteria Another question of EU conditionality can be seen on the inconsistencies of the various recommendations of the EU to the applying state. For example, EU may want the country to act prudently financially and maintain fiscal discipline but it could be asking at the same time the country to undertake a lot of costly systemic reforms. This certainly would put the country at a dilemma (Grabbe, 263). In general, though the conditions may appear uncomplicated, it is very difficult to understand how countries are judge on their readiness and pinpoint exactly when the criteria had been met already so that the country become eligible to join the Union. The Copenhagen Criteria is not a necessarily a checklist of clear objectives, plus the EU do not specify the means to achieve the stated goals (Grabbe, 264). Readiness is a biased question solely determined by the EU side, and looking at how vague the criteria are, these put the applicants at a considerable disadvantage. Effect on EU institutions Of course, issues of enlargement do not affect the applicants only. The EU, by going through periods of continuous widening and deepening would also leave a mark on its institutional mechanisms. The accession of new states affects the functioning of the institutional system in several ways. As the overall number of each EU institution grows due to enlargement, the effectiveness of intra-institutional deliberation is compromised. It obvious that more members would hinder the speed of coming up with actions when they are needed (De Witte, 235). Accession of new states would also impinge on the main decision-making body of the Union comprised of the formal representatives of the member states governments, the Council of Ministers. The Council could decide by unanimity or qualified majority depending on the policy area, but both the two modes of decision making could also be influenced by the entrance of new member states. An increase in the number of members would undoubtedly make unanimous decision-making complicated and more difficult to achieve, taking account the increasing numbers of delegations possessing veto power, while the accession of new member states could affect the coalition building process so integral during decision-making taken by Qualified Majority Voting. Moreover, enlargement would mean higher transaction costs as well as new sources of communication failures in the decision making with each new member state bringing in new practices of political and administrative culture and complicating matters (De Witte, 236). With all these going on, an urgency to correct things would then be felt resulting to deeper integration on several policy areas. By becoming more institutionalized and centralized, although it has its benefits, the complications this process could bring can not be discounted. The EU could reduce its consistency and efficiency with all the expanding and changes it had to go through. Political Considerations It is clear that by joining European Union, member states, old as well new ones would reap economic benefits such as trade concessions and aid. Statistics shows that EU firms that are trading with the applicant states experiences greater prosperity from their investments and the applicants are gaining higher per capita incomes as a result of impending accessions (Nello, 292). But on a political point of view, joining the European Union gives birth to problems and questions to both sides as well, that are controversial and complex. These are the problems of how to extend cost-intensive EU policies like the Common Agricultural Policy and the Economic and Monetary Union and other courses of action to include the new member states that would clearly have economic consequences but political undertones (Nello, 292). Problems on costs and tradeoffs are to be anticipated, and they are unlikely to be resolved easily, more so when they are many of them trying to come up with a resolution. For instance, by expanding the euro-zone to some not high-income, less rich countries would turn off some richer states to join the zone. This is an indication of market nervousness about EU enlargement and confidence on the euro would wane (Nello, 307). For the new states on the other hand, if they would adhere to the aims of the Economic and Monetary Union, they would face pressure for additional governmental spending from a number of sources, they would be asked to take on infrastructure improvements, pension and social security systems reforms as well as on the areas of healthcare and education. Not only that, the new entrants would have to spend on environmental awareness, nuclear safety and improvement in administrative and judicial capacity (Nello, 309). Again, the applicant countries have the most intricate task of adapting to EU policies and standards, thus forcing them to incur humungous amounts of expenses, yet the Union wants to ensure that the enlargement will not take a huge part off from the Community budget so aid to these new countries is limited. Whereas both parties emerge benefited from trade liberalization, the political issues seem to cause immediate conflicts between the current and potential/new member states. Extending the group to countries that are just in the process of catching up is likely to risk the confidence in the euro and several EU institutions (Nello, 310). EU had come a long way from just being a group that combined their steel and coal productions but it is still far from being perfect. With several issues at hand that needs to resolved, EU had been successful in igniting the cooperative nature of the once warring states but failed to anticipate certain problems that would arise once it expanded to encompass more states and integrate more deeply at the same time. Works Cited: De Witte, Bruno. "Anticipating the Institutional Consequences of Expanded Membershio of the European Union." International Political Science Review. 23:3 (2002). 16 October 2007. . EU Timeline. The European Commission Representation in Bulgaria. 16 October 2007. . Grabbe, Heather. "European Union Conditionality and the Acquis Communautaire." International Political Science Review. 23:3 (2002). 16 October 2007. . McGoldrick, Dominic. International Relations Law of the European Union. NY: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 1997. Nello, Susan Senior. "Preparing for Enlargement in the nded Membership in the European Union: The Tensions between Economic and Political Integration." 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