Time for EU to firm up relations with neighbours

WorldView: Last week European Union leaders met President Putin of Russia at their informal summit in Lahti. Energy co-operation loomed large on the agenda and it was agreed to proceed with negotiations on a new partnership agreement with Russia.

Human rights within Russia and its fraught relations with neighbouring states such as Georgia were also discussed. Spain made a fruitless plea for more integrated policies on migration into the EU from African and north African states.

There was informal discussion of how the forthcoming European Council in Brussels in seven weeks' time will handle future relations with Turkey, and the capacity to absorb new members as the EU enlarges further.

This week most existing member states, Ireland included, made it clear they will not extend free movement of labour to Romanian and Bulgarian workers when these states join the EU in January.

The EU's relationship with its neighbours to the north, east and south is a common theme bringing these issues together. Public opinion surveys find wide acceptance for the distinction commonly drawn between the civic EU and the wider cultural or civilisational Europe. Russia, Georgia and Turkey are part of the latter, not (yet) of the former. But now that an enlarged and enlarging EU is becoming the predominant institution on the Continent, how are future relations between the EU and the wider Europe to be defined?

Analysts discern a pressing need to resolve this ambiguity in the definition of Europe if progress is to be made in the EU's relationship with its neighbours. How large will the EU become and where will its durable borders lie? How will the relationships between the "ins", the "pre-ins" and the "outs" be defined?

Political and bureaucratic frustrations with the existing policy instruments following last year's rejection of the constitutional treaty in The Netherlands and France raise the issue. There is a growing debate on whether to revive or cherry-pick the treaty.

Much will depend on the elections in France next summer. An effort to renegotiate the treaty, by making it simpler and less ambitious, is expected in 2008.

Public opinion increasingly demands that territorial boundaries be agreed if new structures of legitimate political identity are to be forged within the EU. Thus the open and pragmatic attitude towards enlargement inherited from the post-cold war period is under strain. France and Austria have already installed a new condition that enlargements beyond the 27 member states in January be agreed by national referendum, to provide a further hurdle against Turkish accession.

These new conditions affect the Balkan states of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania, all of which have been given a perspective of eventual EU membership, including them in the "pre-ins". Croatia is ahead of the others; but its accession could be delayed until the ambiguity is resolved.

If attitudes harden against them further, the consequences for European security could be profound, since enlargement is part of their regional peace process.

Much of the current aggravation between Russia and Georgia has to do with Georgia's decision to join Nato and its ambition to join the EU. Neighbouring Armenia and Azerbaijan share these aspirations to a greater or lesser extent - as do Moldova and Ukraine to their north, and Byelorussia's opposition. So, to the 27 EU member states it would be plausible to add another 13, based on existing expectations. The prospect of 40 EU members over the next generation raises in acute form questions of final form, functions and borders for many of the political actors involved.

At present relations with the pre-accession, hopeful and neighbouring states are dealt with through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) launched in 2004 by Romano Prodi. He summarised it in the phrase "all but institutions", indicating a readiness to be flexible and open with incentives and conditions concerning political and economic relations, stopping short of common sovereignty-sharing. Individual action plans are being developed to deal with each of the states involved. These include the EuroMed partners to the south such as Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.

Karen Smith, an expert on EU foreign policy at the London School of Economics, says the ENP does not have the coherence or capacity to deal with these tasks. Speaking to the Institute of European Affairs in Dublin this week she argued that its action plans are long on aspiration, but short on political priorities or willingness to use sanctions to achieve such goals as democratisation or incentives for market opening and trade access. There is little or no insistence on regional co-operation among the EU's partners, but rather a hub and spoke relationship with Brussels. Effectively the policy is run by the commission, in competition with the council of ministers and with member states' own bilateral foreign policies.

The growing gap between policy expectations and capacity to deliver will frustrate both sides, Smith believes. This reinforces frustrations arising from the ambiguity about future EU membership. Those who believe they are "pre-ins" - including Ukraine - resent the ENP, while Russia says it is too important to be involved.

The formula "all but institutions" is flawed. It leaves final destinations undefined and restricts sovereignty-sharing to eventual EU membership. An alternative vision of a "European Commonwealth" has been put forward by John Palmer. It envisages three layers of states sharing different levels of sovereignty. The outermost one would include the "outs" but pool sovereign decision-making in selected spheres such as security, energy or markets, based on common values. A second one would include the "pre-ins" and be more intrusive. The innermost one would be the EU members.

And one should add that the most integration-minded would like to see a leadership group prepared to go further than the others with internal flexibility - an issue Enda Kenny raised in his address to the Forum on Europe this week as requiring further discussion. The scenario recalls Mitterrand's idea of a European confederation floated in 1989. Achieving something along these lines will take at least as long - and much more political will than is currently visible.