The European Wager
    Le Monde | Editorial

    Tuesday 26 December 2006

    Sofia and Bucharest have just escaped the European Union's cleaver by a hair's breadth, now that the EU has decided to defer all new adhesions until it provides itself with the institutional and financial means to strengthen its "integration capacity." The states of the former Yugoslavia and, of course, Turkey, will wait for better days. Bulgaria and Romania, however, will become members on January 1, 2007. The Twenty-five have decided that, for them, these two countries' entry is simply the last step in the 2004 enlargement, which opened the doors to former satellite countries of the USSR. These two adhesions mark the completion of the great wave of expansion after the fall of communism.

    The EU, therefore, will include twenty-seven countries in a few days, with close to 487 million inhabitants. It will stretch as far as the Black Sea. After Western and Central Europe, Southeastern Europe - heir to a different history - will join the EU. The head of the Greek Orthodox Church, Monsignor Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens, is delighted that the "voice of Orthodoxy" is be strengthened by the arrival of the two new countries.

    Bulgaria and Romania know that they are adhering under difficult conditions. The commission's last reports show that they are not altogether ready. The EU hesitated for a long time before admitting them as of January 1. It has pointed out serious failures in key areas such as the struggle against corruption, management of regional assistance, and food security. It has not excluded the option, if necessary, of applying safeguard clauses that would entail the provisional suspension of certain arrangements. Only a minority of member states will open their employment markets without restrictions to workers from the two countries. Like the ten countries that entered in 2004, Bulgaria and Romania will not be part of the Schengen Convention area until after a transition period.

    The other difficulty is linked to the moment of adhesion. After a certain euphoria in 2004, which marked the official end of the Cold War and the victory of the "European Model," disillusion has set in. Confidence has given way to worry and a certain "fatigue." The Franco-Dutch double "no" to the proposed Constitution was, in part, an expression of those fears. For Sofia and Bucharest, what's important is to get into the club. But their entry is taking place under surveillance. The two countries must redouble their efforts to fully meet the European Union's criteria.

    The EU's wager is to show, by cautiously integrating Bulgaria and Romania, that enlargement is not the same as an unchecked acceleration, and that it remains under control. If the EU has just applied the brakes to the process, the general strategy is not in question: Enlargement continues to appear as an engine for growth and a stabilizing instrument.