Buffeted by populism and debt and migrant crises, there is no mood to enlarge bloc

8 hours ago by: Arthur Beesley — Brussels

European leaders will pledge in Rome on Saturday to “keep the door open” for prospective member states when they mark the 60th anniversary of the EU’s founding treaty. But the rhetoric does little to hide the reality: an enlargement policy that made a six-country coal and steel community into a 28-nation colossus is stalled.

The EU’s expansion was one of its historic achievements, helping to banish the ghosts of war, fascism and communism as waves of enlargement drew 22 countries to join the founders. Yet this policy is not just at a standstill: the Rome summit comes days before Britain triggers the first departure from the EU.

After years of tumult in the bloc and its restive hinterland, there is no mood to widen the EU’s frontiers. Buffeted by Brexit, attacked by populists and struggles to overcome the legacies of the debt and migrant crises, the bloc’s leaders face a large enough challenge — even without the growing internal divisions over migration, money and democratic standards that have further dimmed enthusiasm to let in new member states.

“In a way you can say that the EU suffers from the classic symptoms of overstretch,” said Josef Janning, senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “You not only have a greater divergence in interests when it comes to economic and fiscal questions. But you also have a greater diversity when it comes to preferences about how Europe should work.”

Other forces stand in the way of enlargement. Escalating divisions between Europe and Turkey have pushed its delayed membership bid to a point where talks might be scrapped altogether. Membership also remains a distant prospect for western Balkan countries such as Montenegro and Serbia, amid rising ethnic tension in the region.

Enlargement hardly featured in Jean-Claude Juncker’s recently drafted master plan to rally Europe after Brexit, which said further accessions were unlikely in the short term. Indeed, when he took command of the European Commission in 2014, Mr Juncker said Brussels should “take a break” to digest the addition of 13 member states in the previous 10 years.

Following the Iron Curtain’s collapse more than 25 years ago, the strategic rationale for enlargement was clear. The EU’s peaceful growth to encompass virtually the entire European continent marked a triumph for liberal western democracy and open markets. Related article Europe faces unfinished business on the euro Questions over currency’s governance as leaders prepare for anniversary celebrations

But the increasing size of the bloc, particularly after 2004, had consequences for its day-to-day business. The average wealth of newer states was lower, which has led to tensions over money and budgets, while decision-making has become even more unwieldy: consensus is difficult to achieve in vast meeting rooms where participants look at each other on TV screens.

Nor has recent experience of what EU bureaucrats call “convergence” been universally positive. A decade after Romania and Bulgaria joined, they still lag behind the wider bloc; at least some of the reluctance to expand reflects concern in western Europe about corruption in Romania and economic underdevelopment in Bulgaria.

Contentious moves to weaken rule of law in Poland and Hungary have also stirred anxiety in Brussels about whether those countries have completed the transition to liberal political standards. “If we admit that the rule of law is not the axis, the foundation on which both the EU and the member states work, we are finished,” said Jean-Claude Piris, head of the EU Council’s legal service from 1988 to 2010.

And after the EU struggled with divisions caused by the eurozone debt crisis — pitting wealthy northern members against poorer southern states — the Mediterranean migrants’ crisis of 2015 has created an east-west schism, as newer member states resisted a compulsory scheme to accept displaced people. Germany, most exposed to the influx, complained eastern countries were not reciprocating the solidarity shown to them with EU funds to modernise their economies.

Such arguments lie behind scepticism in newer member states about a drive to make more use of “multi-speed” decision-making in the bloc. Angela Merkel of Germany and other western leaders believe the bloc should move towards further integration at different speeds — as with the single currency — but eastern countries fear they would lose European funds. “Many easterners see this as a new wall, a new way of dropping them into an inferior category of membership,” said a senior European official.

Six decades of expansion 1951 – Six countries establish the European Coal and Steel Community: Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands 1957 – The same six countries establish the European Economic Community, a forerunner of the EU 1973 – First enlargement: Britain, Ireland and Denmark join 1981 – Greece joins, seven years after the overthrow of military regime 1986 – Spain and Portugal join 1989 – Collapse of the Iron Curtain 1995 – Austria, Finland and Sweden join 2004 – The EU’s biggest enlargement and its first involving former Soviet satellite states. Ten countries join: Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus and Malta 2007 – Bulgaria and Romania join 2013 – Croatia becomes a member, the second from the former Yugoslavia 2016 – Britain votes to leaves to leave the EU

Membership talks are officially open with five countries: Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey.

Ankara’s membership bid has been under way since 2005. It has long been recognised that the accession talks are going nowhere, even before a failed military coup that led President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to purge tens of thousands of alleged plotters from the military and civil service. Yet the discussions are still officially open, reflecting a wish to keep Ankara onside lest Mr Erdogan repudiates the deal between the EU and Turkey that has helped to stem the flow of migrants over the Mediterranean.

“The EU and Turkey are stuck in this very unsatisfactory marriage of convenience even though the fundamental conditions for making a success of it have long since disappeared,” said Sir Michael Leigh of the German Marshall Fund, former director-general for enlargement at the European Commission. “The logical consequence would be to suspend the process.”

Who could join next? Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey are official candidate countries. Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Kosovo, are potential candidates, while the Turkish Cypriot part of Cyprus would probably join if a deal to reunite the island is achieved. Cyprus is already a member

To date, only Austria has called for an outright halt to membership talks with Turkey. But Sigmar Gabriel, German foreign minister, recently said the most Ankara can hope for is some kind of a “privileged partnership” with the EU.

In the western Balkans, where EU concern over Russian and Turkish influence has been growing, European leaders are trying to regain the political initiative, reaffirming unequivocal support for the region’s “European perspective”. But this is a long-term play even for Montenegro, the most advanced of the candidate countries, which is grappling with increasing interference by Moscow. Russia has been accused of fomenting a failed coup in the country last year.

The worry is that the lack of an explicit EU membership prospect is itself a source of instability. “By demonstrating that you are not willing to commit to that goal, that obviously has repercussions in the countries themselves,” said Daniela Schwarzer of the German Council on Foreign Relations.

By the EU’s reckoning it will be well into the 2020s before any other country joins the club. The door may officially be open — but the wait in the antechamber is likely to be long and painful.