Expansion of the European Union will cease unless a new treaty is agreed, France and Germany said today.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen shakes hands with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown during a round table meeting at the EU summit in Brussels yesterday
The comments from French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel cast doubt over the entry prospects of Croatia and other countries in the western Balkans.
Mr Sarkozy ruled out enlargement past the current 27 countries without the streamlined decision-making system in the Lisbon Treaty, which voters in Ireland rejected in a referendum last week.
Current rules “expressly foresee that Europe cannot go beyond 27,” Mr Sarkozy told reporters after the EU summit in Brussels ended today. “There will be no enlargement of Europe as long as there are no new institutions.”
Mr Sarkozy’s comments come as doubt was cast over the ratification process in both the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom, escalating the crisis following Ireland’s vote.
Croatia is seeking to join in 2010 or 2011, while neighbouring Balkan countries and Turkey are vying to get in at a later date.
Ms Merkel sided with Mr Sarkozy, saying the bloc is set up “for 27” and it would be “unimaginable” to accommodate Croatia without the new treaty.
The Lisbon Treaty, the latest update to the EU's governing articles dating back to the 1950s, was scheduled to take effect in January, creating the post of full-time EU president and simplifying the legislative process. But Ireland’s No vote has thrown these plans into chaos with further talks due on what course of action to take at another summit in October.
So far, 19 countries have ratified the treaty in parliament and the process is underway in the remaining seven.
“Without the new treaty, there's no further enlargement,” Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker said. But Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa said there was no reason to slow down membership negotiations with Croatia and Turkey and they should not be "victims" of the Irish vote.
“Don't panic,” said Finnish president Tarja Halonen. “Enlargement will go as we say. I've been here for 13 years. Crises come and go, but we continue.”
EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said enlargement talks would “continue and I am certain a solution will be found before the issue of when Croatia joins becomes acute”.
Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, across the Adriatic Sea from Croatia, said: “It's already very close to becoming an EU country. No one has any doubts that it should get in.”
But Ireland’s veto, debate over whether to force a second referendum in Ireland, obstacles to the treaty in the Czech Republic and a court challenge in the UK have fuelled questions over the bloc's will to take in more lesser-developed economies.
EU leaders have squabbled over the treaty down to the smallest detail, with the Czech government insisting on deleting the word “the” from a communique that ratification “continues in the other countries”.
The final text “leaves the playing field open,” Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek said. He said he would bet 100 Czech koruna on his country ratifying, “mainly because it is not much money.”
Croatia is aiming to become the second ex-Yugoslav country to join, after Slovenia in 2004. Croatia has opened talks in 20 of the EU's 35 policy areas. It plans to complete the negotiations by mid-2009, joining a year or two later once all EU governments give final approval.
Neighboring Balkan states led by Serbia, once the dominant Yugoslav republic, are on a slower track. Today's communique cast doubt on whether the Republic of Macedonia will manage to start entry talks this year. Bosnia-Herzegovina, the scene of the bloodiest carnage in the civil wars of the 1990s, this week became the last Balkan country to sign a trade pact with the EU, the first step on the marathon path to membership.
Turkey falls into a different category. Its entry bid has inched along since starting in 2005, hobbled by grassroots western European opposition to taking in a Muslim country with a standard of living about a quarter of the EU average.