Three aspects stand out from the report on EU enlargement published by the European Commission this week. Its detailed analysis of how ready the 13 states concerned are to join the EU is a sharp reminder of how intrusive accession is.
It affects crucial areas of sovereignty such as taxation, public administration, corruption, social benefits, legal systems and privatisation of public assets. This report reveals a very uneven preparedness for accession, even though none of the 10 states set to join the EU at a ceremony in Dublin next May 1st is now expected to fail. And the report underlines how deeply political are the consequences of this enlargement for the European continent. The process will continue for at least another decade, ending up with an EU of up to 35 states.
Joining the EU is a fundamental political objective for the states concerned, and has been so since most of them regained their political independence after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. It has given them a detailed benchmark against which to measure their transformation into liberal democratic political systems and functioning market economies. This change would have been undertaken even if the EU had not existed; the fact that it does has made the task much more concrete and achievable. It is a tribute to the political and economic leaderships of the acceding states that they have been able to steer their societies to the point where they are now set to become fully participating members of the EU, as is made clear in the series of International Reports published by this newspaper.
Poland, Slovakia and Malta receive the most severe criticism among the 10 states joining next year. Such issues as state spending, Common Agricultural Policy monitoring and the pace of privatisation are cited for the Poles, while the Slovaks and Maltese fall down on state subsidies and spending. But despite such warnings none of the 10 states are declared unfit to join. Romania, by contrast, is not yet considered a functioning market economy. This could jeopardise its chances of joining by 2007 and affect Bulgaria's likelihood of doing so too in that year. Both could now join somewhat later - with Croatia, which has recently lodged its application.
The cases of Cyprus and Turkey illustrate how much EU enlargement bears on European politics. The Commission says a failure to reach a political settlement in Cyprus would affect Turkey's chances of joining the EU. There is an effort to link the two questions politically, but not to make them conditional on one another. It is a delicate moment, but one that holds out the promise of progress, as Turkey faces a judgment in December next year on its overall fitness and preparedness to join the EU.
Enlargement has been by far the most effective of the EU's foreign policy instruments since 1989. With the great exception of the Balkans, inter-state conflicts elsewhere in a reuniting Europe have been moderated and transformed by the prospect of joining the EU.