Towards a ‘Greater Europe’?

Over the past fifty years, the European Union has expanded dramatically. From a motley collection of war-ravaged countries, the Union now covers much of our continent, from the icy wastes of northern Finland to the southern reaches of Greece and Spain, from the wind-swept coasts of the British Isles, to the eastern hinterlands of the former Soviet empire. Not since Imperial Rome has Europe been so unified or so bound together in a shared political purpose. It goes without saying that the political project of European integration, having begun with the Schuman Declaration and the Treaties of Paris and Rome, has been one of the greatest success stories of the latter twentieth century. The horror of conflict and war have hopefully been banished from our continent for perpetuity.

The integration of Europe, however, is not just about the formation of common political structures through which all Member States integrate, for it is also about the enlargement of the core area of peace and prosperity into spaces beyond the Union’s frontiers. This expansion has taken two forms in recent years. Firstly, it has taken the form of the Union’s direct territorial acquisition of much of Eastern Europe, parts of the Balkans, Malta and Cyprus. But this was not so much old-fashioned imperialism; what was unique was that the new Member States actually wanted to join the European project. As the President of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso, has put it, the Union can be likened in some ways to a ‘non-imperial empire’. Or as Robert Cooper, one of Javier Solana’s advisors, suggested, the Union currently has a grand strategy similar to that of the former Russian tsarina, Catherine the Great: ‘I have no way to defend my borders’, she said, ‘but to extend them.’ Similarly, the European Union seems to think the same. By shining European light onto the darkness around us, surrounding countries can be shown how to relinquish their pasts and join the future. And we should all be proud of it; not many political communities can claim to have diffused the culture of democratic government to so many different societies—a political project still underway today.

The European Community in 1958


• The European Community is coloured navy blue

The European Union in 2008


• The European Union is coloured navy blue
• Official candidates for accession into the Union are coloured pink

The second form of expansion has been through the European Neighbourhood Policy, which was initiated by the European Commission under Romano Prodi in 2002. Originally called the ‘Wider Europe—Proximity Policy’, this has aimed to create what Mark Leonard, the Director of the European Council of Foreign Relations, has described as a ‘Eurosphere’. By this he means a collection of countries that assume European values and commercial standards and preferences in order to gain access to the Union’s enormous common market. There remains some ambiguity as to whether most of the countries within the European Neighbourhood will ever join the Union itself; the European Commission has left this issue deliberately open. It seems very unlikely that the countries of North Africa will ever join the Union, for the simple reason that they can hardly claim a European dimension. The same applies to many countries in the Middle East, except perhaps Israel.

The European Neighbourhood


• The European Union is coloured navy blue
• Official candidates for accession into the Union are coloured blue
• Future candidates for accession into the Union are coloured light blue
• European Neighbourhood countries are coloured pink

Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine may one day leave the Neighbourhood and gain accession into the Union itself, although they have much reform to undertake before this can occur. And even though this is the said countries’ stated aim, they often drag their feet, preferring to get bogged-down in futile domestic struggles than looking at the bigger picture. Having said that, it is also true that the Union should take a more active and assertive approach when Tblisi, Chisinäu and Kyiv ask for our help. The European Union could do much to help end the frozen conflicts in Georgia and Moldovia, while giving a greater indication to Ukraine of potential accession might also speed the necessary reforms in that country along their path. Russia too was offered a place in the European Neighbourhood, but rejected Brussels’ generous offer. As Timothy Garton Ash has shown, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin—and now probably also under Dmitry Medvedev—the Kremlin has chosen a distinctly non-European future, predicated on so-called ‘sovereign democracy’ and authoritarian leadership, with scant regard for the rule of law, media independence or human rights.

So this leaves only Turkey and the Western Balkan countries of Albania, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia. Will the European umbrella ever cover them? It seems likely that all of the latter states will gain accession into the Union over the next twenty years, although Serbia’s inappropriate behaviour will have to be resolved before Belgrade can take any seat at the European table. Turkey, however, is a more difficult kettle of fish, not least because so many Europeans seem so hostile to Turkey ever joining the Union. Many reasons are given for why Turkey should remain outside of Europe’s common borders; some of these are credible, whereas others are far less so. Many Europeans, particularly those to the far-right of the political spectrum, fear that Turkish accession will dilute the traditional Christian values held by the vast majority of European Union Member States. This argument is hard to uphold, for the simple reason that—aside a few Islamist extremists—many Muslims already live within the Union, and are well-integrated into European society. We should not need to re-emphasise that European Muslims have lived on the continent for centuries, and in some instances have behaved more appropriately than their Christian brethren. Others fear that Turkey is simply too backward and chaotic to join, or that it will lead to an enormous influx of Turkish immigrants into their own Member States. These are understandable concerns: the Kurdish problem in the north east of Turkey rumbles on, while the military often looms over Turkish society. Then again, Turkish accession into the Union will not and should not occur for many years; only once the country has been sufficiently Europeanised should it be allowed through the door.

Another potential alternative for Turkey has been mooted by France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy. This takes the from of a Mediterranean Union for countries like Turkey and Lebanon, along with France’s former territories in North Africa. Given that an organisation of this kind would potentially divide our continent into two competing blocs, and would put certain countries (like France) at the node of both the European Union and its Mediterranean counterpart, making them more influential than those Member States only in the European Union, a Mediterranean Union is not the right path for anyone and should be strongly resisted by all other Member States. Further, the very idea of a Mediterranean Union is also flawed: Finland and Britain, for example, also share borders with the Mediterranean Sea, through their position within the European Union itself.

So because Turkey has already been granted official candidate status, it would seem appropriate to continue with the process of Turkish accession. There are a number of reasons for this: First, European enlargement into Turkey will complete the near-encirclement of the Black Sea, something which began with the accession of Bulgaria and Romania in 2007. This will oust Russia’s remaining influence in the region, making a European pond out of what has for so long been a Russian or Soviet lake. This will have profound implications for other countries in the region, not least Georgia and Ukraine—both of which see their futures in the Euro-Atlantic community of democracies and the European Union in particular. A ‘democratic domino effect’ may take hold, leading to the expansion and spread of peace and prosperity deeper into the Caucuses, the Broader Middle East and Central Asia. This would contribute to the creation of a ‘ring of friends’, a stated objective of the European Neighbourhood Policy.

Second, Turkish accession will show that a country long shaped by Islamic values, can also secularise and successfully join the modern, civilised world, becoming a prosperous European-style democracy in the process. This will empower reformists throughout the Broader Middle East, perhaps inducing political change across the region, and leading to less Islamism and theocracy. Thus, the ideologically-structured belief system of Islamism will be tossed onto the ash-heap of history, much like the previous two totalitarianisms before it, National Socialism and Russian Bolshevism. In turn, this would surely lead to more harmonious relations inside the European Union, as Islamism loses its ability to subjugate various minorities.

Third, the accession of Turkey will add over seventy-million more people to the aggregated power of the Union, and potentially a large and sophisticated industrial economy. Turkey’s military strength—already shaped by NATO requirements—would provide the Union with more manpower, forces, and combat units. So the collective strength of Europeans would be somewhat enhanced, providing us with greater leverage in the affairs of the Middle East. In this sense, it might also help ensure that those complacent Europeans far away from trouble-spots realise that they too now share a border with countries like Iran and Syria, leading to gradual but nonetheless mandatory changes in strategic perceptions and worldviews. Moreover, Turkey has great potential as an energy transit corridor from the gas and oil fields of Central Asia to the core region of the European continent—through, for example, the Nabucco pipeline project. Better to have the territory on which these transit infrastructures are situated within our borders than without.

But as more and more of the continent joins the Union, it is almost certain that at some point territorial enlargement will have to cease. This is necessary not only because we cannot expand forever, but also so that we know who we are. So for those countries unlikely to ever join the Union, or for those who have failed to meet the requirements under the acquis communautaire and acquis politique (perhaps, for example, Turkey should it fail to implement further reform), one idea might be to significantly develop the European Neighbourhood Policy. What is needed is a ‘Greater Europe’, or an enhanced ‘Eurosphere’. This would include a formalised group of peripheral countries on the Union’s fringes, which have special accesses to the single market, and perhaps even a role in the process of decision making in the central institutions in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg. They might even be allowed to join the Union’s military missions, much as Norway has done under the European Security and Defence Policy. By functionally extending the European Neighbourhood Policy, we would be offering tailored but nevertheless structured cooperation to those states willing to accept not only certain elements of European legislation but also the need for wide-ranging and ongoing democratic, economic and constitutional reform. Countries could be ‘bolted-on’ to the Union in various instances where we feel that they either have something to offer us, or from where we have something from which we could mutually benefit.

What is needed then is nothing short of a European Commonwealth. This Commonwealth could also in the longer term include former European colonies, like a British Commonwealth or the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie writ large. It would extend European influence and geopolitical leverage over Africa and South America, providing a real and perhaps more potent alternative to Chinese penetration and exploitation in Africa. But let us be clear here: this Commonwealth would not be the same as European enlargement; countries would not actually gain accession into the European Union. Rather, they would be provided with aid and assistance in exchange for adopting certain European values and commercial standards; they might also be consulted formally when Europeans are drawing-up policies or making political decisions. It would be, potentially, a mutually beneficial relationship, and formalised.

The European Commonwealth in c.2030


• A potential and greatly expanded European Union is coloured navy blue
• Countries in the proposed European Commonwealth are coloured pink

A European Commonwealth might therefore provide a fruitful alternative once the project of European enlargement comes to an end. It would give Europeans a new global project, which might enable our diffusing of what we have achieved in our own continent into the wider world. It would certainly offer enhanced security for Europeans, and would simultaneously increase our international leverage and authority, but also our global responsibilities. In short, the creation and expansion of a European Commonwealth by the European Union would help to build a better and more orderly world.