The Bridge Magazine - The story of accession: The myth and its [true dimensions]

A quarterly review on European integration

SE Europe & the SE Mediterranean

The story of accession: The myth and its [true dimensions]

By Antoinette Primatarova
The European Union opened the door to Bulgaria and Romania on January 1 this year. The most recent events paving the way for this accession date were:

The European Commission’s Monitoring Reports from September 26;
The endorsement of the Commission’s reports by the General Affairs Council on October 17;
The finalization of the German ratification procedure on November 24 by the Bundestag (Germany being the last country to ratify the Accession Treaty), and
The debate and the vote on the reports on Bulgaria and Romania in the European Parliament on November 30.

These events and media reports on them concentrated on the safeguard clauses of the Accession Treaty (and respectively on the appropriateness of safeguard measures), on ‘a mechanism for cooperation and verification of progress’ (a tool for monitoring in Bulgaria and Romania beyond accession) and, last but not least, on ‘benchmarks’ to be used in this process.

The technical exercise

The framing of the last stage of Bulgaria’s and Romania’s preparations for accession continued along the lines of presenting enlargement as a complex technical exercise in which the European Commission determines and controls the agenda of the candidate countries. In the course of this technical exercise it was the carrot-and-stick game that helped to get things right.
There is no doubt that the conditionality approach delivered great results in a short period of time. But in the wake of the ‘big bang’ and the new enlargement, the shortcomings of the technical conditionality approach are becoming more and more evident.

There is no doubt that the conditionality approach delivered great results in a short period of time. But in the wake of the ‘big bang’ and the new enlargement, the shortcomings of the technical conditionality approach are becoming more and more evident.

Technically speaking, from the perspective of the EU-15, enlargement should be regarded as a success story. Politically, however, it has turned out to be a problem. Many citizens of the ‘old’ member states do not consider enlargement as part of the solution to the problems posed by the end of the Cold War and by globalization. Many of them instead consider enlargement a problem. Enlargement is broadly regarded as the reason behind the end of the ‘permissive consensus’ that allowed integration to develop as it did. How to make political sense of the whole process is a question that remains unanswered.

The similarities…

As regards the newcomers of 2004 and 2007, the situation is both similar and different. Similar because, again, technically speaking, accession is a success story. The transition of the former communist countries to democracies with market economies and rule of law was facilitated and accelerated by the conditionality approach. Broad consensus on the ‘return to Europe’ and accession to the EU helped to hide the lack of consensus on the details of transition, to essentially depoliticize the process of preparation for accession. But politically, accession marks the end of consensus, too.
This phenomenon is illustrated by the political crises of all the post-communist newcomers. Upon return to Europe the big challenge for politicians and citizens becomes how to participate in the decision shaping and decision making with regard to the future.

Upon return to Europe the big challenge for politicians and citizens becomes how to participate in the decision shaping and decision making with regard to the future.

The return-to-Europe storyline does not help to make political sense of the process of participation in the EU any longer.
Thus, both the old EU and the newcomers face a similar problem: to elaborate the big political storyline that would allow citizens to make coherent sense of what is happening in the enlarged EU.
So far with the similarities.

…and the differences

As regards the differences, they are an indirect consequence of the conditionality approach applied throughout the preparation process. Here I would prefer to stick to my own country, although the problem is common to most of the newcomers.
Bulgaria and the EU seem to be disconnected in people’s consciousness. It is still about ‘us’ and ‘them,’ and not about Bulgaria as part of the EU.

Bulgaria and the EU seem to be disconnected in people’s consciousness. It is still about ‘us’ and ‘them,’ and not about Bulgaria as part of the EU.

One might argue that this is a problem common to all the old member states: the democratic deficit.
I have in mind a rather different phenomenon. Indeed, in Bulgaria there are citizens who consider the us-and-them divide as a challenge to the country’s sovereignty. But there are also many who regard the EU as a helpful higher authority predestined to control Bulgarian politicians. The carrot-and-stick approach is regarded by many as something targeting politicians alone, thus continued monitoring and benchmarks are not considered a cause for concern. On the contrary, such measures are seen as welcome, as an external guarantee for the continuation of reforms.

Media & citizens

As a result of the routine of concentrating on what ‘they’ want ‘us’ to do, Bulgarian media and citizens still demonstrate a lack of interest in news about the EU that does not explicitly mention the country. In the weeks leading up to January 1, we were exposed to extensive coverage of all the events paving the way toward accession and only random coverage of other EU issues.
Foreign journalists are generally perplexed that Turkey’s accession to the EU remains a non-issue in Bulgaria. In stark contrast to this, Bulgarian media and politicians overreacted to a proposal by a Dutch MEP for an amendment to the November 30 report on Bulgaria that would imply the existence of a Macedonian national minority in Bulgaria.
A further striking example of misbalances: the extensive coverage of the temporary UK restrictions for Bulgarian workers and the random coverage of the vote in the European Parliament on the Services Directive. Keen not to be subjected to double standards, most Bulgarians saw the UK restrictions as a challenge, but failed to see the opportunities that the Services Directive implies for them. Might this sound like good news for old member states with their fears of too much liberalization?

‘What do we want to do together?’

I am confident that Bulgaria will get it right as regards the predetermined technical agenda. My real concern is how and when Bulgaria can get the European story right that would allow both politicians and citizens to switch from ‘What does the EU want us to do?’ to ‘What do we want to do together?’
The EU hopes to get the European story right in time for the European Parliament elections in 2009. Bulgaria is under pressure to get the new European story right ahead of this, since it is already facing the first elections for its MEPs in 2007.

Antoinette Primatarova is program director at the Center for Liberal Strategies, Sofia, and a former ambassador.
Center for Liberal Strategies website: http://www.cls-sofia.org