Christie Davies writes: When the Central European nations emerged from the long night of socialism they sought military security through NATO and a reinforcement of their drive towards a corruption-free democracy and a competitive and prosperous market based economy through joining the EU. They wanted the opposite of what they had known during the corrupt, undemocratic, state-planned period of Soviet domination During the latter part of the pre-accession period collaboration between the Central Europeans and the EU and its existing constituent countries may well have been effective in the achievement of these common ideals and objectives.
The actual accession was unfair and asymmetrical. The Central Europeans had to accept unfair terms imposed on weaker and vulnerable partners. Because of the size and proximity of the European Union’s market, they had very little choice but to join, whereas there was considerable opposition to their joining from ‘old’ members, who thought that an expansion taking in several poorer countries would disturb their existing pattern of comfortable privileges. The unfairness was to be expected given the ungenerous nature of the Association Agreements (Europe Agreements) concluded in 1991 and 1993 between the EEC and the core Central European countries and the conflicts to which they gave rise.
Now three years on it is necessary to ask whether further progress towards the fundamental goals of achieving prosperity and eliminating corruption, through the establishment of open democracy and competitive markets, can still be effectively pursued within the European Union. Alternatively, have the Central Europeans entered a fundamentally undemocratic European Union, where corruption is tolerated, and one where competition, innovation and economic progress are faltering? It is a question that, of course, should be asked in every member country but it is one that has a particular importance and even poignancy for the Central European countries whose past was bleaker and whose hopes correspondingly greater than for the ‘old’ members.
The Unfair Accession
The terms of accession were loaded against the Central European countries in three ways.
1. The acquis communautaire and the CAP had been designed and developed in the material interests of the earlier members and particularly of powerful producer lobbies and to satisfy the desires to control of a central bureaucratic elite. They were not negotiable. They do not necessarily suit the nations of Central Europe.
2. The free movement of labour is supposed to be a central principle of the EU but the existing members were allowed to bar the entry of Central European workers until 2011. The Central Europeans were not granted the free mobility of labour that the original Treaty of Rome 1957 had seen as, “ an essential element of European citizenship” and as “a fundamental right”, “the most important right under community law for individuals”. All Europeans have equal rights but until 2011 some have more than others. To add insult to injury some old members have permitted and even encouraged immigration from outside Europe. Since 2004 there has been more movement of labour into the EU from outside than between the constituent countries.
3. Central Europe ended up in 2004 without its fair share of the CAP and structural or regional funds that directly and indirectly subsidised and protected agriculturalists; payments will not become equal until 2013.
One supposed justification of the agricultural funds and the structural or regional funds is that they are there to assist groups who have low incomes by reason of where they live or the sector they work in. The Central European nations are far poorer than the established ones. Some of their regions to the east are the poorest of all and some parts of their agricultural sectors most in need of modernisation. If the principle of neediness applies, whether in relation to income or level of development, why was funding not diverted to them on their accession? That this did not happen shows that the principle is a sham, On 27 September 2006, at a time when the old member states took 90 per cent of the EU’s agricultural spending with over 20 per cent going to a very wealthy France, the European Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel was still claiming in relation to the CAP that : “ the European model of agriculture embodies a core set of values”. Are unfairness and greed core EU “values”? When speaking of the EU Central Europeans would be well advised not to use the language of values but rather the language of power.
Initially the EU wanted the Central European farmers to get zero direct payments: One curious justification given for with-holding such funding was that it would halt or at least slow down the making of urgent and necessary structural changes in Central European agriculture. Yet this point applies with even greater force to agriculture in the EU’s Mediterranean countries, who are hopelessly addicted to EU subsidies. Surely by now those existing members who have been in receipt of EU aid over a long period of time should have developed to the point where they do not need it. If they have not so developed, should we not conclude that the money was wasted?
By 2013 the CAP, according to The Economist “the single most idiotic system of economic mismanagement that the rich Western countries have ever devised may well have to be scrapped due to cumulative pressures from other countries and trading blocs, who are also well aware that EU systems of income support and regional or structural funds are a form of disguised protectionism.
The Future Imbalance of Power
With accession in 2004 the situation of the Central European countries changed. Before entering the EU they had been supplicants forced to join on terms laid down by others, by a mixture of the arbitrary decisions of its bureaucracy and the material interests of its more powerful and querulous existing members. Now as full members they are entitled to press for the kind of Europe they want, which may well not be the one that had it been intended they should want nor the one that suits the earlier members.
The asymmetry in power remains. It is likely that in the future decisions will be made by simple majority voting in the EU, with the votes weighted according to population. In which case the core countries France, Germany and Italy will control 43 per cent of the votes as against only 5.6 per cent for the three peripheral Central European countries the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. The best predictor of whether more powerful nations will treat their smaller and weaker neighbours fairly is to ask ‘how did they behave in the past?’ The loaded politicking of the pre-accession period should lead Central Europeans to have doubts about the future, particularly in those countries proposing to enter a Eurozone in crisis and about to become politicised in the interests of the larger members.
Christie Davies is Professor of Sociology at the University of Reading.
