FROM ENLARGEMENT TO THE UNIFICATION OF EUROPE: WHY THE EUROPEAN UNION NEEDS A DIRECTORATE GENERAL EUROPE FOR FUTURE MEMBERS AND ASSOCIATION COUNTRIES AUTHORS Srdjan Cvijic Iskra Kirova Marie Jelenka Kirchner Zoran Nechev © 2019 Open Society Foundations uic b n dog. This publication is available as a PDF on the Open Society Foundations website under a Creative Commons license that allows copying and distributing the publication, only in its entirety, as long as it is attributed to the Open Society Foundations and used for noncommercial educational or public policy purposes. Photographs may not be used separately from the publication. opensocietyfoundations.org A bird in the hand: Directorate General Europe for future members and association countries June 2019 CONTENTS 2 INTRODUCTION 4 ‘FROM THE CIRCLE OF FRIENDS TO THE RING OF FIRE’ 4 European Commission 2009-2014 4 European Commission 2014-2019 5 The Enlargement and association policies in Commissioner Hahn’s portfolio – where do priorities lie? 10 FROM ENLARGEMENT TO THE UNIFICATION OF EUROPE AND CONTINENTAL INTEGRITY 10 European Commission 2019-2024 14 DG Europe 17 Qualified Majority Voting 19 CONCLUSION 1 A bird in the hand: Directorate General Europe for future members and association countries June 2019 INTRODUCTION When the outgoing European Commission took contexts.1 Western Balkan countries were decoupled ofce in 2014, the world surrounding the EU was from Turkey in the 2018 EU Western Balkans Strategy.2 a very diferent one from a decade before. In 2003, EU leaders meeting in Thessaloniki held Yet, despite the EU’s stated ambition of being out the prospect of membership to the Western a political player in its neighbourhood,3 some Balkan countries. A year later the EU launched the member states have been unwilling to respond to European Neighbourhood (ENP) Policy for closer Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine’s aspirations for political and economic relations with neighbours to closer economic and political links out of fear of the East and South. confronting Russia and aggravating enlargement- weary voters.4 In 2014, that same neighbourhood was up in fames. The Arab spring resulted in a period of protracted In the Western Balkans, the reluctance of member regional turmoil. Russia started a military confict in states to open up accession negotiations with Albania Ukraine’s east and annexed Crimea. Turkey, and to and North Macedonia in June 2019 or to proceed with an extent the Western Balkans, plunged into a period visa liberalisation with Kosovo, has yet again put the of serious democratic backsliding. EU’s commitment to the region to the test. The review of the neighbourhood policy in 2015 In addition, some EU member state actions and the 2016 Global Strategy for the EU’s foreign have become ‘overly’ politicised and in direct and security policy proposed some policy changes contravention of the Common Foreign and Security to respond to these new realities. And EU leaders Policy. The destabilising role that Hungarian state recognised that the integration logic of the ofcials and the ruling Fidesz party played during neighbourhood policy was only suitable in some the crisis in North Macedonia is the most visible 1 Council conclusions on the Review of the European Neighbourhood Policy, EU Council, Brussels, 20 April 2015, https://www. consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2015/04/20/council-conclusions-review-european-neighbourhood-policy/ Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy, European External Action Service, Brussels, June 2016, https://eeas. europa.eu/topics/eu-global-strategy_en 2 “A credible enlargement perspective for and enhanced EU engagement with the Western Balkans”, European Commission, Brussels, 6 February 2018, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/communication-credible-enlargement-perspective- western-balkans_en.pdf 3 Federica Mogherini, “Towards a new European Neighbourhood Policy: the EU launches a consultation on the future of its relations with neighbouring countries”, Brussels, 4 March 2015. Council conclusions on the Review of the European Neighbourhood Policy, Ibid. 4 For a discussion of the European Neighbourhood Policy review and the Eastern Partnership after the Ukraine crisis see Iskra Kirova and Sabine Freizer, Civil Society Voices: How the EU Should Engage its Eastern Neighbours, Open Society European Policy Institute, May 2015. 2 A bird in the hand: Directorate General Europe for future members and association countries June 2019 consequence of this over-politicisation, or capture the EU’s activities in enlargement countries and of foreign policy by political interests in the EU. The its neighbourhood have remained more than ever increasing role of political groups in the European piloted or obstructed by member state capitals. Parliament in shaping the ‘foreign’ policy of the Staying united in a more complex world, one of the Union has also been detrimental. guiding principles of the 2016 EU Global Strategy was replaced by a post-modern version of the 19th century The steady rise of populism in the EU and the European balance of power politics. response of the mainstream political groups to these challenges have added insult to injury. This In the context of the fnancial crisis, Brexit and the has left outgoing European Commission President populist response to migration, two driving forces Jean-Claude Juncker stuck in the middle – trying have guided the EU when deciding on the structure to respond to enlargement fatigue in some parts of the European Commission. On the one hand, of the Union while catering to the desire of other conservative resistance to a swift and meaningful member states to project meaningful infuence in its institutional renewal. And on the other, attempts to neighbourhood. soothe growing political pressure in some member states to end perceived over-expansionism. Juncker’s eforts to create a more political Commission have not translated into an independent A realistic and efective architecture to lead the foreign policy by Johannes Hahn, the Commissioner EU’s external action in the neighbourhood and for ENP and Enlargement Negotiations and enlargement countries is now needed to bridge Federica Mogherini, the High Representative for these divisions. Common Foreign and Security Policy. Instead, 3 A bird in the hand: Directorate General Europe for future members and association countries June 2019 ‘FROM THE CIRCLE OF FRIENDS TO THE RING OF FIRE’ EUROPEAN COMMISSION 2009–2014 EUROPEAN COMMISSION 2014–2019 At the time of Commission President José Manuel The mandate of the Juncker Commission towards Barroso and Stefan Füle as Enlargement and the neighbourhood was defned in negative terms. Neighbourhood Policy Commissioner, the Eastern It started with Commission President Juncker’s Partnership remained under the member states’ announcement that there would be no further radar. The Commission-led, seemingly bureaucratic enlargement over the course of the next fve years. programme brought substantial political infuence This decision delivered a mortal blow to pro-EU for the EU by reinforcing reformists in neighbouring reformists in the Western Balkans. countries through the prospect of free trade and alignment with the club’s standards and values. The Eastern Partnership policy was marked by The Commission concluded ambitious Association an existential questioning of the EU’s role in the Agreements with Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and region following the Ukraine crisis and Russia’s Ukraine, containing nearly 80 percent of EU laws. ever-looming presence. In the south, the review of the neighbourhood policy brought a sharp It was this new qualitatively diferent stage of turn towards scaling back ambition and a more relations that the Kremlin could not accept, forcing transactional foreign policy focused on immediate Armenia to withdraw from the agreement in 2013 and security and trade interests. It was the end of the destabilising Ukraine. ‘transformational’ ENP. At the height of the EU’s economic crisis Füle DG NEAR was a status-quo institution. It refected unveiled a strategy paper which aimed to ensure the the lack of a new agenda towards the Western competitiveness and economic sustainability of the Balkans, and oddly enough, continued to treat the six Western Balkan countries. The paper aimed not entire neighbourhood – east and south – as a coherent only for closer economic integration of the six, but region of similar EU engagement. This limited the fnalised the accession process of Croatia, which EU’s resources and ability to invest in deepening joined the EU under his watch in 2013. Furthermore, relations and projecting its infuence, particularly both Montenegro and Serbia started accession in the enlargement and reform-oriented Eastern negotiations during his period. Partnership countries. EU accession negotiations with Montenegro and Serbia sufered as a result. So did the implementation of Association Agreements and relations with the other four Western Balkan candidate countries (Albania and North Macedonia) and potential candidates (Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina). 4 A bird in the hand: Directorate General Europe for future members and association countries June 2019 This had negative efects on the reform agenda in all In general, signifcant and equally distributed these countries. attention is given to all the countries in the Western Balkans, which received almost 50 percent of The EU’s new Global Strategy aimed to project Commissioner Hahn’s visits. There