On Armand Clesse's "This enlargement mess"

Sir, 

Armand Clesse’s article "This enlargement mess" appears to be trying to scare us with a vision of a Europe in economic decline that also lacks direction − a Europe that he maintains is very different from the Europe of the 1960s and 1970s. The reason for Europe's woes, argues Clesse, is simple; enlargement.

It's worth reminding ourselves that the European project was never intended to be limited to the six original founding members. From the very beginning it was assumed that all European countries (including, one day, those on the other side of the “Iron Curtain”) could join. So it is misguided to see enlargement as a betrayal of the founding fathers' legacy.

Nostalgia for the 1960s and 70s appears to be nostalgia for a period of relative European insignificance on the world stage. Some would even say that it's nostalgia for a time when the realities of the Cold War left much of Europe as little more than an American protectorate.CWhen Mao Tse-Tung, China's communist leader at that time, was asked for his views on Europe, he replied that events on this insignificant peninsula were of no interest to him.

Without enlargement there would also have been a second European construction − one centred on the EFTA-embracing counties of central and eastern Europe and Scandinavia.

Instead enlargement helped the EU to become a major global economic power, capable of shaping the international rules governing world trade, competition and investment. It is only through being able to speak with one voice that the enlarged EU is capable of protecting its members from unfair competition from emerging economies like China. The European single currency − now in the process of being adopted by many of the new member states − has arguably become the world's most stable and trusted currency.

It is worth adding that between 2003-2006 the cost of enlargement represented just 0.1% of the combined GDP of the EU's 15 member states, and also that enlargement has placed no additional burden on the EU's budget. There is plenty of research demonstrating that neither has enlargement disrupted EU business, and that the most controversial issues there have little or nothing to do with enlargement.

The EU is certainly far from perfect. But few would doubt that it is the world's greatest example of peaceful integration. Europe can point to over a half century without war and to a community based on the rule of law as well as common values. When it comes to a model for peaceful development based on compromise amongst nations the EU is often held up as an example to the world. On top of that, the EU now boasts an international prestige that it ever enjoyed in the 1960s or 1970s.