EUROPE'S WORLD DEBATING FORUM

Autumn 2006

by Sławomir Dębski

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European integration is a success story. This is so due to its effectiveness in providing reconciliation among European nations after centuries of bloody confrontations; creating conditions for peaceful development, beneficial for all countries involved; and generating a synergy of joint potential of integrating European countries to maximise their common position in world affairs, particularly vis-à-vis the United States and rising Asiatic competitors.

As every success, European integration attracts admiration of all those who look for instruments and mechanisms for introducing or enhancing democracy and bridging a development gap to the most advanced countries. Especially if they are lucky enough to live within the immediate neighbourhood of the EU. Inclusiveness, a European integration characteristic, which in the last decade has been its greatest magnet, gives the EU a rare political advantage over the United States, which does not have any comparable tool of exercising political influence.

So, in principle I share Mr. Urban Ahlin’s point that that magnetism of the EU should be used in our politics towards neighbourhood as an instrument of promoting standards and values that constitute a conditio sine qua non for European integration. It is, indeed, the strongest attribute of EU’s soft power, but it carries quite a serious obligation as well. We realise that when we see the people in the streets and squares of Kiev and Minsk or Tbilisi, wrapping themselves in a blue flag with a circle of twelve golden stars, sometimes ready to risk their lives for a chance to choose their own government in a free and fair election. It goes without saying that the EU should address its policies particularly to these people, who define themselves as would-be members of our community. This should be done by offering them a helping hand and assistance in difficult and sometimes painful adventure of changing their countries and shaping them according to the rules and standards fundamental for our identity as members of the European Union. If we are unable to do it, we will not only undermine the argument we are giving African leaders that they should follow the example of European integration, launch advanced cooperation among their countries and establish integration institutions to effectively deal with common problems and challenges. But we will also weaken credibility in our criticism of the American way of promoting and spreading democracy. If we believe we are right in both cases, we would be unable to afford a policy of non-intervention in a struggle and competition between two entirely different models of development we are facing in eastern Europe, namely: post-Soviet and pro-European. It has to be always very clear that our desire for stabilisation has nothing in common with the way in which the term is understood by individuals of the kind of Lukashenko, Kuchma, Yanukovich of 2004 and their gas-rich supporters. The sooner the post-Soviet standards and values as well as their promoters disappear in eastern Europe, the better. This is a sense of stabilisation that should be reflected in our European Neighbourhood Policy continuously.

Having said that, however, I have to make one reservation in regard to Mr. Ahlin’s way of thinking. Considering the process of further enlargement of the EU we should stick to the principle of openness of the EU agreed in Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union, confirmed also in Articles I-1 and I-58 of the constitutional treaty. It means that in shaping the EU’s policy towards any of its neighbours we should always emphasize that prospects of these relations will depend mostly and predominantly on course and pace of development of the latter. In other words, membership perspective might be open in fact only by self-determination and consistent pursuit of modernisation of a given neighbour state. Inclusion into the EU of a modern, effective, fast developing country, which meets membership standards, will never be a subject of huge controversies.