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European Union (Accessions) Bill

The Bill underlines an intriguing paradox. It is the latest step in a remarkable process of enlargement that the European Union has successfully prosecuted almost in spite of itself. Economic gloom has been prevalent in the European Union and there have been disagreements about foreign policy issues, such as Iraq. The ill-fated constitution has collapsed and there is malaise among EU institutions. Despite that, the European Union has somehow remarkably managed to expand in a few short years from roughly 350 million citizens to about 475 million citizens, and with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria the figure will soon be just over 500 million. By anyone’s reckoning, that is an extraordinary triumph of hope over pessimism. Enlargement has always been driven by the geostrategic good sense of consolidating liberal democracy throughout Europe—I say that in a non-partisan, if somewhat wistful, fashion—and the moral duty to reunite a divided continent. It is thus ironic that such good sense and moral purpose seem to have prevailed at exactly the time when the European Union has been fractious and introverted, as has certainly been the case in recent years. While getting Bulgaria and Romania up to the starting line and launching the process of enlargement has been a remarkably positive process, one big question looms: how do we make enlargement and an enlarged European Union socially, politically and economically sustainable? Many difficult questions are therefore posed of existing members of the European Union, as well as the new applicants and members. I have two general observations and one specific observation. First, enlargement and an enlarged European Union, as some hon. Members suggested, will not be possible unless the public and political case is made to electorates throughout the EU in more forceful terms than has been the case hitherto. We have seen the profound sense of unease and anxiety among electorates in other parts of the EU when voting on the European constitution, in which unrelated and, in my view, unfounded fears and anxieties about the process of enlargement were brought to bear on the debate. We like to think that public opinion in this country is solid and uniformly enlightened. However, as the prospect of, for instance, Turkish membership hoves into ever closer horizons, I suspect that public opinion will equally prove to be more volatile than has been the case until now. Advocates of a more diverse and wider EU have a great incentive to unite to make the case not only for Romania and Bulgaria’s accession, but for potential members elsewhere, lest we allow fear and anxiety to overshadow the benefits of enlargement more generally. My second observation is that Romania, Bulgaria, the 10 countries that joined in May 2004, Turkey, if it were to join, and any other potential applicant will not find that the EU provides the benefits for which they hoped if there is not a greater consensus about what the EU should and should not do. It is unrealistic to imagine that a highly integrated political and economic club of such a size and diversity as the EU—now 25 members, soon to be 27, and no doubt more after that—can act effectively if it is afflicted by constant internal political bickering. That will take time to overcome. The EU is in a moment of transition from one form of integration to another. No one on any side of the debate quite knows what that pattern of integration will be in years to come. We may require a new generation of political leaders. Change has already occurred, if in somewhat half-hearted fashion, in Germany. It is likely to take place in Italy, France and this country, too. Whoever is in charge in the future needs to re-create a consensus that has been lost. Without that consensus about the fundamental purpose of the EU, the glue that is necessary for such a diverse club to hang together will disappear. The risk of long-term disunity—I suggest mischievously that that might be why some advocates of enlargement have always been so supportive of it—in an organisation with such a large membership is real and needs to be addressed.