The EU is pressing to admit 10 new member countries from eastern and central Europe, along with Cyprus and Malta, by 2004. Changes in immigration laws, border controls, subsidies to farmers, and whether or not the expanded European Union will be a two-tier setup are all points of conflict roiling up as the deadline nears.

A proposal by the governments of Britain, France, and Spain to create a EU presidency that would have substantial power has run into opposition from the government of Austria, a view reflecting the concerns of those member countries with smaller economies or populations. Rather than a rotating presidency among all member states with a six-month term as is currently the case, the proposal would give the chief executive a five-year term.

"I cannot accept the argument often quoted that one could expect the larger member states to manage the presidency more effectively than smaller countries do," said Austria’s foreign minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner. "Equality of all member states has been, and still is, the basis for the smooth functioning of the EU."

The Financial Times noted that officials of the three larger countries "argue that small countries, such as Malta or Estonia, cannot be expected to take on such a big responsibility while large countries such as Germany would have to wait more than 12 years for their turn." The paper noted that the German government favors a "federal model--in line with the smaller countries."  
 
Irish gov’t’s ‘number one’ priority
Several days later Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern warned the EU that enlargement will be in jeopardy if a referendum this fall on the expansion is again rejected by voters in Ireland. A year ago a referendum on the Nice Treaty, which outlines a new EU structure, was voted down.

The Irish nationalist Sinn Fein formed a Peace and Neutrality Alliance along with the Green Party, National Platform, and others to campaign for a "no" vote. Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams explained at the time that the treaty "paves the way for the creation of a new superpower, an EU superstate with its own army dominated by the largest countries." The new EU structure would allow "larger states like Germany, France, Italy, and Britain to automatically treble their votes in making EU laws from 2005 while small states like Ireland only double theirs." He condemned the proposed 60,000-strong EU Rapid Reaction Force as "an army designed for war, an army to impose by force the interests of the EU or an elite within it."

Ahern said adoption of the treaty is the "number one" priority of the Irish government. As part of this effort, he is reported to have struck a deal in which EU powers attending the Seville summit would agree to assure Ireland’s military neutrality. Ahern is to declare that Ireland’s "traditional policy of military neutrality is not, will not, and cannot be affected by the treaty of Nice or any other treaty." The Irish prime minister added that Nice "does not impose any legal binding military defense commitment or require that Ireland participate in the establishment of a European army." Enlargement cannot legally take place until all 15 members ratify the Nice accords.

There are also worries in the wake of strong showings in elections across Europe of parties, such as the National Front in France, that campaign against the EU and blame it for rising economic and social problems facing working people and middle-class layers.

Günter Verheugen, European commissioner for enlargement, told reporters that "there is a danger that populist movements in European countries will exploit the enlargement as an attractive target to attack European integration in coming elections."  
 
Conflict continues over Cyprus
The government of Greece has reiterated its stand last week that it will block enlargement if any member state attempts to prevent a divided Cyprus from being admitted to the EU in 2004. Greece’s ambassador to the EU said it was "unthinkable for any Greek [political] party to vote in favor of accession that does not include Cyprus." He added that if Cyprus is "not among the first lot, there will be no enlargement."

Cyprus is an island in the Mediterranean that is divided between Greece and Turkey. In the early 1970s the military dictatorship then running Greece staged a military coup in Cyprus with the aim of annexing the country. The rulers of Turkey responded by occupying the island’s northern third, allegedly to protect the Turkish-Cypriot minority, and installed a puppet regime.

Last year Turkish prime minister Bulent Ecevit threatened to annex the northern third of the country if the island is allowed to join the EU without a settlement to the conflict. Turkey has applied for membership in the European Union but is not among those being considered for admittance in 2004.

On the particularly explosive issue of financing the eastward expansion, Czech foreign minister Jan Kavan said that any delay by the EU past October in finalizing agreements with applicants would be "a major problem." The EU foreign ministers decided in early June to put off discussion about the financing until after the federal elections in Germany.  
 
Enlargement regulations
The financial terms and a host of EU regulations that the 10 new countries will be subjected to are making the expansion a hard sell in eastern Europe. In March the European Commission released a poll indicating that in only four countries--Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Cyprus--do a majority of people see joining the EU as a "good thing." The other countries up for admission are the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, and Slovenia.

With the exception of Cyprus and Malta, capitalism was overturned in each of these countries following World War II, and their economies and social expectations remain marked by the resulting social transformations. Press reports indicate that the impact on working people of the economic slowdown in Europe over the past year is also making many question the benefits of EU membership.

In Poland, for example, unemployment stands at 18 percent nationwide, with some areas hitting 35 percent. The recent bankruptcy of the shipyard in Gdansk has put 6,000 workers on the street, and the loss of jobs will have a wide effect in the area.

Farmers in Poland and other countries face the threat of losing their land in face of drastically reduced subsidies and moves to legalize the sale of land. Istvan Majoros, an analyst at McKinsey and Co., told the Washington Post that the "subsidy alone that a farmer in Austria receives per acre is enough to buy an acre of land in Hungary. The entire land ownership question is still a hot political issue and needs to be sorted out before any foreign ownership of land can be considered."  
 
‘Two speed Europe’
In a feature series entitled, "Not everybody’s pot of gold," the Post reviewed some of the details of the enlargement process.

"Brussels has effectively legislated a two-speed Europe after enlargement, with a striking disparity between what the existing and new members will receive," the article stated.

To limit financial transfers to the east, EU officials put a ceiling on payments for member states at 4 percent of a country’s economic output. With a low gross domestic product compared to their counterparts in western Europe, the new members will hit the ceiling almost immediately. For example, the 10 candidates will receive on the average $109 per capita for infrastructure projects while Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain--the poorest of the current EU members--will receive an average of $222 per capita.

There is an even greater disparity for farmers. In the first year of enlargement farmers who live in new member countries will receive 25 percent of the subsidies that farmers in countries already in the EU are entitled to. It will take 10 years for the subsidies to be evened out.

The host of regulations that each new country must adopt is also a bone of contention. Jaroslaw Piertras, the Polish minister charged with coordinating the country’s efforts to join the EU, said that today "we are re-regulating things that were deregulated in the 1990s. In some areas we start to ask questions: ‘Why this regulation?’ They will say, ‘Simply because it is there.’"

While some countries have received the okay to have longer periods to meet various criteria, the Post reported that overall, the "EU officialdom in Brussels has been so successful in pushing the accession countries to absorb these laws that new members have a higher degree of implementation of EU laws than the existing member states."  
 
Gap with U.S. imperialism
The goal of the British, French, German, Italian, and other imperialist powers on the European continent in forming the EU was to a create a counterweight to U.S. imperialism in the world. The Post points out a number of ways that the "golden moment is eluding Europe." The big-business newspaper assesses that "European government officials have been reluctant to take the political risks necessary to reform rigid labor laws that discourage job growth by making it difficult and expensive to fire workers in response to changing business conditions."

In Germany, France, and Italy, the "public remains reluctant to embrace a form of ‘shareholder capitalism’ that it associates with American cultural domination, widening inequality, and a kind of cut-through competition incompatible with the European lifestyle," the paper reported.

"As a result," the Post series concluded, "despite a workforce that is highly productive when it works, the euro zone remains a high-cost, low-growth economy that not only is losing ground to the United States but also is increasingly unable to finance social programs it cherishes."  
 
 
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