Chairman of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, has at last dotted the first i’s, announcing to the public what the European Union should achieve, when it should achieve it, and what will happen if not.
It looks basically like this. The Euroskeptics are being assured the EU will have included 28 countries by the time Mr. Prodi’s mandate expires (2005). The date of new members admission has also been identified: January 1, 2003. Even if none of the candidate countries is ready for membership by that time, the EU will in any case have to complete broad institutional reforms, otherwise the it will simply be unable to expand. The reforms should lead to the formation of a united European government whose decisions nobody can block. Mr. Prodi sees the first signs of this being impossible in the EU reaction to the coming of the radical Right to power in Austria. Europe should form its own united army, and, as Mr. Prodi put it in an interview, it will make no difference what kind of name it will have. Failing to achieve the desired results could lead to a sad end. Unless a higher level of unity is achieved, Europe will face disappearance from the world map, and the EU’s most powerful states will have to content themselves with the unenviable role of outcasts on the fringe of major events.
Thus far the revolutionary projects are encountering major problems. The Austrian case has vividly shown that something is wrong with democracy where there should be no problems at all. Simultaneously various sources have noted that far from all EU member-states were equally enthusiastic about the decision on Austria. Having burnt its fingers once, the EU might demand more virtue from candidate countries than old members. This is why Mr. Prodi, visiting Riga, recommended so persistently that Latvia liberalize its citizenship legislation, mitigate its language law, and strive for a closer integration of society. Representatives of various European Commission departments make it clear in no uncertain terms that far from all problems of this kind have been solved in the Czech Republic and Estonia, and there are also major problems in Poland, etc. It is risky to admit raw members. But it is still riskier to decide on broad expansion without solving inherent problems.
Today’s Western Europe, in spite of Mr. Prodi’s optimism, is still very far from forming a single government, which is evidenced by the Franco-British beef war, clashes over interest rates, and the continuous special stand of not only Britain but also other countries as well.
It is hardly worth demonstrating yet again from the Balkan example that Western Europe remains in the shadow of the United States, as far as big-time politics are concerned. And no tendencies seem to be discernible yet toward a changing situation, at least on our own continent. For this requires, in any case, much time and truly common interests. And only then can we speak about a specifically European army which would not obey NATO headquarters but would be the instrument of its own doctrine: this would cause inevitable complications with NATO, which seem altogether impossible today.
These reasons are perhaps also responsible for the euro steadily losing its competition with the dollar, which only enhances the euroskeptics’ influence. In all probability, the latter will be still more enhanced by the Turkish issue. This issue could well undermine the EU, even with due account of the consent of all the 15 countries to list Turkey as a candidate member. Thus Mr. Prodi was not so far from the truth when he said the EU could vanish if it did not become the leader.
However, this is so far of little consequence for us. Borys Tarasiuk and Jaime Gama, his counterpart from Portugal, now chairing the EU, have agreed that the question of Ukrainian membership is today a remote possibility and that today Ukraine must learn and do many things. And when the time comes, either two Sundays will come together or something will change — in Ukraine, the EU, and the world over. Perhaps even for the worse.
