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Commissioner Chris Patten on EU enlargement
On 1st May, 10 central and southern European countries will
be formally welcomed into the EU, boosting its population by
20 percent to 450 million people and creating the world’s
largest single market. Together, this union of 25 Member
States will represent a quarter of world trade and more than
half of the world’s external and development assistance.
These are impressive figures. But what has been achieved in
getting to this point is even more impressive.
With the fall of communism in 1989, Europe was unlocked from
decades of barbed wire divides, mutual suspicion and the
threat of war. Hope was reborn. But without something to aim
for and assistance along the way, hope could quickly have
turned to despair and conflict. The incentive of EU
membership and parallel support has secured peace and
stability throughout the European continent, which have in
turn fuelled economic development and the prospect of
prosperity for all.
It has not been easy though. Our new partners have had to
restructure almost every aspect of their political, judicial
and economic systems. The European Union has also had to
take some hard decisions. To talk of May 1st as if it were
the start of EU enlargement is to ignore the last 15 years
and how far we have come. In so many ways, this EU
enlargement is already a reality, even for those outside the
future EU25.
Many challenges and opportunities await us after May 1st .
Adding so many varied countries to the mix will necessarily
change the way we do things. Our new partners have their own
views, aims and needs. New alliances will be formed and new
issues dealt with. The rejection by the Greek Cypriot
population of a deal to reunify the Mediterranean island
means that for the first time, the EU will have the complex
task of dealing with a divided country. In practical terms
too, we have to find a way of ensuring decision-making
doesn’t become less efficient. This is why it is so
important that we agree on a European Constitution as soon
as possible.
What May 1st will effectively do is give the citizens of the
new Member States the right to vote in June’s European
elections, enable their governments and Commissioners to do
the same at EU meetings, and extend EU programmes and
policies to cover these territories. In so doing, the EU’s
borders will have moved eastward and southward.
Some fear a bigger EU, and suggest that it will become a
fortress Europe. To them I can only say that after years of
working to overcome barriers that split Europe in two, we do
not want to create new dividing lines of ‘haves and have
nots’ within Europe or beyond. With every enlargement of the
EU, the same fears were voiced. History has shown that,
while in the short-term adjustments have to be made on all
sides, over the longer-term the benefits of strong EU
economic development have spread far beyond the EU. For our
closer neighbours, our greater proximity combined with the
experience of our new members will give relations with these
countries a new depth and edge which we are developing under
our new ‘European Neighbourhood Policy’.
Beyond the European continent, the EU will have greater
clout in multilateral organisations, such as the UN and WTO.
Our political priorities will not change, nor will the
economic assistance that we provide worldwide diminish. We
will remain committed to promoting good governance,
sustainable development and alleviating poverty throughout
the world. And the EU will remain the largest international
donor of aid in order to match our words with deeds. The
only changes to be expected are positive. Our political
partners will now have a platform to develop relations with
yet a greater number of European countries. And foreign
investors and exporters will now have yet larger markets to
profit from.
So, with this historic enlargement about to become a
reality, I look forward with confidence to the challenges
ahead and hope our partners worldwide will work with us to
seize the opportunities an EU of 25 offers to us all.
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