…but there is a great gulf between any confederacy of independent states

Arnold J.Toynbee, A Study of History, 1947.

The dramatic collapse of the Soviet Union marked a new phase in European geopolitics, as the former subjects of the Soviet Empire re-entered the political and economic European arena. More than a decade later, the EU remains an exclusive club, and the membership criteria effectively maintain the division of Europe once partitioned by the infamous iron curtain. There are however, crucial economical, political and security incentives for the EU to extend its borders 'eastward' and this looming incorporation of 'Eastern' European states presents numerous dilemmas for Europe's future. This report offers an analysis of a few public pronouncements on the visions of Europe made recently by key EU officials and heads of member states. These speeches are in an implicit dialogue with each other, and are in fact framed as parts of an on-going debate regarding the future of Europe. The speeches reveal the internal tensions between member states as - in keeping with European history - they struggle, negotiate and form alliances to carve up Europe in spheres of influence, vassalage and control. The wine is old, but the bottles are new, hence the search for new metaphors for the shape of a new Europe.

Below are the titles of the 5 speeches delivered in the span of 8 months by Günter Verheugen, European Commissioner for Enlargement; Joschka Fischer, Germany's Foreign Minister; and Jacques Chirac, the President of the French Republic.

• Günter Verheugen, Shaping a New Europe: Political and Economic Implications of Enlargement. Washington, DC, & Chicago, IL 4-6 April 2000
• Joschka Fischer, From Confederacy to Federation: Thoughts on the Finality of European Integration. Berlin, May 12, 2000
• Jacques Chirac, Our Europe. Bundestag, Berlin, 27 June 2000
• Günter Verheugen, Enlargement is irreversible. European Parliament, Strasbourg, 3 October 2000
• Günter Verheugen, Strategy Paper, Accession Partnership with Turkey and Progress Reports. European Parliament, Brussels, 8 November 2000

There is a tacit agreement - sometimes made explicit - that the Enlargement of the EU is both imperative and inevitable. Ranging from the fatalistic pronouncements such as "Enlargement is irreversible" and "there is no turning back"(Verheugen, October 3) or "in the coming decade we will have to enlarge the EU to the east and south-east" (Fischer, May 12) to a more exalted "we will not let Europe be divided again" (Verheugen, October 3), the speakers employ a mix of destiny-bound and proscriptive rhetoric. Be it Europe's destiny or a necessary evil, enlargement looms in the immediate future and the speeches open with acknowledgements of its inevitability. And yet each speech enumerates the reasons for inevitability and necessity of enlargement. The centre-piece reason for unification is the claim that it is morally imperative. Consider the following quote:

There is thus, the moral imperative of sharing the benefits of EU membership that the speakers announce with tremendous pathos. The patronising tone of this attitude persists in the Western European political discourse, as the reference to Robert Schuman's 50-year-old vision by Fischer makes apparent:

But if, half a century later, as the speakers claim, Europe is no longer torn apart, and history's "tragic parenthesis" (Chirac, June 27) is indeed finally closed, how can any form of exclusion on the European subcontinent be justified? If the EU enlargement process was guided by the professed moral imperative, if the incentive to include the Western Europe's less fortunate brothers was this sense of shared history, cultural bonds and destiny that compelled the EU to open its borders, how can there be any talk of membership criteria? If the moral imperative indeed was the reason for inclusion, any other justifications would be superfluous and an immediate and indiscriminate inclusion of all applicant states would be in order, perhaps along the lines of Germany's unification, which extended EU membership to East Germany de facto. And yet the speakers carry on, enumerating the remaining reasons for enlargement, compelled to spell out its political necessity and economic benefits.

The EU must extend its formal control into Eastern Europe for reasons of security and political stability. First of all, to prevent the former socialist countries from reverting to their old ways or falling under influence of other political players. Consider this pronouncement:

In addition to the claim that without the promise of EU membership the applicant states would be forever incapacitated by their corrupt heritage, the EU officials present the Eastern European countries as an external threat that can undermine stability within the EU. Coupling security with the promise of membership, Verheugen, for example, asserts that the " progress made by most candidates in their preparations for accession signify a considerable improvement in the security situation in Europe" (Verheugen, November 8). In fact, according to Verheugen, the beneficial political effects of enlargement (or rather its promise) are already in place and there is no reason to fear a return to what he calls "authoritarian structures or worse," a statement that belies the very fear that it purports to dismiss. The inclusion (or the potentiality of inclusion) of new member states thus serves as a guarantee of political stability in Europe.

In addition to the political necessity, Enlargement also offers tremendous economic benefits. Here is a summary from Verheugen:

Again, just the promise of membership opened up the markets in applicant countries to the EU trade, and the enlargement also promises infinite opportunities as Verheugen states more boldly for the American audience: "Enlargement will bring a Single Market of over 500 million consumers and an open, border-free area where goods and services can circulate freely. Trade continues to be the dynamo for market integration and expansion" (Verheugen, April 4-6). The applicant states are required to implement economic changes that presumably would be beneficial for all sides, and yet the incentive for including the economic criterion into the application process ensures that the applicant countries transition to a competitive Western European market, and remove trade barriers without any regard to how vulnerable that might render the fledging economies.

Thus, the moral imperative, the political necessity, and the economic benefits are advanced as the justification of inevitability and indeed, desirability of Eastern European Enlargement, and are openly discussed, alluded to or implicit in the speeches. With Enlargement immenent - whether desirable or simply necessary, the debate on the future shape of Europe now takes a turn to address the threats of enlargement.

The Threats of Enlargement

The logic of discussion on the necessary restructuring of the EU institutions is inseparable from the expressed threat that the mere increase in the number of the EU member states supposedly poses. Explicitly, the speakers assert that without reform, this numeric increase will inevitably paralyse the EU, rendering its institutions impotent or bringing on their collapse. As Fischer puts it:

Fischer continues, invoking reasons that appear startlingly feeble, to explain how enlargement will incapacitate EU's institutions:

What is at stake, however, is not so much the danger of Council meetings lasting for weeks or the disingenuous concern with transparency, but the fear of unruly governmentality of the applicant states and the relative power in the decision making process of the member states. By replacing unanimity with majority votes the Commission can ensure that the new potential member states do not have a mechanism to stalemate policies. Coupled with the changes in the weighing of the voting procedures, and the proposed composition of the Commission, the relative power of the larger member states can be further ensured. Consider the following statement by Verheugen:

Only thinly veiled, this expressed undesirability of allotting equal procedural power to the newly admitted states belies the fears that enlargement invokes. Thus, the old balance of power returns in a new disguise, the imperial appetites of the more powerful states prompt institutional reform in the EU that is conceived and designed to diminish the decision making power of the new potential members. Thus the very "capacity of Europe (read EU) to act" (Fischer, May 12) hinges upon successful implementation of institutional reform whose necessity is said to depend on the numeric increase in the member states, but whose spirit yet again is exclusionary.

The rhetorical move to explain how enlargement necessitates change within the EU then proceeds to offer visions of Europe's future that are presented as reconciling the tension between EU's imminent widening and its desirable integration. Juxtaposed to the "Monnet method" of gradual integration are Fischer's 'finality of European integration' and Chirac's 'Unser Europa." Rejecting the feasibility of European integration as a gradual process with no blueprint for the final 'product,' both Chirac and Fischer put forth their visionary scenarios for the enlarged EU.

With unrestrained pathos, Chirac, for example, proclaims: "the responsibility incumbent on us founder members is continually to pose the question of what Europe means, the direction in which it should move and its future, and never to allow our determination to weaken" (Chirac, June 27). The self-appointed designers of Europe's fate are, of course, France and Germany, who with a slight nod acknowledge Great Britain as another player, and carry on with their self-congratulatory exchange, sketching the blueprint for Europe's future. It turns out, for example, that France and Germany "better than any other nation… grasp the deep meaning of peace and of European enterprise" (Chirac, June 27). And that is perhaps, why "one thing at least is certain: no European project will succeed in future either without the closest Franco-German cooperation" (Fischer, May 12). So smug is this attitude that both speeches exude, that they provoked rather angered reactions on the part of other officials and intense debate by the public. Thus accused of seeking to dominate a modernized version of Holy Roman Empire (Chevenement), the Franco-German alliance indeed envisions a two-tier Europe with a core group of highly integrated members and a periphery.

Fischer speaks of the core group as an avant-garde of sorts, comprised of "a few member states which are staunchly committed to the European ideal and are in a position to push ahead with political integration" (Fischer, May 12). Deliberately vague in its formulation, the idea however suggests that if the two-tier Europe is to come into being the accession criteria will be just the first hurdle in the path of the applicant countries in their quest for integration. Whatever the 'staunch commitment to the European ideal' might intend to mean, the caveat 'in a position to push ahead' unquestionably reveals that the mechanism for deeper integration proposed by Fischer will maintain the lines of divide where it claims to deepen integration. Nominally claiming that this vision does not suppose an exclusive, closed core, Fischer suggests that it should be envisioned as a "magnet of integration open to all" (Fischer, May 12). The contradiction internal to this 'all inclusive' core group, however, remains unacknowledged.

Pushing on for the further imminent restructuring of the EU, Fischer then offers a vision of Europe as transitioning from the union of sovereign states to a European Federation, which, of course, needs an European Parliament and an European government. An unmistakable move for greater consolidation and centralization of power in the EU, this vision - if accepted as desirable - then poses a dilemma:

And the answer is obviously that the EU needs to embrace a different approach to integration. Through this leap of faith, the Eastern Enlargement then becomes the catalyst of reform, ultimately capable of transforming the EU into a federation, with a president, government, constitution and all:

This - professedly - personal vision of Europe's future, was, however later endorsed by Schröder, and constitutes a proposal of sorts that offers to close the gulf between a confederacy of European states and a federation not by a revolutionary leap or militaristic fiat but through the process of voluntary and peaceful integration, the finality of which appears so clear to Fischer. Its imperialistic overtones aside, the vision is a bold attempt at offering a blueprint for a new political and economic entity, an modern day empire without a historical precedent, and it remains to be seen whether any elements of this design will be implemented on the re-charted battlefield that Europe once again has become.

Chirac's "Our Europe" is at least partially a response to Fischer's vision, delivered a little over a month later to the Bundestag, it is more cautionary in tone. Chirac echoes Fischer in supporting the enlargement, and as he offers the glimpse of the EU as "campaigning for and engineering progress in the world" (Chirac, June 27), it becomes apparent who the engineers in charge shall be. Serenading the Franco-German alliance, Chirac states that:

Again, the center of gravity is to emerge, comprised of the vanguard minority of member states presiding over this 'engineering project,' not surprisingly coinciding with the most powerful political and economic states, and the periphery of states 'who do not wish to go so fast.' Chirac, however pays more homage to national sovereignty, and seems to favor the principle of subsidiarity, which accords power to supranational structures only when the national governments seem to be unable to resolve some matters. His vision of Europe, thus, is a more conservative United Europe of States, contrasted to Fischer's United States of Europe.

One thing is startlingly apparent from these speeches en masse. France and Germany - at least as attested by their representative officials - are coming forward in a choreographed attempt to serve as the self-appointed presiders over the proposed process of deeper integration within the EU. Fearful of the Eastern Enlargement potential to 'dilute' the integration, they offer a two-fold solution to the potential stagnation of EU development - institutional reform and a two-tier hierarchy. Both are precipitated by the Enlargement, and both are designed to codify the balance of power between the member states that is already in place. Granted, there are other players in this game, and both the US and the UK are accorded a nod of recognition. Their interests - and perhaps, still, Russia - are something to take into consideration, but the applicant countries as well as the smaller, less powerful members of the EU, are mere pawns in this grand game. In as much as the EU represents a superpower wielding enormous political and economic influence, in constant internal turmoil under external threats, seeking to extend ever greater control over vaster territories - this game is old. But in the shapes that this modern- day supranational empire is trying on, in the projects of self-definition that its elites are engaged in, and in this concoction of state-building and empire-building techniques that it is trying out - the European Union is a unique entity without a historical precedent, and it remains to be seen which visions of Europe will finally take shape.