Could the EU enlarge itself to death?
A floated Commission proposal to give candidate status to Georgia is rekindling alarm from federalists that the biggest proponents of Eastern enlargement are those who don't want a strong EU.
Tomorrow the European Commission is expected to publish a long-awaited report on the progress of countries who have applied to join the EU. Most of the focus will be on Ukraine, with the Commission expected to conclude that the war-torn country has met four of the seven criteria for moving ahead with accession negotiations. The report will inform a decision on whether to move things forward, which needs to be accepted by all 27 EU prime ministers and presidents at a summit in Brussels on 14 December. But the report is also expected to contain something even more controversial: a recommendation for Georgia to be given candidate status.
Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia had their applications assessed together shortly after the start of the Ukraine war last year, but EU national leaders only granted candidate status to the first two, following a report from the Commission concluding that Georgia was not ready. There were various theories at the time on why Georgia, which had never been seriously part of the accession conversation before, had been included. Some suspected that the Commission threw it in there (rather than assessing it separately later) in order to deflect criticism that it was giving an easy ride to Ukraine. There were reports that Commission officials had filled out forms that Ukraine was supposed to fill out. By denying Georgia, the Commission could argue that it was still rigorously enforcing enlargement criteria. This is why national officials were reportedly stunned last night when the Commission revealed that its report would now recommend candidate status for the country. To many, it feels like deja vu: another case of dangling a carrot in front of a country with no real prospects of joining the union in order to keep it in the Western camp, as happened with Turkey.
The Balkans and the Caucasus are not the same
On the surface it might look like Moldova and Georgia are in a similar situation. Both, like Ukraine, are former Soviet states. Both are Christian-majority countries. Both have pro-Russian factions within which the pro-Western leaders say can only be combatted with accession signals from the EU. But to think the case for accession of these two countries is similar is to completely ignore geography, politics and history.
Logically Moldova should be part of Romania, which is already an EU member state since 2006. The population speaks Romanian (though the Soviets tried to invent a language called “Moldovan”, this was undone when the country achieved independence in 1991 and the constitution specifies that the national language is Romanian). Its existence as an independent state is a hangover of Russian imperialism. It was part of the Principality of Moldova which was, along with the Principality of Wallachia, one of the two Romanian-speaking semi-autonomous regions of the Ottoman Empire. In 1812 the Russians won a war against the Ottomans and were given the Northeastern half of the Principality of Moldova, which they renamed Bessarabia and absorbed into the Russian Empire.
Later, as the Ottoman Empire was crumbling, the remaining Principality of Moldova joined with the Principality of Wallachia to declare independence and form Romania in 1859. Then, at the end of World War I as the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires were collapsing, Romania was able to annex Romanian-speaking Bessarabia and partially-Romanian-speaking Transylvania. Together Wallachia, Moldova and Transylvania formed the three pillars of the modern Romanian state. But Romania made the mistake of allying with the Nazis in World War II, and after the war the Soviet Union took back Bessarabia and made it a Soviet Republic named Moldova, restoring the pre-1918 borders. At that time the name of the region that remained in Romania was renamed in English as “Moldavia” to avoid confusion, but Romanians still call both “Moldova” (just like there the country of Luxembourg but also the province of Luxembourg in Belgium, which is the territory ceded from the former to the latter in 1930).
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the question of whether the two countries should reunite has been a major debate - particularly after Romania joined the EU. The question in Brussels has been when and how Moldova will join the union, not if. Should talks start about admitting Moldova as its own member state, or should the EU wait until the question resolves itself by Moldova joining an existing member state? With the invasion of Ukraine, it seemed clear that there was no longer time for the question of reunification to be answered, and Moldova will join as its own state to end up in a situation not unlike that of Austria. Long story short: the question of Moldovan accession has been seen as the end of a process, the logical extension of the EU to all Romanian-speaking lands either through unification or accession. Much like the countries of the Western Balkans, EU accession was seen as Moldova’s eventual destiny.
By contrast, nobody outside of Washington and Tbilisi was talking about Georgian accession before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. While Moldova is seen as the end of a process of Balkan accession, Georgia is seen as the start of a process of Caucasian accession - and that is a volatile region few in the EU are excited about taking on. Georgia is not an accident of history unjustly created by the Soviet Union. Georgians are one of the most ancient nations of Eurasia and one of the earliest to adopt Christianity, forming a kingdom in the year 1008 (300 years before Russia, as the Principality of Muscovy, was founded). They have their own language, their own alphabet, and their own church. But their history is largely connected to Asia (having at various times been part of Arab caliphates, Persia and Mongolia) rather than what is commonly considered Europe. Russia invading Georgia and absorbing it into the Russian Empire in 1801 is what really began its loose association with Europe. The same can be said to the other two former Soviet republics in the Caucasus, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
If Georgia belongs in the EU, then logically so do Christian Armenia and (secular) Muslim Azerbaijan. So would any future Caucasian breakaway republics that are now part of Russia, such as Muslim Chechnya and Dagestan. But Azerbaijan has a similar history to Moldova. Most Azeris live in Iran, the modern country of Azerbaijan is simply the part of Greater Azerbaijan that the Russian Empire happened to conquer from Persia. Armenia is the part of Greater Armenia that the Russian Empire happened to conquer from the Ottoman Empire (most ethnic Armenians were in the latter, but the survivors fled to Russian Armenia after they were ethnically cleansed by the Turks in the Armenian Genocide).
The Balkans are inarguably part of Europe. But when it comes to Turkey and the Caucasus, it is geographically, historically and culturally questionable. Europe is a man-made concept (geologically it is just a part of the Eurasian continent) and so the boundaries are not clear. In the South and East, they are generally accepted to be the Mediterranean Sea, the Turkish Straits, the Black Sea, the West edge of the Ural Mountains and the North edge of the Caucasus mountains. Georgia falls outside of this traditional definition. But like Turkey, which has a small section on the European side of the straights, it is a grey area.
In designating Georgia as an EU candidate country, the Commission therefor seems to be making a bold answer to that question: the Caucasus is Europe. But they may not be fully thinking through the implications of that designation. Do EU citizens really see Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Chechens and Dagestanis as being part of Europe? And even if they do, do they think it’s logical that they should be in a confederal union with them?
Accession as a tool to kill federalism and European autonomy
Last month, at the Granada Summit of the European Politico Community, I wrote about how the EU accession process has been abused as a geopolitical tool to keep countries on side with the West, at the urging of Washington and London. That is what happened with Turkey, which today most people accept will never be part of the EU. And, some fear, that is what’s happening now with Ukraine and Georgia.
This scepticism about EU accession is something I’ve found American and British people just don’t understand, because they don’t know their own role in pressuring for it to happen up to now. For many in Western continental Europe, there is lingering resentment about how the accession process has been abused as a geopolitical tool to keep countries ‘on side’ with the American-led Western order rather than as a strategy for building a workable confederation of countries that can survive as a political union. Berlin and Paris were initially sceptical about the 2004 Eastern expansion while London pushed for it. France and Germany also initially opposed making Turkey a candidate after its request in 1987, but they relented in 1999 under considerable pressure from those who saw offering Turkey candidate status as a way to keep Ankara aligned with the West. It cannot be overstated just how much the mistakes made with Turkey have cast a shadow over the current question of Ukrainian accession, and this is a link few in Britain or America have been able to grasp.
The concerns about Ukraine can be divided into two categories; the short term and the long term. The short term concerns are those mentioned by former Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker mentioned ahead of the Granada summit: the changes involving rule of law, economics and tackling corruption will require many years of work and any rushed accession in the next seven years would destabilize both the EU and Ukraine (leaving aside the preposterous suggestion by some that Ukraine should become part of the EU right now while it is still at war). Those are, however, fixable issues that could see Ukraine join the union on a realistic timeline after 2030. But there are also the issues that are more permanent. One is demographics and geography. Like Turkey, Ukraine’s large population and vast territory could be difficult for the EU to absorb, a bit like the US being asked to take on Mexico as the 51st state. The other issue is distance. Like Turkey, it is very far away from the core of the EU and it has problematic neighbors with active conflicts. If the EU were just a free trade area, these factors wouldn’t be an issue (like it was no issue for the US and Mexico to be in NAFTA together). But the EU isn’t just a free trade area, and making such a massive sudden change to the union could make the EU as a political unit unworkable. It’s the same issues which presented themselves with Turkey.
For many in Brussels, Berlin, Paris, Rome and Madrid, the pressure to admit Ukraine rapidly for geopolitical reasons sounds a little too similar to what happened with Turkey. Concerns about Ukraine joining the EU are much less about Ukraine itself, and more about what the EU would look like if Ukraine’s membership bid were to succeed. EU federalists tend to believe that the EU can afford to grant membership to the remaining countries in the Western Balkans because they are small and close. But the dream of an “ever closer union” would be imperilled if a country as large as Turkey or Ukraine were admitted into the bloc, as such an outsized union would be harder to run as a federation. The shift in the balance of power toward the east could also tilt the EU toward a direction more in line with Polish desires: an economic union without a common framework for foreign and security policy, and one that does not get involved in policing the rule of law among its members.
Two decades after accession talks with Turkey began, it is clear the country will never be in the EU. Whatever small possibility still existed died with the country’s election result in May. The EU has been left with a headache, forced to skate around an awkward truth: It cannot terminate a dormant accession process for a country that will almost certainly never be admitted into the EU, for fear of the geopolitical consequences of doing so. The concern is that, if Ukraine’s relationship with the EU isn’t discussed honestly and realistically now, 20 years from now the EU could find itself with another Turkey situation.
Where does the EU end?
Those who equate the reticent attitude toward Ukraine’s accession from Western European capitals as a blanket objection to all accession aren’t seeing the forest for the trees. Yes, Western Balkan accession has been slow-walked over the past five years amidst dissatisfaction in the West with developments in the EU’s East since the 04-06 accessions (authoritarianism in Poland and Hungary, continued corruption in Romania and Bulgaria). But nobody in Brussels, Paris or Berlin has argued that the Western Balkans should never be part of the EU. If that were the case, it would leave an awkward and unsustainable hole within the union, with some former Yugoslav countries in and others out even though they want to be in.
Most people in this town agree that Montenegro, for instance, is on track to become the next EU member state. The country’s ambassador to the EU confidently says Montenegro will become the 28th member state by 2028 at the latest, and there’s no reason to think he is wrong. For other the more complicated countries Serbia, Bosnia, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania it will take longer. But it will happen eventually, as long as they want it. There is no reason to think the EU cannot handle absorbing these small countries that are already deeply integrated with current EU member states.
But when it comes to Ukraine, that’s a different story. It would enlarge the EU’s territory and population enormously. And it would provoke many questions. Where does it end? How much is too much? What is the end game of the European Union? How do we know when it is geographically complete? These questions are much more complicated for the EU than they are for NATO, which is only a security umbrella. The question of EU membership also has to take into account the fundamental question of whether a confederal union that large could function as a political and economic entity.
In the rush to show solidarity with Ukraine, this has been a subject that few outside of Paris want to talk about. The newly-formed and much-mocked European Political Community, the brainchild of French President Emmanuel Macron, could be a tool to satisfy the geopolitical aspirations of the wider West without injuring the sustainability and cohesiveness of the European confederation. That may or may not be necessary. It may be that Europeans can confidently embrace expanding the union to Ukraine, if they can be given an explanation about how such a geographically enormous union will work in the future and where the borders will eventually end. But right now nobody is giving them those answers. Can you blame them for being sceptical?
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has not shown the vision, or the political courage, to realistically confront these issues about the long-term future of the union. Her commission has been plagued by short-term thinking. That will be painfully on display if, as has been reported, the Commission recommends candidate status for Georgia tomorrow.