The Future of EU Enlargement

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, I start with the Arab spring, which I was discussing with some friends and colleagues here on the Terrace outside the River Restaurant. We were having a cream tea there—it is almost like a Cornish cream tea and it reminded me of home—and we got onto the Arab spring. I found myself getting into a political cliché by saying, “Yes, of course there are problems in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, let alone some of the other areas, but democracy is never linear. Things can get worse and then get better”.

Then I thought, “Stop for a moment. Let us think of the biggest revolution we have had in the past 20 or 30 years”. Of course, that is the disintegration of the Soviet empire, when we had linear improvement in democracy, in market economy, market liberty and security. We had all of that as 10 or a dozen states that had been part of a repressive communist regime moved to liberal democracy as members of the European Union, and as members of NATO. That linear movement was one of the greatest effects of the European Union and one of the ways in which we can see that soft power —that leverage and conditionality to which the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, referred—has worked. That is one of the greatest benefits from the European Union for world peace and prosperity, and that is definitely not an overstatement.

It is that benefit and the enlargement instrument that have shown how powerful the European Union can be. One of the great attributes of all UK Governments is that they have been a fundamental motor of that process and that wish to include states, rather than to put to the side or exclude them from the European Union and its predecessors. I certainly believe that process should be spread, if perhaps not everywhere. In fact, in researching for this debate, I noticed one thing which I had forgotten: that Morocco was rejected when an application was made, I think quite rightly. I believe that we should extend European Union membership and candidature, if not as far as possible, then certainly to the east. Perhaps I slightly differ in that from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. As long as the states meet all those criteria, we should extend it whether it is to Ukraine or Moldova and even to Belarus, if that could ever be the case, or Armenia. I agree that there may be certain issues in going slightly further east, but that should be our aim. All organisations, as we know, eventually start to move backwards if they are not moving forward.

As has already been said, one very important area that came out of this report is that ultimately there is no alternative to full membership. Those states would not be satisfied with it, nor would it work. There is the European Economic Area, the associate membership that Turkey has had and the neighbourhood policy for the south and east, none of which is sufficient to satisfy what we would want from European expansion.

I find I am very critical of how one area has been handled in the European Union. That is the way in which we have been very selective about the timing of candidate countries. When it comes to Turkey, its first application was made in 1987 and 12 years later, in 1999, Turkey became a candidate country. To date, we have opened 13 chapters and closed only one, so there is all that uncertainty. Turkey is a very important economy and candidate country, and Europe is mismanaging that process. Frankly, the worst case of all, which shows all the specific European divisions, is Macedonia. Its application was made in 2004 and its candidature was agreed in 2005 but the number of chapters opened—let alone closed—still stands at absolutely zero. That is utterly unacceptable. We know why this situation exists. It is again because of boundary disputes, particularly name disputes, between that country and an existing member state. We must make sure that we are far more consistent about that.

Two years ago I went to a conference in Brussels on enlargement, arranged by the then-Belgian presidency. I went with the noble Lords, Lord Harris and Lord Bowness, and the conference was very well attended. We debated enlargement fatigue, and that idea was of course rejected by the delegates. There was a great feeling that we should move forward with enlargement, particularly with the western Balkans. There was only one difficulty with that conference. No parliamentarian from Germany turned up, and not one from Spain. There might have been one from France, but none from Italy. It was an example of how for many of the larger nations, particularly those towards the west of Europe, the enlargement agenda had greatly receded. We need to stop that.

As we approach the anniversary of 1914, it is so obvious that I again risk a cliché by saying that the travails of Europe from 1914 through to 1989 started in the western Balkans. If there is a sacred mission for Europe, it is integrating the western Balkans into the European Union, under the right conditions. We could then offer security, freedom, a market economy and the type of atmosphere that we would want to live in, not only to the people living in the western Balkans but to Europe as a whole. As other noble Lords have said, it is an irony that although Britain is still foremost in asking for and promoting enlargement, we have started a feeling within the rest of Europe that Britain is itself heading for the exit. That is not just a paradox; it is potentially a contradiction in our policy. It threatens to dilute our ability to champion the cause of enlargement.

Two months ago I had the privilege of going to the Baltic states for the first time. In Estonia we met the Prime Minister and a number of other political people. One day we went to a town called Kuressaare, on the island of Saaremaa, which looks out across the Baltic. It was of course one of the areas that was formerly part of the Soviet Union, and the authorities were very careful to make sure that it was patrolled. There is a museum about the local Soviet commissars and everything else under the Soviet occupation. Yet Estonia is now one of the most vibrant liberal democracies. The economy is moving upward. The country is a member of the eurozone, and very successful. The country now wants more of Europe to be a part of Europe. We must ensure that that spreads, not only to the western Balkans, but at the right time and under the right conditions to the rest of eastern Europe as well.