Paris, 4 April 2007 - Mrs Sylvie GOULARD, President of the European Movement France and from 2001 to 2004 adviser to Commission President Commission Romano Prodi, addressed the members of the Assembly´s Political Committee and Committee for Parliamentary Relations during a meeting in Paris on 3 April 2007, in order to present her views on the sensitive issue of the public´s perception of EU enlargement. Mrs GOULARD, who is associate research fellow at the CERI (Sciences Po, Paris) and a professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, has published several books on enlargement, in particular Le Grand Turc et la République de Venise  (Fayard, 2004), which she described as a plea “in favour of Europe” but “not against Turkey”.  She headed a think tank which published an article on “The privileged partnership, an alternative to membership” (Note n° 38, Robert Schuman Foundation, 2006). More recently she wrote “Europe for Dummies” (French publisher First, 2007) in rejection of the complicated legal jargon all too often used to explain Europe.

The worryingly low turnout during the June 2004 European elections was, she said, doubtless linked with uncertainty about the enlargement process. She regretted that European Council decisions had to a large extent been taken “behind closed doors, with no prior public debate” and recalled that enlargement was not an end in itself. The famous criterion of the “EU´s absorption capacity” had figured in the official texts since 1993. On the one hand, major efforts were required of candidate countries in three main areas (democracy, the economy, adoption of the community acquis) while on the other hand, the current EU member states had been unable to agree amongst themselves (at Amsterdam, Nice and then during the Convention on the Future of Europe) on the institutional reforms needed for an enlarged Union to function effectively. The Council and Commission had suddenly seemed to discover in 2006 that citizens existed, observed Mrs Goulard.

She regretted the French President´s decision to make it compulsory for all future EU accessions to be approved by referendum, deeming that this was taking a “considerable risk”, although France was not the only member state likely to reject enlargement. She said it was necessary to concentrate on that which was really essential, which was to “maintain the best possible relations with our neighbours”. She drew attention to the concrete proposals for a “privileged partnership” that had been put forward by the think tank she had chaired for the Schuman Foundation.

Citizens´ fears about enlargement were, she said, rooted in their lack of knowledge about their fellow Europeans (whom they had never met!) or in their reluctance to share borders with countries perceived to be “dangerous” (judging simply by looking at a map!). Governments had insisted that enlargement meant more security and stability for Europe as a whole, but citizens were also conscious of the risks involved. Their fears were legitimate and called for a response.  It was necessary to have the courage to present not only the advantages, but also the drawbacks of EU enlargement. The EU decision-making process, given the current institutional framework, was a case in point: the arrival of new members increased the risks of vetoes and deadlocks, since individual countries continued to be strongly aware of their national interests. Rather than pretending such risks did not exist, they should be debated openly, remarked Mrs Goulard. It was wrong to ask citizens to choose between “enlargement and chaos”. There were many different ways of involving the EU´s neighbours in the process of building Europe, in particular through fora  like the Council of Europe.

She felt that the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) existed in name only.  There was no integrated foreign policy; at the very most there was cooperation. One could talk in terms of a common competition policy, but not a common foreign policy. She noted that European citizens were ahead of their governments, since opinion polls showed them to be in favour of such a policy. However, enlargement was not a foreign policy.  How, she asked, could an entity which had not “defined its abroad” have a foreign policy? The absence of borders was not always positive and peoples´ concerns needed to be taken into account. It was important to consolidate rather than to extend Europe. Instead of “promising the moon” to countries which were not yet ready, it would be more realistic to develop cooperation with them step by step on tangible projects.

For Mrs Goulard, the real challenge was to “succeed in creating continuity between the national and European levels“. Continuity was needed in terms of democracy. Globally speaking, democracy was in crisis; while the legitimacy of democratic institutions at national level was not being called into question, the legitimacy of institutions at the European level was being challenged. Although the European integration process was firmly on track, it was nonetheless vulnerable. There was a real problem when it came to mobilising national elites in order to promote the valuable results achieved so far in the field of European integration. National members of parliament and locally elected representatives had an essential role to play in conveying the message about Europe. Mrs Wallström (European Commissioner for Institutional Relations and Communication Strategy) on her own would not succeed in mobilising 500 million citizens! Mrs Goulard appealed therefore to the governments of the EU states to make a real effort to work at 27. “People must be judged by what they are really willing to give”, she concluded.