Croatia is not yet a member of the European Union. Montenegro has barely been recognised by Brussels as an independent country. Yet the border between the two is a symbol of progress towards the prosperity denied to both countries for more than half a century by ideology and war. Thanks to reforms required for EU accession, queues and corruption at the frontier post have disappeared. EU funds for a new road tunnel have slashed the travel time to Monte- negro’s capital. And the hope of quick EU membership was the winning theme in its drive for independence.
The contrast with bureaucracy-ridden Brussels as it hosts the bi- annual EU summit is striking and instructive. Billed in advance by one of its organisers as an event that should be counted a success if no one notices it, this meeting has been paralysed from the start by President Chirac’s intransigence, precluding serious discussion of the scrapping of the European Parliament’s monthly shuttling between Brussels and Strasbourg. The gathering will be haunted by the corpse of the European constitution, still revered by feverish federalists, whose aspirations have collided with reality.
They should forget about it. Not only is the original 65,000-word document best decoded by professors at obscure Belgian universities, it is also pointless for the EU’s 25 member states to tie themselves in knots trying to agree on a new version. Their energies should be devoted to ad hoc but practical reforms, including stream- lining the Commission and cutting red tape for cross-border transactions, and to pressing ahead with the singular success that is enlargement.
Jean Monnet’s vision of an ever deeper Europe was inspired by the paramount need to prevent another major continental war. The modern EU’s primary challenge is different: to offer an economic model attractive and resilient enough to fill the vacuum left by the fall of communism and a decade of Balkan strife. This challenge has, to an astonishing degree, been met. But, in seeking EU membership, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe did not sign up for an elaborate experiment in pooled sovereignty; rather, for the tremendous, measur-able advantages of a single market for goods, services, capital and labour.
Those advantages delivered average growth rates of 6.2 per cent for the Union’s ten new members last year — a third higher than the previous year and four times the average for “Old Europe”. They also helped to fuel growth and hold down inflation in countries, such as Britain, bold enough to open their doors fully to Eastern European labour.
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The economic map of the new Europe is still patchy at best, and mountains will have to be climbed before aspirant members such as Bulgaria and Turkey meet European norms. But timid talk of the EU’s “absorption capacity” misunderstands the thrust of history. The feeble federalists are in a funk because they cannot impose their will, and the people of Europe are quietly cele- brating that very impotence.