Whatever promises the pre-referenda EU system made, they only commit those who believed in those promises and the system which made them! This system is dying in front of our eyes. And its ‘decisions’ for the future of the EU are joining the land of ‘lost promises’.

Take Turkey. For more than a decade, I have been warning my Turkish friends that they should not believe the EU system and its political leaders when they were pledging to get Turkey on board of the EU. Since 1995, I have been pleading for the launch of a ‘Neighbourhood policy’, including a ‘Privileged Partnership’ with Turkey. And after the European Summit in December 2004, I wrote in Newropeans-Magazine that this decision will not last (but will generate the defeat of the Constitution’s referenda) and that it will lead very soon to the ‘Privileged Partnership’ option (see: ‘Et maintenant en avant toute pour le partenariat Prévilégié!’)

Why was I saying that for years? Because the EU process is essentially political, which makes in democracy, that in the end it goes down to people’s decisions whatever leaders may say. Therefore since 1992, I told my Turkish friends that Turkey’s accession will end up being opposed by the EU population*, whatever the EU leaders and the Commission could say.

Here we are now. The impact of Turkey’s accession has been extremely strong in the ‘No’ success in French and Dutch referenda on the Constitution. The growing wave of ‘No’ majorities in polls all over the EU is showing that this trend is definitely a trans-EU one. So the Turkish bid for accession is over even before it starts. Just six months after the Council decision of December 2004**.

And, as I wrote a few months ago too, one should now candidly admit that for the years to come, not a single national political leader may hope to be elected at the head of his/her country without stating that he/she is against Turkey’s membership. Whether one thinks that it is good or bad does not make any difference, it is a political fact that both the EU and Turkey should take in consideration.

Any EU institutions not understanding this long term, strong trend, should consider that it will be sidelined in coming years, in the same way as politicians defending the accession option (something which obviously the SPD has understood too late by cutting only now its link with the pro-Turkey accession’s Green party).

The impact of the enlargement issue, following French and Dutch referenda, is going to drastically affect the EU political scene as well. Take the UK position within the EU for instance. In relation with the current EU Summit, the insistence of Tony Blair to try to keep enlargement promises on track (especially regarding Turkey) is going to create a very significant backfiring for UK. Tony Blair would be well advised to understand that today, on the continent, a growing (and may be already dominant force among public opinions) is considering that he is a man who should be put out of the core EU political agenda***. Following a succession of non-European choices such as Mr Blair’s government’s obedience to G.W. Bush, his refusal to suppress the obsolete British rebate, his attempts to prevent Euroland to move forward by itself for more integration, his ultra-liberal agenda and now his will to keep enlargement to Turkey on top of the agenda, his image now, for a growing majority of citizens on the continent, is closer to the image of a danger for the European project than anything else. Mr. Blair is now embodying all the ‘clichés’ about ‘UK trying to destroy the European project’.

The British people, whose only a quarter supported his re-election, should be aware that after managing to bring the once great and famous British diplomacy to an almost invisible role (due to his position with Iraq invasion)****, in the shadow of Uncle Sam’s, Tony Blair may be on the verge of leading his whole country into an international ‘blackhole’. Neither a US state, neither part of the core Europe … and no bridging influence (looking at the deadlock of transatlantic perspectives): just a ‘blackhole’! Pushing for keeping the enlargement agenda afloat will just speed up such a process for his country. British citizens should be more than aware of an evolution which will be visible in the very next weeks; at least when UK’s presidency of the EU will be jeopardized because of this very feeling on the continent.

Now, bringing enlargement to an end does not mean stopping everything.

It means making clear to Turkey that the real option to negotiate from October on is ‘Privileged Partnership’. At least for once we will not lie to the Turkish people anymore! It means completing the accession of Romania and Bulgaria before 2008. It means proposing a final accession date for the whole Balkans on July 2014***** (a century after the start of the first World War in Sarajevo), with some advanced accessions possible when countries are ready (such as with Croatia).

It means being clear with all the other countries (from Ukraine to Morocco, from Turkey to Russia): only one status is available, the Privileged Partnership in the framework of the EU Neighbourhood Policy. Nothing more, nothing less.

And it means that nobody should expect any ‘external power’****** to change this new course about EU’s limits for the coming decades.

As I said to my Turkish friends, years ago: ‘After the Euro’s introduction, at some point, the European citizens will become the key political player for EU’s future. And all those issues like enlargement will get out of the hands of EU institutions and politicians.’ Here we are. For two weeks now, EU people have become the new core engine of the EU. And nothing will change that.

* One could regret that but it was an obvious fact for anybody talking with people, and not only with EU bureaucrats, diplomats or big business executives.

** Another proof that the current EU institutional system has completely lost its ability to plan even the near future. Another way to say that it is powerless and requires a complete upheaval.

*** Not that Mr Schroeder and Mr Chirac will not be put out of national politics in the coming months or years. But the specificity of UK’s relation to Europe makes that if it is unthinkable to sideline France or Germany, it is not so for UK if the feeling grows that its leader is somebody the continent cannot trust anymore. The rising ‘Euroland only’ option is indicating such a trend.

**** And it is not the already failed attempt to use Africa for an ‘international come-back’which will change much to that situation.

***** The region needs a target to really focus its energy for change. It will obviously generate a lot of positive pressure from the younger generations.

****** The US influence on the European agenda has reached the lowest point ever since 1945 after the French and Dutch referenda. In both countries (including a traditional very Atlanticist country), the population expressed a rejection of the ‘usual’ US agenda for Europe: enlargement in both countries, especially concerning Turkey; and too much deregulation in particular in France. Years to come will not change that trend; especially when one knows that all ‘New Europe’ elites in about five years time will come from the new generations born and raised in the EU, and not in the US or in the Soviet system (like for the current elites). Europe and the USA have to find an entirely new basis for future partnership. Though, as I said in Washington a few months ago, during the GlobalEurope 2020 seminar about the future EU/US relationship, one thing must be clear: ‘The US should not anymore interfere with EU’s limits. Otherwise it will immediately backfire on the whole of EU/US relations’.

Franck Biancheri
Paris (France)