Enlargement: the inside story
This month saw your diarist venturing out of Brussels to the furthest-flung corners of the EU's putative empire. G?nter Verheugen, the EU commissioner charged with handling the process of enlarging the union, was visiting Bulgaria, which is towards the back of the queue of the 13 countries negotiating to join. Fortuitously, the Bulgarians made what is known in the diplomatic game as "a protocol error" and ushered your startled correspondent into an official meeting with the Bulgarian foreign minister. Finding myself as part of a five-person EU delegation facing the Bulgarian team (led by their glamorous foreign minister, Nadezdha Mihailova), I uttered a polite cough and asked whether I should leave. Verheugen looked up and said, "Oh you can stay, just don't report what we say."
Bound by this agreement, I cannot reveal to you what the state of EU-Bulgarian relations are. But I can give you an idea of what a "comprehensive exchange of views" involves. It starts with one side, in this case Verheugen, talking for about ten minutes, giving an overview of where the whole enlargement process stands, how he thinks Bulgaria is doing, and then raising a couple of specific points on which he wants information or reassurance. The Bulgarian foreign minister then responds, along the lines of: "Great to see you here. I can reassure you on points a and b, share your worries about country c, and you will not be surprised to know that I cannot completely agree with you about d." Gracious smiles all round. A brief discussion about what line to take in the press conference and it's "see you at the banquet tonight." That's the last time I accuse the EU of "lack of transparency." At least for a while.
Talking of transparency, the guidebook left in hotel rooms in Sofia is perhaps unwisely frank about some of the drawbacks of the city. "The underpass to the central station is an exceptionally unpleasant place full of beggars, pickpockets and homeless children who sniff glue." Or the cheerfully-offered: "No visitor to Sofia can fail to notice the large numbers of homeless dogs."
Roaming Roma
Day two of Verheugen's trip and it is the semi-compulsory trip to a poor gypsy village. The fate of the 6m or so Roma in eastern Europe is a big issue for the EU for altruistic and self-interested reasons. Brussels is trying to emphasise the importance of respect for minority rights to the applicant countries. But there is also a fear that if things don't improve in the east, free movement of people within an expanded EU will see the Roma roaming into western Europe.
At this particular village near the Serbian border, the whole town seems to have turned out in the muddy, central square. While Verheugen is swept into meetings, every local with a grievance tries to latch on to members of his party. Some complaints are predictable: no work, no food, discrimination. Some are more idiosyncratic: why is the local doctor a drunk? And why, for that matter, is Verheugen not talking to the ordinary people? "He is meeting your leaders," says a member of the EU delegation. "Why is he talking to them?" responds a gypsy, "they're all thieves." Difficult to know how to reply to that one.
Winners and losers
One of the reasons often advanced for eastward enlargement of the EU is that the applicant countries were victims. Of communism, certainly. But some of them were on the (ahem) wrong side in the second world war. Hungary was; so was Bulgaria. A French member of Verheugen's party was inclined to take an indulgent view. "Poor Bulgarians," he mused. "Always on the wrong side. Germany in world war one and world war two. Then the Soviet Union." Long thoughtful pause. "And now the EU."
One of the darker theories about European enlargement is that it is part of the re-establishment of German dominance over eastern Europe. Partly for this reason, senior Germans such as Verheugen are careful never to lecture or shout. In general the German approach to enlargement seems to be modest and generous-spirited. But in Berlin I had a conversation with an academic in the foreign-policy game which gave me a shiver. Informed that senior figures in the Quai d'Orsay were saying that France could cope without a very close alliance with Germany, he snorted derisively: "France saying it can do without Germany reminds me of Boris Becker's former wife saying she's going to go back to acting." Ha, ha. I think.
English is best
The trip certainly confirms one aspect of EU enlargement. It will cement English as the most important language of the EU. Verheugen and the Bulgarian foreign minister spoke English to each other. At a dinner with various EU and Bulgarian big-wigs, it was in English again. And this despite Bulgaria-for reasons no one can remember-being nominally part of "la Francophonie." A senior French diplomat working for the EU in one of the applicant countries says that the change has been quite sudden. Five years ago, 70 per cent of the internal EU documents crossing his desk were in French; these days they are 70 per cent in English. The younger generation of French officials seem to be taking the change in their stride. ENA, the elite finishing school for French administrators, decided at least five years ago that all its graduates had to have good English.
