The Eu Timescape by Klaus H Goetz & Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling

Author:Klaus H Goetz & Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling [Goetz, Klaus H & Meyer-Sahling, Jan-Hinrik]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138117297
Goodreads: 42987431
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

3. The Demand for a Date

Here I consider the positions taken during the enlargement process by the applicant countries, on the one hand, and the EU, on the other hand, on the future date of accession. While the Central and Eastern European applicants frequently demanded an indication of the date, the EU – or at least the EU’s Council of Ministers – consistently refused to give it.

Romano Prodi, when he took office as President of the Commission in September 1999, declared that one of his principal aims was to ensure that the first accessions took place before the end of his Commission’s mandate (scheduled for January 2005), an aim to which he contributed as President by supporting the enlargement process. Within the Commission he consistently supported the work of his Enlargement Commissioner, Günter Verheugen, who said presciently in September 1999 that 2004 was ‘the most reasonable and realistic date for the first accession’.

Nevertheless, the EU’s Council of Ministers refused to confirm any date, and the Commission prudently expressed itself in terms of aspiration rather than commitment. The applicant countries often argued that in the absence of a clear date for accession they could not be expected to implement difficult and costly parts of the acquis, and that a firm date was necessary to oblige their domestic ministers and ministries to take the necessary action.

I recall several occasions when, as a representative of the Commission, I was confronted by pleas and reproaches, in public and in private, from applicant countries on the theme ‘you must give us a date’. I replied that, while I sympathized with their argument for a date to drive forward the domestic preparation for membership, my practical experience of public administration led me to believe that the contrary would be the result. In response to a date for accession announced by the EU, even an ‘indicative’ date hedged by all sorts of qualifications, the authorities of an applicant country would normally relax, rather than reinforce, their efforts of preparation.

It may seem counter-intuitive that the setting of a clear date and timetable would cause an applicant country to relax, while uncertainty would cause it to try harder to meet the EU’s requirements. But game theory provides confirmation that in a bargaining situation the strategic use of uncertainty by one actor can cause another actor to concede more than he wants. From the point of view of the applicant countries, the continuing uncertainty concerning the date of accession posed a threat which according to game theory could be interpreted in different ways: when the EU fixed a date, would it be too near, or too distant, or alternatively would it never fix a date? Of these three possibilities, the first and the last could be considered rather unlikely. On the one hand, the concerns of the EU’s existing members about the budgetary cost of enlargement, and about the economic and social consequences of accepting inadequately prepared new members, made them much more prone to delay than to accelerate the timetable.

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