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Article Excerpt
Germany is a central actor in European integration, regarded as the locomotive for major economic and, increasingly, political developments. (1) Political leaders consistently justified the country's provision of around 60 percent or more of net transfers to the European Union (EU)--while disposing of disproportionately low voting shares in EU institutions (2)--by reference to a consolidation of peace and security in Europe and to Germany's export dependence and volume of trade with EU states. This article examines Germany's relationship to the EU's enlargement, now in the preaccession stage, to include up to ten Central and Eastern European candidate states. It analyzes benefits and costs and the political dynamics of Germany's evolving position. Until relatively recently, German elites supported integration and expansion and accepted the consequences, imprecise as they were, without serious challenge to basic policy directions or the provision of financial support. Scholarly accounts tend to concur, if often favoring further and faster integration and enlargement. (3)
Enlargements in 1981 (Greece) and 1986 (Spain and Portugal) increased demands on the national budget without significant adverse political reaction or excessive financial strain. The 1995 inclusion of Austria, Sweden, and Finland was clearly favorable for Germany. Besides security and political advantages accompanying the end of the cold war, some observers envisaged an economic windfall for Germany through the opening of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). (4) While the current enlargement can be considered an investment entailing opportunity, risks, premiums, and uncertainties, the conjecture that Germany as a whole will profit from the project has to take sufficient account of the costs and also balance the probable winners with losers. Potential compensatory measures for losers may have to be added to the overall equation. Contrary to successive German governments' attempts to convince the broader population that widespread positive benefits are assured, definitive evidence for this is not palpable.
What are the costs and benefits of eastern enlargement into the EU for Germany? How are they to be evaluated? The entry of some countries may have advantageous results for Germany relatively soon, while others could have negative consequences. Appraisals of individual countries are also likely to alter over time. The so-called Luxembourg Group of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, and Estonia signified the more advanced candidates from CEE. The EU's Helsinki summit in 1999 effectively eliminated formal distinctions. (5) I consider three areas, often closely linked or overlapping: domestic and international politics (including security-strategic elements), economics and commerce, and European political economy. A range of foreign and security policy considerations encourage support for enlargement. A complex of other nonmaterial (or not immediately material) influences, often related to public anxiety or disapproval, must also be included. Here tensions between external and internal security interests emerge. (6) A good deal of evidence suggests that the political establishment has relied on an apathetic or excluded public in order to pursue European policy projects including eastern enlargement (7) Of further concern is consistent adherence by future members to EU legal requirements, often in commercial and property ownership matters. (8) As an indirect consequence of enlargement, reforms that redistribute financial burdens among the EU's current fifteen members could be advantageous for Germany. This will be a focus of political conflict well into the future.
By 2000, the five Luxembourg Group candidates had an average GDP growth of 11 percent over 1989. GDP of the eastern Helsinki Group averages around 80 percent over 1989 levels. By 2002, the largest CEE candidate, Poland, had a GDP increase of about 33 percent over 1989. If its economy grows at 4 percent per annum and that of the EU15 at 2 percent, Poland will reach EU average per capita income in about forty years. For the currently most progressed candidate, Hungary, it will take about thirty years. Savings and investment levels that might enable a self-financed catch-up process are too low. Significant contributions will have to come from other sources. (9) Without extensive liberalization and economic expansion in old and new EU members, and a reform of core community policies in the short to medium term the material benefits of enlargement for Germany will be outweighed by the costs. German elite support for the undertaking represents the political and financial price paid to encourage a reformist direction. It is also conceived as an insurance against destabilization. Neither the investment nor dividends are guaranteed. How much the total bill for German taxpayers will be or how long they will pay until the initial stages of enlargement are completed is unknown.
ENLARGEMENT AS A POLITICAL INVESTMENT
Although popular attitudes changed after the initial association agreements with Poland, Hungary, the then Czechoslovakia, and later the Copenhagen Criteria on accession set out in 1993,[10] it was almost iconoclastic to present critical views on the merits of enlargement for Germany. Open recognition of uncertainties and potentially unfavourable outcomes has, by and large, been evaded by public figures as the foreign policy and historical imperative of enlargement was pressed. One of the few exceptions was the Bavarian minister-president and 2002 chancellor candidate, Edmund Stoiber. A generally more cautious stance and sober appraisal of German interests resulted in his acquiring a reputation as a "Euro-sceptic." (11) The controversy unleashed by the published reflections of EU Commissioner for Enlargement Gunter Verheugen in September 2000, however, demonstrated that the German media and various other actors either wanted or were swiftly persuaded to engage in a less restricted discussion. Among other issues, Verheugen broached the taboo theme of a possible referendum on enlargement in Germany. (12) Were this to actually transpire it would result in a "no," or at least a "not yet," or "not for all" vote. Politicians, including Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, took note. As more indications of the potential costs in financial and political terms emerged, the tone for domestic audiences altered, and national preferences were forcefully impressed in EU forums. Even if all German parties regarded Eastern enlargement as a project or task for which there was no alternative, insistence on candidates meeting conditions and disputes with current members over the distribution of funds intensified.
External Considerations
Political elites and academic commentators have consistently emphasized that enlargement of the EU will lead to greater stability in Europe. Germans in particular have stressed this, contending that the integration of CEE states into Western structures will engender an increase in military security for the continent. (13) The EU and NATO may have complementary functions, but there has been a lack of clarity about which does or will provide what. Some analysts place the first phase of enlargement in a larger context of acquiring some control over Russia and the former Soviet Union, and pacifying the Balkans. (14) Western European security improved through the entry of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary into NATO, notwithstanding the debate about this extension antagonizing Russia. Security will not be decisively increased through the accession of CEE states to the EU. (15) The likelihood of a military threat being launched against or from one of the candidates should their entry to the EU be delayed or rejected is minimal. The stability frequently cited as a goal and consequence of EU membership or the precise condition that will result if membership does not occur lack substantive explanation from the European Commission, current member states, or candidates. Frank Schimmelfennig notes that "governments in Central and Eastern Europe could not argue convincingly that, without the prospect of EU membership, their countries would become politically and economically unstable, threatening Western European security and welfare.... 'Self-inflicted chaos' is no credible bargaining strategy." (16) Shortly after his referendum interview, Verheugen told the European Parliament that in CEE states the "stability of democratic systems is already so high that we no longer fear any retreat into authoritarian structures." The commission similarly declared the states to be "systematically ... already so robust that there need be no risk of a relapse into authoritarianism." (17)
Although "euphoria" was then a prevalent term for the pan-European mood, state responses to the changes of 1989-1991 were varied. French reservations centered on a looming German dominance of Central and Eastern Europe and France's relative marginalization. As signs of forthcoming difficulties emerged, change in German perceptions toward the East may have calmed French concerns to some degree. Germany's power and position is demonstrated as simultaneously placing international limitations on itself. France and others that have been less keen about enlargement try to take cover behind Germany, where a sober reappraisal of the situation has occurred. French intransigence over agricultural reform is a factor in why eastern enlargement, under the conditions applying in 2002, does not promise net financial gain for Germany. Germany's economic strength and geography, meanwhile, mean it is perceived in CEE as preeminent in decision making and bears much responsibility for the outcomes, especially if they are unfavorable. Concurrence between national elites is not as certain as some declarations have suggested. (18)
Evaluations of material costs and benefits are complicated by "moral-historical" debt: as a consequence of World War II and the role of opposition movements in CEE in generating preconditions for German reunification and ending the cold war. In 1989-1990, reconciliation was linked with an imminent return to Europe for those behind the collapsing Iron Curtain. As enthusiasm in Western Europe diminished, populations and governments were reminded of their responsibilities. It is difficult to pinpoint the critical mass of support and political pressure for this. Some arise within Germany, the rest of the EU15, and the United States. Disputes pertaining to the expulsion of Germans from Central Europe in 1945 and after remain unresolved. The multilateral project of European institutional enlargement merges with sensitive bilateral relations and history with contemporary politics. (19)
These themes permeate Schimmelfennig's analysis in which he combines intergovernmentalist and sociological explanations to account for the collective position of EU members toward aspirants to join the CEE. The intergovernmentalists can be equated with a rationalist, national-interests approach wherein states are the dominant actors, representing national populations with particular demands, which vote governments in and out. The sociological explanation focuses on normative elements, on a logic of appropriateness, and the capacity for states to be shamed into following a particular course of action even if it does not concur with their materially evaluated self-interests. To encourage them, the author suggests, "some sort of moral appeal was needed," which he terms "legitimacy." (20) This does not refute the possibility that states shamed into action do not simultaneously employ a self-interested pragmatism. They will consider, for example, how their actions will be interpreted over time and how the bilateral and international context may alter in ways that could prove unfavorable. Schimmelfennig's argument is persuasive in its stress on the movement from association agreements to accession. At this point sociological institutionalism takes over when a rational intergovernmentalist approach might contend otherwise. According to Schimmelfennig, Germany is "clearly the greatest beneficiary of integration with the east." (21) Therefore, it is the leading proponent or driver of enlargement for self-interested reasons. I alter the presumptions behind this, namely that Germany may not in purely utilitarian cost-benefit terms be such a clear beneficiary.
Germany's political class is influenced by normative considerations...
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