Does ' widening ' challenge ' deepening ' ?

Résumé du document

The conservative European deputy Pierre Lequiller held a very common idea last year at a meeting in Sciences Po. He asserted that George W. Bush supports the accession of Turkey to the European Union (EU) because he wants it to be a free trade area. It intimates that 'widening' challenges 'deepening'. 'Widening' the EU means enlarging it, and 'deepening' means reinforcing its political, economic and maybe social integration. Historically, the EU has been both widened and deepened. However, the current crisis conveys the message that the enlargements of 2004 and 2007 and the Turkey issue endanger the EU. It is a real disaster. Bronislaw Gemerek shows that 'widening' serves an ideal of unity. He gives the example of the enlargement of 2004. It is the biggest in the EU's history, given that ten States entered the EU. Eight of them belonged to the communist world 15 years before. The artificial division caused by the Cold War has been effaced. The idea that the accession of Turkey to the EU would as well efface that the rivalry between the Christian world and the Muslim world can also be defended. So we have good grounds to say that 'widening' is justified.

Extraits

[...] Does widening challenge deepening ? The conservative European deputy Pierre Lequiller held a very common idea last year at a meeting in Sciences Po. He asserted that George W. Bush supports the accession of Turkey to the European Union because he wants it to be a free trade area. It intimates that “widening” challenges “deepening”. “Widening” the EU means enlarging it, and “deepening” it means reinforcing its political, economic and maybe social integration. Historically, the EU has been both widened and deepened. [...]

[...] It contrasts with the fact that the economic and social Europe has been dramatically reinforced before the enlargement of 2004. Not only was the common agricultural policy maintained, but Structural and Cohesion Funds also appeared, in order to reduce the inequalities within the EU. But the discrepancy between the GDP per capita of the twelve new Member States and the one of the 15 others is so important that a huge budget would be necessary to pursue this economic and social policy. [...]

[...] Here, “widening” does not challenge “deepening”. Choosing such a criterion to define the identity of the EU is not idealistic. For example, Jürgen Habermas' theory does not automatically legitimate an accession of Turkey to the EU, given that democratic principles are not fully respected, and that the Armenian genocide that occurred in 1915 is still denied by the Turkish government . Moreover, the constitutional patriotism can be completed by some sides of communitarism and utilitarism as regards the “widening” process, in order to be concretely useful. [...]

[...] So we have good grounds to say that “widening” is justified. A promoter of an integrated EU who shares such a point of view has to answer the following question: How could a European Union paralysed by its enlargement be turned into an integrated enlarged European Union? First and foremost, the reasons why “widening” appears to challenge “deepening” must be identified (part I). Thanks to this analysis, a model that makes compatible “widening” and “deepening” can be imagined (part II). Part I. [...]

[...] Basically, taking decisions in an enlarged European Union would be made easier by the adoption of a (more) federal model and defining the identity of the EU by its liberal values, such as Human Rights, would legitimate its “widening”. Such changes would turn a European Union paralysed by its enlargement into an integrated enlarged European Union. Bibliography ( Jean-François Drevet, L'élargissement de l'Union Européenne : jusqu'où ? L'Harmattan ( Bronislaw Gemerek, L'élargissement et l'unité européenne, Fondation Robert Schuman ( Philippe Moreau Defarges, Une Europe cohérente ne peut être que fédérale, in Débat, nº ( Jean-Marc Ferry, La question de l'Etat européen, Gallimard ( Samim Akgönül, La Turquie dans l'Union Européenne ? [...]