European Integrations: Getting it Done
|
“82 to 18 – percentages of people against Croatian integration into the European Union opposed to those for the integration, in Denis Latin’s debate show “Latinica” on Croatian TV.”
On May 1, 2004, the International Labour Day, the citizens of ten European countries will surely come out to the streets in huge number to celebrate. For those countries, the long and tumultuous adventure called “the transition” will finally end. They will officially become members of the European Union, once the inaccessible city on the hill, craved for its plenty and freedoms. From former Yugoslavia (depending on the definition, you could also say from the Balkans), only the Slovenians will have reasons to celebrate, for Slovenia is among those ten countries.
The public opinion in the countries of the region remains skeptical. While specialized public opinion research agencies’ surveys constantly place the public support for European integration in the high 60’s, the results of somewhat unorthodox polling applied every now and then in the region should be a reason for caution. For instance, the mega-popular show of the Croatian journalist Denis Latin, “Latinica” (increasingly popular all over the region, actually, thanks to great expansion of cable TV distribution networks) recently organized a direct phone poll under the show dedicated to European integrations. The results were rather disappointing. 82% of the viewers that decided to pick up their phones and give their answer to the simple question “Are you for Croatia’s integration into the EU?” gave a negative answer. Similar results could come from the rest of the countries in the region. The population is inherently skeptical to any new idea, and the profitability of the whole idea of joining one superstructure only several years after the violent break-up of another superstructure which held, at the beginning the same promises of better life, remains uncertain. The main problem remains the level of information available to the general public. For the majority of politicians in the countries of the region, the EU is nothing more than just an idea that has to be accepted “because there is no other choice.” Little or nothing is said about the actual problems, benefits and losses that EU membership brings to the table. From the rather prosaic issues of sovereignty, endangered in the face of most probable dominance (which is the case anyway) of the largest and most populous members of the union, to the very direct issues of agricultural subventions and access to development funds. There is little mention, for instance, that the land of plenty called Western Europe will remain off limits to the armies of unemployed that await the beautiful days when they won’t have to wait for hours in front of European countries’ embassies for the priceless peace of paper called “the Schengen Visa”. Where is the civil and non-governmental sector in all of this? That is the proverbial million Dollar (of Euro, if you prefer) question. Technically, anything it does to develop and strengthen the civil society in the region, proportionally increases the chances of these countries for European integration. Therefore, there is very little that is directly and exclusively dedicated to the EU integration processes. The very fact that our list of links contains mostly governmental sources of information (Ministries of European Integrations, specialized agencies and such) is ample illustration of this situation. There are, however, several think tanks involved in promotion activities, like the cooperation of Evro Balkan with “Aktuel” weekly in Macedonia, the efforts of several media outlets (“Dani” and “Slobodna Bosna” in Sarajevo, Bosnia) and other similar activities all over the region. Also, there is the Citizens Pact that works on the issue of termination of the Schengen visa regime. The Citizens Pact, together with kuda.org and a Netherlands based V2 Institute, will organize a great Trans European Forum in Novi Sad, and similar activities, on rather smaller scale though, are planned in the other countries in the region. Several external campaigns are also in place. Probably the most important of them is the initiative started by several Italian NGOs, named “Europe From Below”, which is a coalition/campaign for European integration that will be more human, more socially aware, and, importantly more certain. Actually, “Europe From Below” has already come out with an initiative for a politically based decision to integrate the countries of the region in EU, with certain and fixed dates and programmes of activities. Such a demonstration of political will on the behalf of the EU, EFB argues, has more chances of stabilizing and pacifying the Balkans than any other initiative coming from Brussels or Strassbourg. There is also the problem of standards demanded by the aspiring countries. Several recent EU reports, for instance, on minorities and the media, respectively, send a rather confusing message to the countries of Western Balkans (former Yugoslavia minus Slovenia, plus Albania). According to those reports, some EU countries, were they forced to reapply for membership today, would fail the very same criteria so adamantly presented to the countries in the region. The media situation in Italy or Spain, apparently is much worse than advertised. Several European countries also have great problems with xenophobia and racism. Things are moving in the region, nevertheless. Majority of the countries of the Western Balkans have already signed the Stabilization and Association Agreements with the EU, and Bosnia and Herzegovina and SCG are in the process of negotiations, which grinds forward, decelerated primarily by the lack of insufficient cooperation with the Hague International Criminal Court for Former Yugoslavia. Macedonia has applied for EU membership several weeks ago, and would have done it even earlier, were it not for the death of President Trajkovski. Finally, what we need is a change of mentality. For the majority of people here – and that opinion is only strengthened by the positions of the political elites – think of the EU as of something that would immediately solve our problems. The following line has been repeated so many times that is sounds rather trivial, but nevertheless, here it is again. What we should strive, ultimately, is a situation where we have reached the level of development that will bring us into a situation in which the EU will gladly invite us and press us to join (just ask the Norwegians!!), and we should then discuss whether there are enough benefits from us joining. Basically, we should strive towards the standards that EU stands for, the membership, in that sense, should be secondary to the standards and not vice versa, as is the case now. |
Printable version
Back to top
