From the Atlantic to the Bug, from the Arctic to the Tigris? The transformation of the EU and NATO

International Affairs

Volumn 76, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 475-493

  Wallace, William ^a,b  

^a LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS   (United Kingdom)

^b HOUSE OF LORDS   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0010884189     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1468-2346.00147     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. The governments of Norway and Switzerland, two of the other three members of the European Free Trade Area (with Iceland), had also intended to join. Rejection by referendum of the Swiss proposal to join the European Economic Area led to an early withdrawal of that application; Norway completed negotiations, but the government then narrowly lost a referendum in a campaign in which national identity was seen to be at issue.
2. In addition, a renewed application from Norway is again under consideration in Oslo; and there are many within Swiss government and business who would pursue an application for membership if they were more confident that they could carry popular opinion with them.
3. Agence France-Presse, 16/17 March 2000; see also George Joffé, ed., Morocco and Europe (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1989). There was an active debate within Israel in the 1960s about whether to follow Greece and Turkey in pursuing an association agreement with the EEC. Had this been successfully pursued, Israel would also have benefited from the clause allowing for negotiations for full membership at the end of an extended period of adjustment which both Greece and Turkey have used to their advantage. Israel's political reorientation towards the United States after the 1967 war, and the replacement of the Labour Party in government by Likud, ended this aspiration, leaving behind Israeli participation in a scattering of European cooperative networks (most visibly the Eurovision Song Contest). A future Israeli government might, with some plausibility, claim to fit the 'European' criteria for membership at least as well as Turkey, Ukraine and Georgia.
4. Agence France-Presse, 16/17 March 2000; see also George Joffé, ed., Morocco and Europe (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1989). There was an active debate within Israel in the 1960s about whether to follow Greece and Turkey in pursuing an association agreement with the EEC. Had this been successfully pursued, Israel would also have benefited from the clause allowing for negotiations for full membership at the end of an extended period of adjustment which both Greece and Turkey have used to their advantage. Israel's political reorientation towards the United States after the 1967 war, and the replacement of the Labour Party in government by Likud, ended this aspiration, leaving behind Israeli participation in a scattering of European cooperative networks (most visibly the Eurovision Song Contest). A future Israeli government might, with some plausibility, claim to fit the 'European' criteria for membership at least as well as Turkey, Ukraine and Georgia.
5. Richard Aldrich, 'European integration: an American intelligence connection', in Anne Deighton, ed., Building postwar Europe: national decision-makers and European institutions (London: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 159-79. Louis Halle, The Cold War as history (London: Cape, 1967), notes the active reorientation of cultural and political space which the creation of the 'Western community' involved. See also William Wallace, The transformation of western Europe (London: Pinter/Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1990), ch. 2.
6. Richard Aldrich, 'European integration: an American intelligence connection', in Anne Deighton, ed., Building postwar Europe: national decision-makers and European institutions (London: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 159-79. Louis Halle, The Cold War as history (London: Cape, 1967), notes the active reorientation of cultural and political space which the creation of the 'Western community' involved. See also William Wallace, The transformation of western Europe (London: Pinter/Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1990), ch. 2.
7. Richard Aldrich, 'European integration: an American intelligence connection', in Anne Deighton, ed., Building postwar Europe: national decision-makers and European institutions (London: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 159-79. Louis Halle, The Cold War as history (London: Cape, 1967), notes the active reorientation of cultural and political space which the creation of the 'Western community' involved. See also William Wallace, The transformation of western Europe (London: Pinter/Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1990), ch. 2.
8. Quoted in Karl Schlögel, Die Mitte liegt Ostwärts (Berlin: Corso, 1986), p. 12. Timothy Garton Ash remarked of this imagined space that 'Central Europe is not a region whose boundaries you can trace on the map - like, say, Central America. It is a kingdom of the spirit', created by intellectuals to persuade political leaders to reshape their mental maps. Garton Ash, The uses of adversity (Cambridge: Granta, 1989), p. 169.
9. Quoted in Karl Schlögel, Die Mitte liegt Ostwärts (Berlin: Corso, 1986), p. 12. Timothy Garton Ash remarked of this imagined space that 'Central Europe is not a region whose boundaries you can trace on the map - like, say, Central America. It is a kingdom of the spirit', created by intellectuals to persuade political leaders to reshape their mental maps. Garton Ash, The uses of adversity (Cambridge: Granta, 1989), p. 169.
10. The deeply rooted assumption that the 'Abendlands' were those of civilization, and the Orient that of barbarism, is explored in A. Rijksbaron et al., Europe from a cultural perspective: historiography and perceptions (The Hague: UPR, 1987).
11. Copenhagen: Business School Press, 2000). Post-socialist governments were naively optimistic in their hopes that west Europeans shared their perspective on Europe, and would welcome them back. 'But you must recognize that Hungary chose the West', remarked a minister in that state's first post-socialist government to the British-Hungarian Round Table in late 1989, meaning that the early Hungarian monarchy had converted to Roman rather than Byzantine Christianity. For a review of the Lord book, see this issue of International Affairs.
12. Richard Hoggart and Douglas Johnson, An idea of Europe (London: Chatto & Windus, 1987), ch. 1. The Austrians did their best to suppress the Reformation; the survival of Protestantism in Transylvania owed much to the extension of Ottoman influence. The Poles were, briefly, freed from Russian domination by Napoleon. The Napoleonic interlude in the Illyrian provinces, with native-language schools and self-administration, is still commemorated by a memorial in Ljubjlana.
13. Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), provides an excellent survey of the ambivalence with which west Europeans regarded this non-Western part of Europe. The introductory chapter is entitled 'Balkanism and Orientalism: are they different categories?'.
14. Popular attitudes to refugees from Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo and Albania have, of course, been mixed. Resistance to large numbers of destitute families has co-existed with acceptance of students - and some researchers and teachers - in many west European universities.
15. Rafael Biermann, The Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe: potential, problems and perspectives (Bonn: Zentrum für Europäische Integrationforschung, 2000).
16. 'At the initiative of the Lithuanian government, foreign ministers of all nine applicant states met in Vilnius on 19 May 2000, to sign a document committing them to seek NATO membership as a single group. One argument for such a 'big bang' approach was that it would be easier to persuade the US Senate to ratify one major enlargement than a series of limited ones.' International Herald Tribute, 20-21 May 2000.
17. For analyses of this non-confidential but unpublished study, see William Wallace, Opening the door: the enlargement of NATO and the European Union (London: Centre for European Reform, 1996); Roland Dannreuther, Eastward enlargement: NATO and the EU (Oslo: Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, 1997).
18. For analyses of this non-confidential but unpublished study, see William Wallace, Opening the door: the enlargement of NATO and the European Union (London: Centre for European Reform, 1996); Roland Dannreuther, Eastward enlargement: NATO and the EU (Oslo: Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, 1997).
19. Even Switzerland and Ireland now participate, alongside Austria, Sweden and Finland, in PfP.
20. Robert Bartlett, The making of Europe: conquest, colonization and cultural change, 950-1350 (London: Penguin, 1993); Peter Brown, The rise of western Christendom (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996).
21. Robert Bartlett, The making of Europe: conquest, colonization and cultural change, 950-1350 (London: Penguin, 1993); Peter Brown, The rise of western Christendom (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996).
22. This is not of purely antiquarian interest. The Moroccan letter which expressed that country's interest in being considered as a future member of the European Community, in 1987, referred to Morocco's 'historic contribution to European civilization'.
23. It is a widely held assumption in north-west Europe today that the Mediterranean is a barrier rather than the centre of a group of linked states, economies and cultures. Since it was acceptable little more than forty years ago to regard part of North Africa as intrinsically linked to western Europe, it may be possible to envisage as radical a shift in assumptions over the next generation or two. Imaginary lines in mental maps are movable, given changing international circumstances, political leadership and time.
24. Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Europe: a history of its peoples (London: Penguin, 1990). The volume was formally dedicated 'to the memory of Silvia and Jean Monnet', and published simultaneously in French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Danish and Portuguese. Significantly, the one official language of the then EC12 in which it was not published was Greek.
25. Norman Davies, Europe: a history (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. viii. For an alternative view of Poland's position in Europe, which explains some of the historical context for popular ambivalence about joining the EU, see Jerzy Jedlicki, A suburb of Europe: nineteenth-century Polish approaches to western civilization (Budapest: Central University Press, 1999).
26. Norman Davies, Europe: a history (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. viii. For an alternative view of Poland's position in Europe, which explains some of the historical context for popular ambivalence about joining the EU, see Jerzy Jedlicki, A suburb of Europe: nineteenth-century Polish approaches to western civilization (Budapest: Central University Press, 1999).
27. Samuel Huntington, 'The clash of civilizations?', Foreign Affairs 72: 3, Summer 1993, pp. 22-49.
28. Huntington had taken his civilizational divide from one of several maps in Wallace, The transformation of western Europe, though converting my illustrative dotted line into a solid and thick wedge. The LSE Cartographic Unit, in turn, had on my behalf simplified information from several historical atlases, leaving out the complications of the Uniate churches along the Catholic-Orthodox divide.
29. Article 13, Consolidated Treaty establishing the European Community, 1997. See also Paper 67, Report no. 8 and Paper 68, Report no. 9 from the House of Lords European Union Committee, 1999-2000 session. The December 1999 Helsinki European Council agreed to nominate representatives from governments and parliaments to a 'Convention' to draft a Charter on Fundamental Rights, for adoption in the context of the current intergovernmental conference. Whether it will form part of the revised treaty, or be adopted simply as a declaration, remains to be seen.
30. The concept of 'thick' and 'thin' community is taken from Michael Walzer, Thick and thin: moral argument at home and abroad (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994). On the question of European citizenship and political community, see e.g. Richard Bellamy, 'Citizenship beyond the nation state: the case of Europe', in Noel O'Sullivan, ed., Political theory in transition (London: Routledge, 2000), ch. 5; or P. Lehning and Albert Weale, eds, Citizenship, democracy and the new Europe (London: Routledge, 1997).
31. The concept of 'thick' and 'thin' community is taken from Michael Walzer, Thick and thin: moral argument at home and abroad (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994). On the question of European citizenship and political community, see e.g. Richard Bellamy, 'Citizenship beyond the nation state: the case of Europe', in Noel O'Sullivan, ed., Political theory in transition (London: Routledge, 2000), ch. 5; or P. Lehning and Albert Weale, eds, Citizenship, democracy and the new Europe (London: Routledge, 1997).
32. The concept of 'thick' and 'thin' community is taken from Michael Walzer, Thick and thin: moral argument at home and abroad (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994). On the question of European citizenship and political community, see e.g. Richard Bellamy, 'Citizenship beyond the nation state: the case of Europe', in Noel O'Sullivan, ed., Political theory in transition (London: Routledge, 2000), ch. 5; or P. Lehning and Albert Weale, eds, Citizenship, democracy and the new Europe (London: Routledge, 1997).
33. The United States also falls short of European political criteria, as defined by the Council of Europe and the EU, in continuing to enforce the death penalty.
34. On the tangled issues which defining EU borders now raises, see Judy Batt, The long-term implications of EU enlargement: the nature of the new border, final report of a joint EUI/EC Commission Reflection Group, chaired by Giuliano Amato (Florence: European University Institute, 1999).
35. Mehmet Ugur, The European Union and Turkey: an anchor/credibility dilemma (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999).
36. See also Barry Buzan and Thomas Diez, 'The European Union and Turkey', Survival 41: 1, Spring 1999, pp. 41-57.
37. The US Ambassador to Ukraine recently declared that 'from the perspective of the United States, the goal of integrating Ukraine into Europe is the right one', adding that 'the European Union is the most important European organization in economic terms'. US Embassy text, 29 March 2000.
38. Esther Barbé, 'Balancing Europe's eastern and southern dimensions', in Jan Zielonka, ed., Paradoxes of European foreign policy (The Hague: Kluwer, 1998), ch. 8;
39. Ricardo Gomez, 'The EU's Mediterranean policy: common foreign policy by the back door?', in John Peterson and Helene Sjursen, eds, A common foreign policy for Europe? (London: Routledge, 1998), ch. 8.
40. Valéry Giscard D'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt, 'La leçon d'Europe' in Le Figaro, 10 April 2000 suggest that enlargement beyond Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary is not a priority, and that 'in certain cases, an economic association would be more appropriate'. They also call for an inner core of states within a larger EU, with their own additional institutional arrangements. Jacques Delors, in a speech summarized in Le Monde, 19 January 2000, had called for 'an avant-garde' of states which would constitute within the wider EU a 'federation of nation states…with their own treaty', to prevent enlargement leaving the EU unable to act (my translation). Joschka Fisher's speech to Humboldt University, on 19 May, echoed these French proposals. The 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam allowed groups of member states to move ahead with 'reinforced cooperation' under strict rules; French and German negotiators have suggested within the current IGC that these rules should be relaxed. From the perspective of applicant states, this looks like consigning them to an outer group as they join.
41. Valéry Giscard D'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt, 'La leçon d'Europe' in Le Figaro, 10 April 2000 suggest that enlargement beyond Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary is not a priority, and that 'in certain cases, an economic association would be more appropriate'. They also call for an inner core of states within a larger EU, with their own additional institutional arrangements. Jacques Delors, in a speech summarized in Le Monde, 19 January 2000, had called for 'an avant-garde' of states which would constitute within the wider EU a 'federation of nation states…with their own treaty', to prevent enlargement leaving the EU unable to act (my translation). Joschka Fisher's speech to Humboldt University, on 19 May, echoed these French proposals. The 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam allowed groups of member states to move ahead with 'reinforced cooperation' under strict rules; French and German negotiators have suggested within the current IGC that these rules should be relaxed. From the perspective of applicant states, this looks like consigning them to an outer group as they join.