European Union - The Second Founding

Front matter

Schriften des

— a Zentrum für Europäische Integrationsforschung 7EI m

Center for European Integration Studies

Introduction

The Second Founding

I: From National Identities to European Constitutionalism Il. Europe’s Constitution Challenge and Response

IH. 1957 — 1979: Institutions Consolidated IV. 1979 — 1993: Economies Integrated V. 1993 — 2009: Politics Europeanized

Global Setting

VI. Transatlantic Relations: The Bonds that Hold

VII. Globalization and the Changing Rationale for European Integration VII. The Global Proliferation of Region-Building

Ideas, Norms, Theories

IX Searching in Vain: Why European Integration did not Work Earlier X. “For the Sake of Europe”: Prevailing Normative Disputes

XI. Academic Evaluation: Theorizing European Integration

Prospects XII. Toward European Patriotism?

XIU. Defining Europe’s Global Interests

Conclusion Bibliography

Index The Author

121 156 191

241 281 316

367 408 445

483 523

649 670

Map 1: European Union Map 2: The global proliferation of regional integration

Table 1: Referenda on European integration

Table 2: Member States of the European Union

Table 3: Elections to the European Parliament (1979-2004) Table 4: Presidents of the European Commission (1958-2009) Table 5: Presidents of the European Parliament (1979-2009) Table 6: Transatlantic comparisons

Table 7: Muslims in the European Union

Table 8: Belief in God in the European Union

36 322

Introduction

“The term Europeanization,” one can read in a 1937 article of the “Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences,” “is intended to express the effects on Asiatic, American and African cultures and civilizations of permeation by the peculiar social system set up in modern Europe as a consequence of the classical renaissance, the Protestant Reformation and the industrial revolution. Europeanization may be expressed politically by imposing the idea of democracy, in the sense of parliamentary and party government, or of sovereignty, in the sense of suppression or subordination of all governmental organs to the semireligious solidarity in support of that sovereignty. It may be expressed economically by imposing ideas of individualistic capitalism, competition and control on communities enjoying more elaborate and equitable, but less productive and progressive, collectivist or communal civilizations; or industrially by substituting the factory and the foundry for the hand look and home craft. It may be expressed in terms of education by convincing other continents of the advisability of acquiring attainments in European science to their material or even moral advantage, or by exposing the discipline of tribal tradition and training to the dissipation by the gospel of the missionary, the goods of the trader and the good intentions of the administrator.”' If it were not for the rather rusty and politically incorrect language, eight decades later such an article — by and large — could have appeared in an Encyclopedia discussing the term “Americanization.”

Even in its critique, America and Europe remain tied together to this day as each other’s mirror. While in 1937, the US was critical about Europe’s global colonialism, in the first decade of the twenty-first century Europe tended to criticize the global projection of American power and values. Will a 2037 Encyclopedia publish a balanced article on the link between “Europeanization” and “Americanization” in the age of globalization? Will it recognize that the American and European societies are complimentary expressions of an Atlantic civilization, each of them having dominated the other one at times? Will it finally recognize that in the end, both partners of the Atlantic civilization found a new balance, synchronizing values and interests and bringing their joint resources to the best possible use of managing global matters while yet living with inevitable differences and, at times, even conflicts?

Both partners of the Atlantic civilization have lately been forgetful of the bonds that hold. Instead they have engaged each other during the last decade of the twentieth century and the first years of the twenty-first century in endless rows over their

1 Young, George, “Europeanization,” Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 5, New York: Macmillan, 1937: 623.

differences and the inevitable divorce that ought to follow — first strategic, then cultural. None of this has happened and will unlikely happen in the years ahead. Yet it remains an open question as to how transatlantic relations will relate to other coordinates that constitute world order-building in the twenty-first century.

The 1937 article mentioned that China “as a whole could not be Europeanized from outside. It could only Europeanize itself if and when it chose, and the early attitude of

2 2 In

China toward Europeanization was as antagonistic and anti-European as anywhere. the first decade of the twenty-first century, a self-assured and strong China had become an indispensable partner for balancing and managing the world order of this century, no matter whether or not China will be called “Europeanized,” “Americanized” or simply “globalized.” The 1937 article spoke about the voluntary “sudden and sensational Europeanization of the Japanese” as an expression of its authentic nationalism during the second half of the nineteenth century.’ The important role of Japan as a provider of global stability prevails, added by the economic contributions of South Korea that has gone through its own remarkable, sudden and sensational modernization during the last decades of the twentieth century. The 1937 article analyzed the “intellectual Europeanization” of the Indian elite. In the early twenty-first century, for the first time an Indian middle-class had emerged in this extremely diverse and fascinating country that has atomic bombs and the biggest number of impoverished people side by side. For the 1937 author, the Eurasian Empire Russia had been “Europeanized forcibly” by Peter the Great. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, Russia is still struggling with its identity amid aggravating poverty downgrading the former super-power to Third World levels of development while its political neo-authoritarianism is disconnecting Russia from becoming fully “European.” In 1937, an emerging Latin

America was seen as a promising continent in which Europeanization “is producing

»5 new life from seed.” During the first decade of the twenty-first century, in spite of its cultural cohesion Latin America is still not recognizable as a global force although its biggest country, Brazil, is rallying support to play this role. The 1937 social science analysis concluded that the Arab region was “wholly recalcitrant to Europeanization whether imperialist, nationalist or socialist” and it mentioned the “artificial

Europeanization of Iraq.” During the first decade of the twenty-first century and in spite of the military defeat of the terrible regime of Saddam Hussein, Iraq did not turn into an uncontested model for democracy in the Broader Middle East. The hope for modernization and more pluralism in Arab countries remained torn between reasonable

4 The GDP of Russia’s 144 million people amounts to 347 billion US dollars (2005), much less than Mexico’s GDP of 699 billion US dollars with 100 million people, less than the 399 billion US dollars GDP of Australia with 19 million people and less than Korea’s GDP of 476 billion US dollars with its 47 million people.

5 Young, George, “Europeanization,” op.cit.: 629.

Ww progress and the drawbacks of Islamic fundamentalism. Building sustainable peace between the Palestinians and Israel has remained the most pressing geopolitical issue for more than half a century. As in 1937, also in the early twenty-first century, Africa tends to be forgotten. This should not prevail for too long, for reasons of enlightened self-interest of both its Western and Arab neighbors and for reasons of historical justice to the whole continent.

Between 1937 and the first decade of the twenty-first century, imperialist Europeanization had been replaced by American-dominated globalization.’ Whether or not Europe has been “provincializing” with the end of its colonialism, as an Indian author was suggesting,® both the US and Europe tended to forget that their own internal history has been one of colonization, empire-building and the language of power ever since their beginnings — since the Roman Empire in Europe and since the first colonial settlements on both sides of the North American coasts.’ The issue in the twenty-first century is not any more one of colonization and hegemonic dominance; it is one of world order-building. Thus it is inherently a multidimensional and multipolar challenge. In shaping the world order, the US and Europe are indispensable partners.

The Europe engaged in this partnership is of an altogether different nature than the Europe characterized in 1937 as imperial initiator of “Europeanization” elsewhere.'” It is an anti-colonial and anti-imperial, largely multilateral Europe that has enormously increased the level of its integration under the roof of the European Union. It is a Europe that has finally transformed its cultural diversity into its advantage. It is a Europe in which different nations and diverse, also non-overlapping interests prevail and yet democratic stability and peaceful affluence have reached levels unheard of in earlier periods of European history. Nevertheless, Europe is not free from conflicts. Populist nationalism and the challenge of integrating migrants, particularly of Muslim faith, are distant echoes of the colonial and imposed Europeanization of past centuries: Today, non-Europeans claim citizen rights in a continent which, in the past, has dominated many of their home countries. Although they could be “normal” citizens

7 On the imperial legacy of Europe see Raudzens, George, Empires: Europe and Globalization, 1492- 1788, Stroud: Sutton, 1999; Chamberlain, Muriel Evelyn, The Longman Companion to European Decolonization in the Twentieth Century, London/New York: Longman, 1998; Waites, Bernard, Europe and the Third World: From Colonization to Decolonization, 1500-1998, New York: St.Martin’s Press, 1999; Springhall, John, Decolonization since 1945: the Collapse of European Overseas Empires, New York: Palgrave, 2001.

8 Chakrabarty, Dipesh, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

9 See for some instructive reading Armitage, David (ed.), Theories of Empire, 1450-1800, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998: passim.

10 For some traditional characteristics and contemporary dilemmas of Europe see Scales, Len, and Oliver Zimmer (eds.), Power and the Nation in European History, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Gerrits, André W. M., and Dirk Jan Wolffram (eds.), Political Democracy and Ethnic Diversity in Modern European History, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005; Majone, Giandomenico, Dilemmas of European Integrations: The Ambiguities and Pitfalls of Integration by Stealth, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

there, surprisingly many people from distant lands voluntarily prefer to live in Europe, despite problems of integration, legal status and fear (if not xenophobia) among the indigenous European population they are confronted with.

America, on the other hand, is experiencing the curse and paradox of an Empire, which Europeans know only too well from their own nineteenth or early twentieth century dominance. Global leadership is coupled with a global fascination for the American way of life and yet it breeds mistrust, rejection, and even hatred toward America in many places around the globe.'! Internally, America is as much confronted with issues of national identity as the European Union and its constituent parts are.” For the remainder of the twenty-first century, the defining question posed to the US and to the EU will not be what they are, but who they are, not how they operate, but what they intend to achieve, not how democratic they are, but what the purpose of their democracy and their power will be.

The European Union’s homepage introduces its overview of EU relations with the United States under the headline: “The World’s two greatest powers.”'” Whatever that means and implies, the European Union is today’s Europe. Over the past five decades, Americans have used the term “Europeans” much more liberally than many Europeans do. Europeans still have mixed feelings about it as they divide their identity between their “European-ness” and their adherence to one of Europe’s many nations, old or new, big or small. Yet, today the European Union signifies “political Europe” across the continent and around the world. The European Union comprises 0.86 percent of the globe (4.324.782 square kilometers) and roughly seven percent of the global population (491 million). Even with Turkey as an EU member, these figures would increase only insignificantly to 1.01 percent of global space and nine percent of global population. All in all, the European Union is, and will remain, the smallest of all continents. But, at last, it has achieved a level of unity unprecedented in its long and colorful history.

This has been easy so long as the EU was in its embryonic stage, still labeled the EEC (European Economic Community) and later the EC (European Community). The US had served as Europe’s pacifier and federator after World War II. European integration was in the US’s interest as it was largely dependent upon America’s strategic goodwill and protection. As much as America has been the product of emancipation from Europe, after the end of the Cold War many in Europe claimed some sort of emancipation from the US. No matter how these phenomena are assessed, they are inevitable by-products of the reversion of the global role between Europe and America during the past four centuries. They do not imply divorce and the drifting apart

11 On the inevitability for the US to operate as an empire, on its merits and price see Ferguson, Niall, Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire, New Y ork: Penguin Press, 2004.

12 See Schlesinger jr., Arthur M., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1998; Huntington, Samuel R., Who are We?: The Challenges to America’s National Identity, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.

13 See European Union, European Commission, The EU’s Relation With the United States — Overview, http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/us/intro/index.htm.

of the Atlantic partners. Their self-interest is too strong to allow for this under any rational circumstances. These disputes echo rather temporary collisions among close partners, having to find a new balance among them and a new organizing principle to define their partnership and the purpose of their underlying civilization.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a “European dream.” Europe has been created, but Europeans are still missing. A genuine European interest is only growing slowly, but steadily. And no matter how hard proponents try, it is difficult to decipher what “the European model” truly will mean as opposed to “American conditions,” which is a favorite stereotype in Europe to blame America for its deficits without giving justice to all the positive dimensions of that great country. More realism and rational analysis would often be helpful to understand each other, including each other’s differences and complementary strengths. Part of this necessary reevaluation of transatlantic realities on the side of Europeans is the need to stop caricaturing the US. And part of this necessary reevaluation of transatlantic realities on the side of the US is the need to take the European Union more seriously.

Since the founding of the European Economic Community in 1957, European states have transformed dramatically. No European state of the early twenty-first century was defined only ethnically. Compared with the long and often ideologically-obsessed period between the eighteenth and the twentieth century, other functions of the modern state prevail in contemporary Europe. The states in Europe are still the most important source for providing the social framework for Europe’s economic development. But European citizens, by and large, have become market citizens, primarily interested in their economic well-being, in social security, safe jobs, and the delivery of social provisions by the state. Function and effect of the European state have turned primarily into that of an economic agency, sharing authority and power with the European Union. Yet, cultural integration prevails as aspiration and problem both on the national and on the European level. Unlike in the eighteenth to the twentieth century, the status of European citizens as cultural citizens is not defined against any of their neighbors in Europe. At times, it is however defined against close-by immigrants or far-away Americans. European patriotism might and, I believe, should grow step by step. But it should be based on values and constitutional principles, never on anti-American or any other anti-type of Euro-Gaullism. The emergence of some sort of a dangerous European nationalism is not an artificial worry for a continent in which “myth and nationhood” often went hand in hand.'* Timothy Garton Ash has put this concern into clear words: “The whole of the new, enlarged Europe is engaged in a great argument between the forces of Euro-Gaullism and Euroatlanticism. This is the argument of the decade. On its

»15 outcome will depend the future of the West.” ” It is exactly because of this concern that

14 See Hosking, Geoffrey, and George Schöpflin (eds.), Myths and Nationhood, London: Hurst, 1997. 15 Garton Ash, Timothy, Free World: Why a Crisis of the West Reveals the Opportunity of Our Time, London: Allen Lane, 2004: 58; for an early study on the Atlantic civilization see Deutsch, Karl W.,

I suggest to reconcile a strong Atlantic partnership of the European Union with the internal evolution of a European constitutional patriotism.

Wherever states cannot deliver sufficient economic benefits for their citizens — or wherever political systems do not have to do this anymore in the very basic sense of the word — the state will inevitably change its character and meaning. The idea of cultural identification was never sufficient to integrate a state over a critically long period of time. Nation-building and state-building outside the Western world give ample proof to this experience. Yet economic impulses for integrating a large population are also insufficient if not embedded in a political purpose and perspective. This is what the European Union continuously looks for: Political purpose and popular approval for a successful economic integration amid cultural diversity in unity. This can only work as a permanent learning process and it requires the recognition of local and regional identities as enshrined in the concept of “subsidiarity,” one of the linguistic monsters of Euro-speak (and one of the original structural principles of Catholic social doctrine since its development in the nineteenth century). Subsidiarity is not just an intelligent concept to protect political autonomy in an ever globalizing and homogenizing world, it is also the recognition of the cultural seed in which Europe grew and will continue to be fertile.

Despite the constitutional roller coaster ride of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the EU lives its symbols, among them the European flag, the European anthem (Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”) and “Europe Day” on May 9. “United in diversity” is not simply a fine and appropriate motto for Europe. It is the very summary of the evolution of the European population since time immemorial. Demographically, Europe has always been a continent of emigration and immigration, of voluntary and enforced migrants.'° Among European high-nobility, cross-national marriages have always been the norm and are well studied even as an instrument of power-formation. It would also be worth studying the degree of cross-national marriages among ordinary European citizens over all recorded periods: United in diversity is the demographic bond that has held Europe together ever since. Today, it constitutes the most successful post-national integration project in human history.

The formula “an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe,” used already in the Treaties of Rome in March 1957, is a distant echo, of course, of the “more perfect union” invoked in the US Constitution of 1787. This is another indication of the mutually reinforcing character of the political processes on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The US Constitution was an early realization of European constitutional et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957. For the current situation see Rien, Serges T., Cultural Constructions of Europe: European Identity in the twenty-first Century, Frankfurt/New York: Peter Lang, 2004.

16 See van de Kaa, Dirk, et al. (eds.), European Populations: Unity in Diversity, Dordrecht/Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999.

evolution at that time, albeit on the national level only. In the early twenty-first century, the European Union, with its flag and anthem, currency and parliament, Europe Day and treaty-based rule of law, is a genuine contribution to the global development of political form and theory. Most of all, the European Union is a form in action, a vision turned practice. It is a process and not a static construction. The enlargement of the European Union by twelve new member states during the first decade of the twenty-first century — ten of them post-communist countries and the other two making the EU a neighbor of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, Lebanon and Israel — was significant not only for the degree of complexity and regional asymmetries it created inside the EU; it was also very emotional, because in reality it meant the reunification of Europe under conditions of cooperative peace and parliamentary democracy. The enlargement marathon of the early years of the twenty-first century went hand in hand with a deep crisis of confidence, orientation and leadership. Nowhere was it more evident than in the failure to ratify the Constitutional Treaty and its subsequent repair work, the Treaty of Lisbon, across the EU. In the end, this double fiasco was a crisis of adaptation: adaptation to a new set of member states, to a new rationale of integration in the globalized world, and to a new form of legitimacy, no longer rooting the EU solely in elite discourses but requiring a fresh and substantial connection with the feelings, aspirations and concerns of Union citizens. For the political leaders of the European Union, the result of the constitution-building crisis came with their signature under the Treaty of Lisbon on December 13, 2007. They called it metaphorically “Reform Treaty.” For the citizens of the European Union, the EU’s constitution-building process between 2001 and 2008 was a sequence of rifts between their growing recognition of the importance of European solutions to common challenges and their increasing skepticism about political leadership and backdoor politics in the European Union. The constitution-building process was the most intensive reform process of the EU so far, and yet it rather enhanced people’s distance from the EU and its institutions. To complete the paradox of this decade, the majority of EU citizens were ahead of their leaders, still favoring a genuine European Constitution while their leaders were helplessly absorbed in the repair work of what they initially had claimed to achieve. This confusing first decade of the twenty-first century was a turning point in European integration rationale. Over time, consensus will grow in our understanding that this decade of confusion, euphoria, backlash, a new, cautious beginning and, again, backlash was the painful birth of a new European consensus between Europe’s institutions and Europe’s people. It was a decade equivalent to a Second Founding of the European Union.

European integration is the single most important event in European history in modern times, no matter the still pending cases of integration in South Eastern Europe and a long list of unfinished business as far as the implementation of EU policies is concerned.

The political, legal and economic development of Europe has always been accompanied by “the cultural gradient.”'’ Ideas were transferred from their original place of construction into a new context and into social norms. Gradually they amalgamated into political form — or vanished into the big archives of Europe. The idea of European unity finally has been transformed into Europe’s reality — with all the idiosyncrasies and disputes that will continue amid the diversity in united Europe. Limits of European-ness prevail, to be sure.'* The term “Europeanization” is no longer used to delineate colonial empires and their cultural development. The term “Europeanization” has come home and refers to the often daunting process of applying EU legal norms in the member states of the European Union. European integration, to paraphrase the 1937 “Encyclopedia of Social Sciences” article, is permeating the nation states in Europe and the complex web of world order-building. At the end of a long journey, Europe is Europeanizing itself.

The guiding principle of the quest for European unity has been and remains the maintenance of peace. The search for peaceful solutions, for conflict-prevention and conflict resolution, if necessary also with the use of military might, has turned into the EU’s central creed. Promoting the strategy of reconciliation is no longer necessary among Europeans, but it remains in short supply amid the many regional conflicts of the world. The European Union will stay committed to supporting peaceful order-building in the world, if necessary also with military means. The European Union would not want to become a superpower. But it would want to be respected as a power for peace and stability, freedom and prosperity in partnership with the world. Although its link with the US might remain contested, or at least uncertain for some time ahead, this is the new political identity of most Europeans, as Timothy Garton Ash has eloquently defined it: “We hope to become a superpower, fellow Europeans, in vain. Let us make ourselves, rather, comrades in a community of free people, working to build a free world.”'”

This book introduces the first five decades of European unity and analyzes the European Union at a crossroads. It describes the changes and transformations during the first decade of the twenty-first century as the Second Founding of the EU. Following five decades of turbulent, often daunting, yet highly successful integration, the

17 See Evtuhov, Catherine, and Stephen Kotkin (eds.), The Cultural Gradient: the Transmission of Ideas in Europe, 1789-1991, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003 (this book however is mainly dealing with Eastern European intellectual history).

18 See Ferguson, Niall, Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire, op.cit.: 251-257.

19 Garton Ash, Timothy, Free World: Why a Crisis of the West Reveals the Opportunity of Our Time, op.cit.: 223.

European Union unintentionally yet with lasting effect began a process of refounding, symbolized in the enormous eastward enlargement, contested in the search for the constitutional parameters of European integration and visible in the all-pervasive effects of European integration on public life and politics across EU member states. European integration has become a matter of domestic politics everywhere in the EU while at the same time the EU is exponentially broadening its global role. This study puts the European Union and its evolution in the global context as defined by transatlantic relations, the impact of globalization on the rationale of European integration, and the global proliferation of regional integration schemes. It discusses the theoretical and normative issues related to the rise of the European Union and its challenges ahead. The book ends with an outlook on the prospects of a genuine European constitutional patriotism and the increased global role of the European Union.

This book offers a history-based political analysis with sensitivity for the cultural dimensions in which European integration is embedded. The first five decades of the quest for European unity have seen remarkable developments, and also failures, new beginnings and lasting success. The idea of reconciliation among former European foes has been the driving motivation at the beginning stages of European integration. After losing its global power as defined in the age of colonialism, Europe got a second chance with US support for its integration. Throughout this path, the ongoing division of Europe and the absence of freedom under totalitarian communism saddened the image of post-war Europe. Following its first successful peaceful and democratic revolution, symbolized in the fall of the Berlin Wall, and bringing the Cold War to its end, Europe’s unity strengthened the European Union as the ever increasing embodiment of the political identity of a continent, whose cultural diversity will surely prevail as one of its charming advantages and sources of identity. It also confronted the European Union with its biggest ever adaptation crisis and the need to restore legitimacy to European integration as a project rooted in its citizens’ identity and loyalty. A common political identity under the roof of the European Union is only gradually emerging. Yet it adds already a new dimension to the various cultural identities in Europe. One might even say that this new and gradually uniting political identity — as incomplete as it still is — protects the diverse cultural identities of Europe, not the least among its many small nations and for all of their languages.

European political identity has been shaped, challenged and advanced in the course of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Parallel with an unprecedented enlargement of the European Union, the need for deeper integration was confronted with the usual disputes between advocates and skeptics of integration. The search for constitution-building led the EU to its, so far, finest hour in institutional reform, but also into the deepest crisis ever. EU leaders signed a European Constitution all but in name. However, they were unable to manage the ratification process in a convincing way for many of their citizens. After the Constitutional Treaty came to a halt, the first ever constitutional debate in EU history followed. Its result was a repair treaty, relying on the traditional means of an inter-state bargain, and a citizenry in favor of a genuine European Constitution. The reform treaty was rejected in the only public referendum at hand. Those who said “no” insisted to be good Europeans, wanting a better EU than the one offered by their political leaders. This paradoxical result of incremental and deliberative constitution-building will be discussed in Chapter I: Emerging European constitutionalism without a European Constitution is the result of almost a decade of adaptation crises. In its effects, it has opened the door for a new rationale of European integration. Since it has also added new dimensions to a renewed contract between citizens and political elites, it is no exaggeration to frame this period as the Second Founding of European integration. In Chapter II, I will analyze the European Constitutional Treaty of 2004, compare it with the so-called Reform Treaty of 2007 and assess the experiences of a unique reform period in European integration in which both treaties were rejected by European citizens in the name of a better EU. In three subsequent chapters (Chapter HI, Chapter IV, Chapter V) that combine historical narrative and political science-based structural analysis, I will discuss the key turning points of this development as an interplay of “challenge and response,” thereby recalling the famous argument of the great historian Arnold Toynbee about the dialectical sources of progress. In my understanding, the main turning points of European integration were a permanent interplay of “challenge and response,” often requiring an external, and even more often an internal, crisis to advance to the next level of deepened integration. The debate about a possible alternative between the deepening of European integration and permanent widening of the process through four distinct series of enlargement turns out to be artificial. In the end, all enlargements served the purpose to strengthen European unity and hence the European Union as it is today. Deepening its structures and policies was, at the end, in the interest of all partners.