Will the EU expand further amid eastern European discontent?

The European Union has 27 member states. It briefly had 28 before the United Kingdom departed in 2020. The EU started in 1957 as a six-member European Economic Community (EEC). It has not absorbed a new member since Croatia in 2018.

There are various candidate members: Ukraine, Moldova, Albania, North Macedonia and Kosovo. Turkey has been a candidate member since 1987. However, its accession talks have been frozen since the attempted coup of 2016. President Erdogan’s agglomeration of power is deemed as so extreme that the European Union considers that Turkiye is more of a dictatorship than a democracy.

Even if the Turkish Republic were a model democracy there are some who would oppose its accession to the EU. Is it too poor, too populous and too Muslim? There is some frank anti-Muslim prejudice among a serious number of EU citizens. France, Germany and the Netherlands are all pledged to stand athwart Turkish membership of the EU.

If Turkiye, as it is now to be called even in English, gained admission to the EU this would mean that the bloc would have a border with Iran, Syria, Iraq and Azerbaijan. Does the European Union want that? Illegal immigrants once in Turkiye could travel all across the EU. The EU does not really have internal borders. The EU’s external border is therefore only as good as its weakest point.

Cyprus has vowed never to permit Turkish accession to the EU until Turkiye ends its occupation of the north-east third of the Island of Cyprus. Only then can Cyprus be reunited.

Note that every member state has a veto over new members. Even one country out of 27 could permanently block a new nation from joining.

It had been the case that Albania and North Macedonia agreed to make a joint application for full membership. The EU would either accept or reject both. They could not accept one and reject the other.

25% of North Macedonians are ethnic Albanians. There were some in North Macedonia who wanted their region of the country to break away from North Macedonia and become part of Albania. But if both states join the EU together then this will render the border between North Macedonia and Albania largely meaningless.

Albania was once a byword for tyranny and impecuniosity in Europe. However, the country has come on leaps and bounds since the millennium. It is heavily promoted as a tourist destination. It is an affordable alternative to nearby Greece.

The most likely next admittee to the EU is Albania. It has decided to decouple its application from that of North Macedonia.

North Macedonia was once part of Bulgaria. The Bulgarians call it eastern Rumelia. Few if any North Macedonians wish to reunite with Bulgaria. Bulgaria could block North Macedonian membership in the EU forever.

Allowing a new member state would give hope to Ukraine. It would prove that Ukraine will eventually be readmitted. Realistically it will be at least 10 years before Ukraine gets into the EU and 20 years is more likely.

People will ask what a shattered Ukraine has to offer to the EU. It will cost at least USD 300 billion to rebuild Ukraine.

The European Union has donated tens of millions of Euros to Ukraine. The EU itself gives EUR 6 billion a month to Ukraine to pay the salaries of soldiers, civil servants, police officers etc… and to pay for the essential maintenance of roads and railways and so forth. The EU member states have given money in addition to money donated by the EU itself.

There are concerns about admitting Albania to the EU. There are many organised crime syndicates in Albania. It is true that gangsters are found among every nationality. The scare stories around Albanian gangs’ people trafficking and forcing women into prostitution have some factual basis but they are blown out of proportion. It leads to bigotry against innocent Albanians.

Albania would be the first Muslim-majority country in the European Union. It is a secular country, but it would still make a difference. It would then pave the way for Bosnia Herzegovina with its Muslim plurality to apply for candidate membership.

The EU candidate members are all in Eastern Europe and are less prosperous than Western Europe. They have seen some Western European countries make economic strides partly owing to EU membership. This includes Poland and Hungary. In the 1990s these countries were poor by European standards. In 2024 they are economically only a little behind the United Kingdom.

Indeed, in the 1980s the EU had only 12 member states. The poorer ones were known as the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain). Major EU aid helped these countries come up to the EU average. In point of fact the Irish Republic is now the 6th richest country in the world per capita.

The EU has criteria for admission to the Union. These include free elections, an independent judiciary, anti-corruption, free media, human rights and a sound economy.

The GDP per capita in a rich EU country like the Netherlands or Sweden is USD 70,000 per annum. In Ukraine, it is USD 7,000. The wealth gap is so great that millions of Ukrainians would head west in search of a better life.

Ukraine being granted candidate membership in 2022 was a major coup for Kyiv. The Ukrainians pleaded for full membership. Admission to the EU would mean that Russia would have already failed in one of its major objectives: to keep Ukraine out of the Western orbit. It would also mean that the EU is legally bound to defend Ukraine. The European Union is not a military alliance. But it has its rapid reaction force: i.e. army, navy and air force units. It also has Eurocorps which consists of military units from various member states.

The EU is very confused about military affairs. Some EU member states are also in NATO. But the following EU countries are not in NATO: Cyprus, Austria, Malta and the Republic of Ireland. There is little prospect that any of them will join.

There is no coherence in foreign policy. The EU has its own External Affairs Commissioner (i.e. foreign minister) and External Action Service (i.e. diplomatic corps). It has had its own representative offices (i.e. embassies) for over 20 years. But some EU member states supported the Iraq War and some opposed it. Some applaud Israel’s crimes in Palestine and others condemn them. If the EU is to be a force in world affairs it must speak with one voice. It needs to stop this wasteful duplication of resources.

There are 28 EU embassies in Washington DC: one for the EU itself and one for each of the 27 member states. It would save an awful lot of money to have just one such embassy.

The late Henry Kissinger was the US Secretary of State in the early 1970s. Dr Kissinger said there is no phone number for who to call in Europe. The United States would find it simpler if there were one leader of its allies in Europe rather than having to call Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Poland and others. This is why the USA gave its imprimatur to the EU as a conglomeration of pro-US nations.

If an EU citizen (for example a Latvian) is in trouble in a country where Latvia has no embassy (Cambodia for instance) he can go to the embassy of another EU country, for instance, France.

The EU confers European citizenship on the citizens of all its member states. European citizenship adds to and does not replace national citizenship. EU citizens may live and work in any other EU country as well as various countries that are part of the single European market: Switzerland, Norway and microstates such as Andorra.

There is anxiety that the EU is overexpanding. There was major opposition to EU expansions in 2004 and subsequently. There would be large-scale migration within the EU when a less wealthy country is admitted.

Some eastern EU countries have mixed feelings about EU membership. They see that half their young people have left. Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary have seen their population drop precipitously. Their babies are born in the west of Europe. Moreover, they feel their identity has been blurred and culture polluted by ultra-liberal Western mores. Western Europe considers the glorification of homosexuality and transgenderism to be mandatory.

Once a country is admitted to the EU it is almost impossible to expel it. It has never been essayed.

The anti-democratic movement in the United Kingdom campaigns for readmission to the EU. There is no guarantee that that shall ever transpire. If the UK were taken back, it would be on very unfavourable terms. The UK would be required to pay more than ever before, to join the Eurozone, to join the Schengen Agreement to give away Gibraltar and to hand over its bases in Cyprus to the Cypriot Government.

The EU seems hellbent on taking in more members. But is there any need? Each country admitted is a risk. The newer members are poorer. They receive subventions from the more affluent ones. The idea is this will make the less wealthy nations become richer and then become net contributors. This worked in the Irish example.

Perhaps the EU would be better off consolidating. There is no need for Drang nach Osten. Surely there has to be some limit. The EU can make the mistake of many polities: overexpansion.