Summary: Speech by Olli Rehn, EU Commissioner for Enlargement at the 50 years of deepening and widening Conference ; 'Fifty Years of the EU - Three Decades of Enlargement: the Road Ahead' ; 26 June 2007
26 June 2007, Brussels- I am pleased to be here today to open this conference. DG Enlargement has put together an excellent set of panels to discuss the key issues facing enlargement. This is a great opportunity to learn lessons from past enlargements and prepare for future ones.
But I'd like to start by taking issue - in a most friendly manner - with the reference in title of the conference to "Three decades of enlargement". Why only three decades? In fact, enlargement has been part of the development of European integration right from the start. Let's remember the existential debate among the original six Member States, and the outside seven. Enlargement was a major item on the agenda in 1963, when General de Gaulle opposed the accession of the United Kingdom - the
same year when he signed the Ankara Agreement with Turkey.
I remember myself talking to a delegation from the House of Lords in London to the European Parliament in 1995, when I was an MEP. We were supposedly discussing the Inter-governmental Conference preparing the Treaty of Amsterdam. But it rapidly became evident that their Lordships were talking about the IGC not in Amsterdam in 1996-97, but rather the IGC of 1950-51 which led to the Treaty of Paris. There was no sign of Alzheimer's disease when the Lords recalled the deeds and especially
misdeeds, some 45 years before, blaming each other for keeping the UK out of that IGC and thus out of the European Coal and Steel Community!
Hence, the debate about enlargement is already more than 50 years old. During that half-century, the EU has pursued deepening and widening most of the time in parallel. As new members joined, the EU continued to pursue deeper integration, often stimulated by new challenges raised by the new joiners, which required attention to new policy areas at EU level.
We founded the Single Market after the southern enlargement in the 1980s, and developed substantial cohesion and regional policies. We established the single currency after the Nordic and Austrian accessions in the 1990s, and saw important new developments in foreign and security policies. Since the 2004 accessions, we have witnessed a phenomenal growth in the area of justice, liberty and security, as well as the pursuit of economic competitiveness and socio-economic development with new
methods of integration.
As a consequence of parallel deepening of integration and gradual widening, Europe is today much safer and more prosperous than it was when the integration process started. With 27 Member States and a population of close on 500 million, today's European Union is much stronger and more influential than the EEC 50 years ago with its 6 Member States and a population of less than 200 million.
Deepening and widening are not contradictory, but complementary. It is the combination of the two that has made the EU stronger and increased our leverage in the world economy and politics.
That is why it is of paramount importance for European construction that the European Council last week was able to set the mandate for a new Intergovernmental Conference to conclude preparations of a new Reform Treaty. Deepening of political integration and reform of the Union enables us to continue the gradual and carefully managed accession process, which is based on consolidation and conditionality.
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