Rehn hits out at EU enlargement critics

EU enlargement is being used as a scapegoat for all of Europe’s ills, enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn has told MEPs.

Addressing the European parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Tuesday, Rehn said enlargement has been falsely blamed for the rejection of the constitution.

“The EU’s enlargement fatigue started and became a scapegoat in June 2005, after the two failed referenda on the constitutional treaty,” he said.

“Do you know who cheered most in our immediate neighbourhood after the French and the Dutch referenda? I can tell you: the Turkish nationalists, the Serbian radicals, and the Russian panslavists,” he added.

The commissioner called on the parliament to “prove those radical nationalists wrong by restoring a renewed consensus on EU enlargement.”

Rehn was attending a meeting of the foreign affairs committee two weeks after the commission published its latest strategy on enlargement.

In its report the EU executive also included a special report on Europe’s “integration capacity.”

“The current enlargement strategy – based on consolidation, conditionality and communication – must be combined with further ways and means to ensure our capacity to integrate new members,” Rehn insisted.

But the Finnish enlargement chief warned against focusing too much on the internal problems caused by expansion.

“We need to strive for a renewed consensus on enlargement,” he declared.

“This new consensus should achieve two things simultaneously…first, it should recognise the strategic value of enlargement….and second, it should ensure our capacity to continue to function while gradually integrating new members."

"We can reconcile these two objectives.”

• Previous article
• Next article