EU Accession, and the Elephant in the Room

Monday 6 June – The European Policy Centre held an excellent panel discussion about Serbia's EU accession negotiations. The subject was the role of member states (MS), highly relevant for Serbia, which faces MS seeking to strengthen their position on bilateral issues by blocking progress on the path to accession. Tanja Miščević gave a clear and informative contribution as usual, explaining how accession is an ever more difficult challenge, and that Serbia should cultivate a group of supporters among MS and address bilateral issues through intensive diplomatic efforts. The discussion was a good one, on strategies and tactics. But the substance of the negotiations was not addressed.

One thing that became clear was that, historically, every candidate has faced challenges from MS with bilateral issues. These have varied over the history of enlargement, according to the concerns of the day. So how should Serbia gain the support of all 28 members?

One of the major concerns today is migration. In the UK, internal EU migration is prominent. Brexiteers enjoy support partly because of fears that mass migration leads to a loss of cultural identity. Following previous enlargements, many people migrated to the UK from new MS like Poland in search of work, largely because of their own countries' high unemployment. Following Poland's economic transformation, some returned, having provided a positive boost to the UK economy, but leaving many people there with an insecure sense of being flooded with foreign culture.

Recent German proposals for all MS to accept a number of asylum seekers brought near-hysterical reactions from some eastern European countries that have none, and could expect only a small number under the deal. Just the idea of a few foreigners needing help raised irrational alarm. Migration from other MS is not an issue here, but only because they know that few people would come to work in their less developed economies.

The EU is seen as a barrel of good apples to be taken and bad ones to be resisted. There exists little awareness of duties, little sense of community – a legacy of over-rapid expansion.

In short, many people in the EU's more functional states now have a fear of perceivedly poor, dysfunctional states that want to join to receive handouts and relieve their high unemployment rates by emigration - and these fears are partially well-founded. Had previous candidates joined as booming economies strong on the rule of law, it would have been very different. Now, they don't want more deadbeats, but attractive partners. Like the prince, the EU's citizens want Cinderella, not her ugly sisters, however good their strategies to powder over their warts.

Serbia currently has high unemployment, especially youth unemployment, a business environment tangled in red tape and an unreasonably high tax burden on companies that support a bloated public sector and subsidies to their foreign competitors and politicians' cronies. This, I felt, was the elephant in the room.

But if Serbia addresses the substance, and not just the tactics of accession, it can make itself an attractive partner. Serbia must stop being an exporter and become an importer of labour, by generating growth and exuding stability. And Serbia can do this. EU accession is exactly the chance for Serbia to learn how to reform. If it uses it well, enacting deep reform rather than scraping over the threshold, it can quickly outshine half of Europe and transform itself into that attractive partner.

By the time it finishes, Serbia may not need to join the EU at all, and the EU - if it still exists - may want to join Serbia.

David Lythgoe, Halifax Consulting