EU Enlargement 20 Years On: Lessons From Europe's Big Bang

75 million new EU citizens

Macron's mea culpa came 15 months after the invasion of Ukraine. This aggression validated a posteriori the numerous warnings issued by eastern EU member states against Russian warmongering, long ignored in the West.

The war, which has been going on for 26 months in Ukraine, has finally established the 10 member states that joined the Union in 2004 (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus, known as the EU10) on the European stage. They are joined by Romania and Bulgaria, which were less prepared and only joined in 2007. Eight of these 12 countries border Russia or Ukraine.

May 1 marks the 20th anniversary of the EU enlargement, remembered as the "big bang", when 75 million inhabitants increased the EU's population by almost 20% and its GDP by 8.9%. Many of these newcomers now carry more weight in debates thanks to their economic or demographic strength alone.

New confidence

In February, the Czech Republic launched a widely followed initiative to buy munitions from outside the EU and deliver them to Kyiv. Romanian President Klaus Iohannis is a candidate for NATO's General Secretariat. Lithuania's Foreign Minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, has plead for Ukraine's cause even on major US networks. Last year, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas floated the idea of a joint debt issue to bolster Europe's defense industry — a plan that has been under intense scrutiny ever since.

We have been in the EU long enough to be treated as equals.

On the sidelines of the latest European summit in mid-March, 46-year-old Kallas told Les Echos how she sees herself in relation to her counterparts: "In the diplomatic sphere, older advisors recommend that I follow the big member states. But I belong to a generation for whom we've been in the Union long enough to be treated as equals."

Economic success

Yet Kallas, the daughter of former Prime Minister Sim Kallas, is pleased with the developments made in recent years: "We are listened to, and given our size, I attach a great deal of importance to this." Estonia has a population of 1.3 million, or 0.3% of the entire EU.

Part of the EU10's new influence is due to the rapid economic catch-up achieved by most of the countries. "GDP figures tell the success story of the big bang," says Vera Jourova, Czech Vice-President of the European Commission. With GDP at 90% of the EU average in 2022 (according to the latest Eurostat figures), the Czech Republic and Slovenia are not far behind Italy (97%).

They are closely followed by Lithuania (89%), Estonia (85%, very close to Spain at 86%) and Poland (79%, on a par with Portugal). According to the PIE Institute, Poland's GDP per capita at purchasing power parity is now 40% higher than it would have been without accession.

Catching up

"If you look at the various Eurostat rankings, you'll see that nowhere are the countries of the 2004 big bang relegated behind the Western member states. The rankings are now a mixed bag," says Lukas Macek of the Institut Jacques-Delors.

Romania and especially Bulgaria, handicapped by strong brain drains and having started from further afield, certainly lag. Heather Grabbe of the Bruegel Institute explains: "These countries are certainly off-center, but what they really need is better governance. The Baltics have done so well because they also rank highly in terms of transparency and the fight against corruption. This attracts foreign investment, which brings with it not only jobs but also managerial skills and new corporate cultures."

Strong growth has not entirely erased the feeling, or at least the fear, of remaining second-class citizens of the EU. In 2017, there was considerable concern when it emerged that certain food products, sold in the East in the same packaging as in the West, were of inferior quality or different composition. Bulgaria's prime minister denounced a "food apartheid," forcing Brussels to react.

Entrepreneurial drive

At conferences on Europe, some speakers still use the expression "new member states" to refer to those of 2004-2007. Sometimes with a touch of condescension. “If it means immature or not advanced, I object to the term," Jourova says with a smile. "But 'new' is not a bad name. It also implies freshness, dynamism and a willingness to move forward."

Last January, a Lithuanian entrepreneur told Les Echos that, in Vilnius — the birthplace of the unicorn Vinted — that he observed "a greater appetite for entrepreneurship and success in the Baltic States than in Western Europe."

In contrast to the economic results, the political outcome of the 2004 enlargement is rather disappointing. Admittedly, when it comes to decision-making at the European level, things have gone rather smoothly. "Even though we went from 15 to 27 in three years, there was no bottleneck at the EU Council. The workload has been heavier, but there has been no blockage due to heterogeneity or 'new versus old' opposition," European diplomat said with satisfaction.

Unfortunately, some member states have experienced serious breaches of the rule of law. Viktor Orban, theorist of illiberalism, has succeeded in transforming Hungary into a quasi-autocracy. Robert Fico, who returned to the helm of Slovakia last year, seems tempted to follow in his neighbor's footsteps, even if he cannot rely on a parliamentary "supermajority" like Orban.

Illusions of stability

In Poland, the Law and Justice Party (PiS), in power between 2015 and 2023, has developed an anti-European nationalist ideology. In 2021, it even challenged the supremacy of European law. New Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the former European Council president who toppled the Morawiecki government last December, is struggling to unravel the PiS system.

The newcomers had a very materialistic and economic approach to membership.

In 2004, no one had envisaged such democratic regressions. "At the time, 15 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the old member states were under the illusion that they were moving towards a general stabilization based on a single model that synergistically combined security, open trade, and democracy," one diplomat recalls.

"The newcomers, on the other hand, had a very materialistic and economic approach to membership, unaware that the process of political integration would accelerate, particularly after the financial crisis and Brexit," says Eric Maurice of the European Policy Centre.

An ill-equipped Union

Carried by the optimism of the time (launch of the euro, preparation of a "constitution"), the EU embarked on this new enlargement in 2004 with very few instruments to sanction aberrations. Essentially, with Article 7 of the EU Treaty, which in theory suspends the voting rights of capitals that contravene fundamental values of the bloc.

Article 7 was implemented in 2017 against Poland and in 2018 against Hungary. "But it has no teeth because sanctions require unanimity in the Council, minus the country concerned of course," says Morina Engjellushe of the European Council for International Relations. "It should be possible to apply it by qualified majority."

In recent years, conditionality mechanisms for European funds have been developed to strengthen the Union's arsenal. First as part of the major post-Covid recovery plan. Then in a 2020 regulation that defines a general conditionality regime to protect the EU budget. The Commission used it for the first time in 2022 against Hungary. Since 2020, Brussels has also published an annual report on the rule of law, which acts as a deterrent to capitals tempted to abuse it.

New candidates

The unfortunate experiences of recent years are providing food for thought for the next round of enlargement. No fewer than nine countries are currently knocking on the door of the European club: war-torn Ukraine (a demographic juggernaut with a population of 44 million), Moldova, Georgia and the six states of the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia).

All are currently suffering from governance problems. As far as the Balkans are concerned, the Bruegel Institute's Grabbe believes that the EU was "in a vicious circle" with these countries: "forgotten in the debates for 20 years, with no visibility on their membership, they had little incentive to reform."

The war in Ukraine has given a new impetus. The 27 now consider it unwise to leave these neighboring countries outside the Union. "But knowing what happened in Hungary and Poland, we are now very demanding in our discussions with candidates for accession," says Jourova, in charge of Values and Transparency at the Commission.

Last year, the EU already agreed that these new extensions would have to be accompanied by far-reaching reforms. And mechanisms must be put in place to gradually integrate candidates. In the 2030s, if these countries do join the Union, they will become the new "newcomers."