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STILL DIVIDED: Hungarian cars get a jet of disinfectant as they enter Romania
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The official line from Brussels is that enlargement of the European Union to the east is a win-win proposition. Once inside the E.U., the architects of expansion claim, the Eastern and Central European states will enjoy the political, social and economic advantages of membership, while the historical injustice of Soviet domination will finally have been rectified. Current members will benefit too, through the unfettered commercial access to more than 100 million new E.U. citizens and the increased security of having fellow E.U. states as neighbors to the east.
But many people in Eastern and Central Europe fear that the process of "ever closer union" will create new divisions. The E.U. started formal accession talks in 1998 with the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Estonia, Slovenia and Cyprus, and opened the process earlier this year for six more — Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Malta. In theory countries from the "second wave" can catch up with those in the first, but they clearly won't all get in together. This means new barriers will likely go up before they start melting away. In fact, some are already springing up around the region, making a kind of "Paper Curtain." The Czech Republic, for example, introduced visa requirements earlier this year for Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians, while Romania did the same for citizens of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Hungary is introducing visas for Russians next June, and the Czechs early this year dropped their request to maintain a customs union with Slovakia. The fear is that rather than bring all of Europe closer together, enlargement will simply move the Continent's fault line — and all its attendant problems — farther east.
Concern is greatest among those countries in the first wave of proposed enlargement that have special cultural or economic interests in their second-tier neighbors. Several million ethnic Hungarians live in Romania, Slovakia and Serbia, for example, while cross-border trade — regardless of whether the countries involved have a shot at the E.U. — is crucial for the region's growth. E.U. enlargement could provoke a backlash, potentially creating fresh tensions between new members and the countries farther east, including Russia, by inhibiting trade and stifling economic migration. The unification of "Western Europe was easy because the western and southern borders were just sea and to the east was the Berlin Wall," says Michael Emerson, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. "But there is no ethnic, religious or geographic frontier at any point in the east, all the way through to the Urals or Vladivostok."
Hungary is one example of the wandering borders common in Eastern and Central Europe. Roughly 2 million ethnic Hungarians live in Romania, and 350,000 in the Vojvodina region of Serbia. These people drive a lot of cross-border trade, some of it illegitimate, in the area — exporting cheap Romanian gas to Hungary, for example, or importing quality consumer goods like electronics. Vojvodina Hungarians are particularly dependent on the mother country these days as they face shortages at home of such staples as vegetables, cooking oil and sugar. Many ethnic Hungarians from Romania and Serbia find illegal employment in Hungary — mainly in the construction, agricultural and services industries — where the average wage is much higher.
The fact that Hungary will likely join the E.U. ahead of Romania "is creating a lot of anxiety, especially about free circulation of people," says Zsuzsa Bereschi, foreign affairs adviser to the president of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania. "There are roughly 2 million ethnic Hungarians in Romania — all of them have ties to the motherland and many depend on seasonal work in Hungary." Romanians can currently travel to Hungary without a visa for up to 30 days. Hungary would like to see a visa-free regime maintained for all Romanians, but is already under pressure from the E.U. to impose visas and crack down on illegal migration. The E.U. is "aware of the danger of pushing us toward the east," says Bereschi. "So I believe we have a chance [of maintaining a visa-free regime]. For that, of course, the condition would be that we strengthen our borders toward the east."
The Hungarian government isn't waiting for a definitive E.U. ruling. The current administration has drafted a law that would grant various privileges and financial and material help to ethnic Hungarians living abroad. Under consideration are better access for ethnic Hungarians to work in Hungary for a limited period, increased support of Hungarian-language education abroad and even partial access to free health care in Hungary.
A poll conducted by Budapest's Tarki Social Research Center showed widespread support for the law. Of those surveyed, 56% said that ethnic Hungarian children should receive free state education in Hungary, while 53% agreed that ethnic Hungarians should be entitled to health benefits and services. Significantly, though, only 32% thought that ethnic Hungarians should be able to settle in Hungary without conditions.
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