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That will be no mean feat. The French may not be willing to grapple in earnest with how a common agricultural policy can be fairly and affordably structured until they get their already divisive presidential elections, expected by May 2002, behind them. The Germans also face national elections that year. And it will fall to the Spanish, who assume the presidency of the European Council in the first half of 2002, to lead negotiations on the difficult topic of regional assistance — the E.U. program from which Spain most profits.
It will be no easier among even the most advanced of the candidate countries. The Czech Republic, for example, has yet to tackle a thorough reform of its state administration and its judiciary, a process that includes filling vacancies, simplifying procedures and stepping up judicial training. Telecommunications privatization is a frequent sticking point elsewhere, as are various rules governing the flow of capital and subsidies for certain population groups. Throughout the region, massive investments will be needed to move toward the E.U.'s strict environmental standards.
With a population of 39 million, Poland dwarfs the other candidates and is thus the linchpin of expansion. "The idea of an Eastern enlargement without Poland is beyond my imagination," says Verheugen. Yet with its bloated and inefficient agricultural sector, this country poses one of the toughest challenges for an E.U. that spends almost half its budget on the byzantine and much-derided Common Agricultural Policy.
Jan Kulakowski, Poland's chief negotiator, agrees with Verheugen that now the time has come to move negotiations into an overtly political stage. "Until now, the process has been like a game of Ping-Pong, as questions and answers flow in both directions," he says. "Now we start to know the spectrum of possible compromise." Clearly there is room for horse trading. Poland's formal negotiating position calls for a total of 33 transition periods, including one of 18 years before rural real estate can be purchased by foreigners. Yet the Poles want agricultural assistance to begin immediately.
"Verheugen is not the arrow of a compass that always points in one direction," says Jaroslav Zverina, chairman of the Committee for European Integration in the lower house of the Czech parliament. But he notes a considerable improvement in the way the current European Commission deals with enlargement. In the past, he says, the E.U. was "a strict teacher with a long ruler. The new Commission takes a much softer line, where the political criteria of enlargement are more important than the economic-technocratic. We cannot complain."
That doesn't mean they won't complain, along with everyone else. But Verheugen seems willing to take on the lightning-rod function that comes with the territory. "My job satisfaction is currently very high," he says. "If we're successful in changing the critical, sometimes dark views about enlargement that have existed into one of qualified optimism — that's quite an achievement."
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— With reporting by Jan Stojaspal/Prague
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Fresh Start
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