| The Constantine Karamanlis Chair in Hellenic & Southeastern
European Studies recently presented a discussion on the
enlargement of the EU. The discussion was led by Mariana Tsatsas,
a Research Fellow of the European Programme at The Royal
Institute for International Affairs in London (Chatham House).
Ms. Tsatsas previously served as a Conference Interpreter at the
European Parliament in Brussels and is currently writing on
Bilateral Relations between UK and the EU.
Speaking to the “Greece and its Neighbors” class taught by Prof.
Veremis, Ms. Tsatsas gave a thorough background of the EU,
starting with its origin, constituent members and the ‘Copenhagen
Criteria’ that lays down the conditions to be met by a country
before it can be considered for EU membership. She then proceeded
to highlight some of the issues in contention in the ongoing
negotiations on EU enlargement including the following:
Uncertainty of allocation of EU Funds – The low GDPs of most EU
candidate countries will affect the future allocation of EU funds
for some of the current members who will end up receiving less
than would prefer.
The small size of all candidate countries with the exception of
Poland a fact that will further complicate the already uneasy
relations between large and small EU members especially with
respect to weighting of votes and coalition groups.
Reaction of Turkey if Cyprus is accepted to the EU – How will
Turkey, which is set on annexing Cyprus, react if the latter is
accepted into the EU?
The political history of all the present candidates which were
former Iron Curtain countries will affect their relations with
current EU members.
Observing that the EU was founded on lofty ideas, Ms. Tsatsas
described the regional organization as undergoing “a lot of soul
searching” and added that the EU’s ever-changing political make
up and size would affect its relationship with third parties
especially the USA and Russia.
The speaker also identified some of the problems a new EU would
have to address including environmental issues, drug trafficking,
trade and monetary issues and the movement of persons especially
the movement of workers. |
