[Oberlist] EU/SEE# news: EUROPE BETRAYS ITS MISSION AT PRAGUE SUMMIT

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----------------------------- Mesaj original -----------------------------
Subiect: News Digest, Vol 13, Issue 9
De la:   news-request at foundation.moldova.org
Data:    Mie, Mai 20, 2009 17:49
Către:  news at foundation.moldova.org
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EUROPE BETRAYS ITS MISSION AT PRAGUE SUMMIT
By Borut Grgic, The Wall Street Journal Europe (USA)
May 11, 2009

EU's eastern partnership plan is just seven pages of ramble Ukraine,
Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan Betrayed

The much-anticipated Prague Summit between the European Union and our
eastern partners was a flop. The eastern partnership declaration published
last Thursday is not worth the paper it was printed on.

The EU has once again taken a bold proposal -- initially designed by
Sweden and Poland -- and turned it into seven pages of ramble. It was a
sad day for all.

EU IS WITHOUT GOOD IDEAS OR BOLD LEADERSHIP

The EU is clearly without good ideas and without the bold leadership
necessary to do what is needed in the east. The countries invited to the
summit -- Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan --
are all European. Yes, they are also Caucasian, Caspian, and Black Sea
nations, but Europeans nonetheless. So why was a membership concept for
these countries missing from the document?

Strategic thinking was never a European forte. American think-tankers poke
fun at their European counterparts for superbly managing day-to-day
affairs but never quite getting the big picture. In Prague we definitely
missed the big picture.

The EU is a project in the making, which is why we have an enlargement
policy, which has been the single best tool for reuniting the Continent.
It has turned Europe into the biggest market in the world, and it has
injected dynamism into the European economy. Now, it seems, someone wants
to reverse this progress and halt enlargement.

The story of Europe, the dreams of Churchill and Roosevelt and Truman,
later embraced and championed by Helmut Kohl, was a united, free and
prosperous Europe. When the Berlin Wall fell, tyranny cracked. Millions of
oppressed were free to speak, to act and to create. The splash of
creativity that was reborn in the East is still surging and radiating
energy across all of Europe.

THE EUROPEAN DREAM IS ALL ABOUT - HOPE

This is what the European dream is all about -- hope. Enlargement is the
policy that gives our European brothers and sisters stuck on the margins
of Europe the hope to be brave, to continue with reforms and political
transformation despite the risks.

Enlargement is not about the political elites, but about the European
citizens. It was always about improving the lives of the citizens across
Europe. It is easy to dismiss our eastern neighbors on account of their
leaders.

Eurocrats with big egos dismiss the prospect that Ukraine, Georgia or
Azerbaijan may one day become full members of our EU family. They
criticize their leaders and their systems: there's too much corruption,
too little political pluralism, and they are too slow at embracing
economic change.

ENLARGEMENT IS ABOUT TOMORROW

This all may be true today, but enlargement is about tomorrow. Having a
strategy is having a vision, and the EU has no strategy for the East,
which suggests there is no vision of what Europe ought to look like in
2030.

In the powerful film, "The Lives of Others," one is wrenched watching the
destruction of the human soul by the Stasi regime in East Germany. Tyranny
preys on hope. When hope was gone from the lives of individuals, the state
won. The iron fist of the murderous regime became a haven for empty souls.

Europe owes a new draft document to its eastern partners spelling out an
integrated approach aimed at creating the Europe of the 21st century:
whole, united and free.

We began this project in the 1940s, shortly after the end of World War II.
A major breakthrough was achieved in the 1990s with the fall of the Iron
Curtain, which then led to the big bang enlargement -- the first of its
kind -- in 2003, when 10 central and east European states joined the EU.

Our next job is to finish this story, which means welcoming into Europe
Turkey and the Balkan and eastern countries.

NOTE: Mr. Grgic is an independent investor in the Balkans and the
Caucasus, and the founder of the Institute for Strategic Studies.



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End of News Digest, Vol 13, Issue 9
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