Even though the topic of the day was an enlarged community, there was insufficient space at the La Bibliothèque Solvay to accommodate all those interested in the latest Friends of Europe European Policy Summit.
Keynote addresses by:
 Joe Borg
Commissioner Designate
from Malta | 
Adrian Nastase
Prime Minister of Romania | 
Günter Verheugen
EU Commissioner on Enlargement |
Enlargement guru
Günter Verheugen set the tone by placing definitive restrictions on future enlargements, declaring that the process was finished for the time being. After reviewing the status of Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Turkey, Verheugen declared “And that’s it!”. Looking forward to his country’s accession, Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase welcomed EU enlargement as ending 50 years of frustration for central Europe, while Croatia’s Minister of European Integration, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović insisted that its reforms were primarily for the good of the people. She represented a country in a buoyant mood and Grabar-Kitarović relished the journey (towards EU membership) as much as the final destination.
Looking further afield, both Verheugen and Nastase stressed the importance of the EU-US relationship and the former called for the EU to speak with one voice. But neighbours were on most panellists’ minds with Pierre Chevalier, Personal Representative of the Belgian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister for the IGC, wanting them to be “good ones” and Malta’s Member of the European Commission Joe Borg calling for a policy that conferred “joint ownership” of the action plans and made allowances for an individual nation’s circumstances.
Chevalier welcomed the newcomers and future applicants but warned that their success was in their hands. He also warned of a drastic reduction in the support or ‘Europe’ from its citizens. This latter point was taken up by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung’s Director of the European Office, Peter Weilemann, who also called for “consolidation without stagnation”. Interestingly, Prime Minister Nastase saw the EU as a “vacuum cleaner” that extracted the “negative substances” before countries joined the union. As for the future, Grabar-Kitarović continued in a positive vein and explained how Croatia was helping its Balkan neighbours to prepare for eventual accession.
Remarking that enlargement’s honeymoon period had not yet ended, Hanns Seidel Stiftung Director Markus Russ foresaw risks ahead for the EU of 25. Also seeing the dark side, Graham Meadows, Acting Director General, DG Regional Policy, EU, said the member states had only pledged half their souls to the enlarged EU – yes to support, no to finance! Elemér Hankiss, President of the board of Trustees to Gallup Europe, was another speaker to warn of adverse public opinion in both new and old Europe, while Peter Altmaier, MP, Committee for European Affairs, Deutscher Bundestag, asked for a fresh look at how the new EU would operate, perhaps based more on political allegiance rather than traditional groups of old and new, north and south, rich and poor …
In the afternoon session, Daniel Gros, Director, Centre for European Policy Studies, CEPS, stressed the dangers (the need for new fiscal policies in the long-term) rather than the dynamics of enlargement and it was left to Pavel Cernoch, Director, Czech Centre, to remind the audience that the younger generation of the Central European countries were eagerly awaiting their opportunity in the new Europe. To this end, Jerzy Buzek, Former Prime Minister of Poland, called for a new romantic ideal – and looked towards the creation of a “Greater Europe”. Closing the conference, though, Giles Merritt, Secretary General, Friends of Europe, concluded that in terms of the economic benefits of enlargement – there were more questions than answers.