For example, some steps have been taken toward the all-important objective of opening the EU to new democracies from Central and Eastern Europe. But far more remains to be done. There are still no dates and no formal timetables for Central and Eastern European accession to the EU.
There has also still been no serious attempt to address the issue of how to reform the EU's hugely expensive and wasteful system of agricultural subsidies. Everyone knows the EU budget would self-destruct if the present levels of farm spending were extended to Central and Eastern Europe, but the German presidency left the issue untouched, preferring to hand it on to its French successor.
Another, perhaps even more sensitive, subject has also not been tackled in the past six months. This is the fact that the Central and Eastern European countries cannot and should not be admitted to the EU as a bloc, because most are at quite different levels of development in terms of quality of democracy and the respect accorded to human rights.
It is futile to pretend that Romania is at the same level of political maturity as the Czech Republic. It is pointless to ignore the fact that the ethnic tensions involving Russians in Estonia are more acute than those involving Germans in Poland. This is not to deny Romania and Estonia the possibility to joining the EU one day; it is merely to recognize that they should not join as soon as the Czech Republic and Poland.
It means being honest and confronting the fact that to admit a new member to the EU is not simply a matter of negotiating its right to catch a certain amount of fish or produce a certain amount of steel. It is, in a crucial sense, to pass judgment on the internal political situation of the applicant country.
What did emerge during the German presidency was a proposal for a "hard core" inner EU, an elite of five or six countries that would proceed to political and monetary union at a faster pace than other members.
The fact that this proposal implicitly ruled out as "hard core" three EU heavyweights -- Italy, Spain and Britain -- was interpreted in some quarters as proof of Germany's tactlessness. But I believe the proposal is a good basis for moving forward the debate on deeper EU integration. Just as not all of the Central and Eastern Europeans can join the EU at once, so too it is absurd not to accept that, if political and monetary union is to work, it will have to proceed in slow but steady stages.
By making this point publicly, the Germans did the whole EU a favor. It is a pity Kohl has not shown equal candor in the matters of the EU's eastern expansion and the need for agricultural reform. With French President Fran?ois Mitterrand in political eclipse, Kohl is the EU's senior leader, but he has not exploited that position as effectively as is needed.
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