EU expansion 'scares' many Europeans

By Christoph Doktor, assistant professor of politics at the Universtity of Basel, Switzerland

Many people living in Europe are still scared by the thought of an eastward expansion of the European Union, a planned enlargement that could take in as many as 10 former communist states, including Poland and the Czech Republic.

While the political and economic elites generally favour the idea of an enlarged political and economic body, a significant majority of ordinary people do not seem keen on accepting new members.

According to a recent EU poll, only 27 percent of EU citizens consider expansion of prime importance.

Christoph Doktor says Germany will gain from an expanded Europe

The whole idea of European integration therefore remains a sore point, also with some politicians.

During a recent meeting of EU foreign ministers in France, the EU's Commissioner for Enlargement, Guenter Verheugen of Germany, floated the idea of holding a referendum in his country on whether to expand the EU. But Commission President Romano Prodi of Italy as well as leading German politicians immediately dismissed his idea.

Opposition to an EU enlargement is particularly strong in former East Germany, where ten years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and subsequent German reunification, people are still struggling to catch up economically with their neighbours in western Germany.

Fears of expansion are particularly high in areas of high unemployment. Many people in eastern Germany fear that the EU's free movement of people would lead to an influx of cheap labour.

There are also fears that companies in eastern Germany might move their production lines to Poland, where salary levels are markedly lower than in Germany.

But there is also skepticism in economically strong western Germany, where some critics remain doubtful about the cost of the expansion and just how heavy the burden on German tax payers would be.

In this respect, Germany's former conservative government under Helmut Kohl as well as Gerhard Schroeder's red-green coalition cabinet must take the blame for having failed to prepare the country for possible change.

A concerted information campaign could have eased people's apprehensions and fears - not least because Germany would be among the major winners under an expansion scenario. Because, already+, Germany is the EU's biggest exporter to central and eastern European nations.

Apart from the economic gains, critics should also be made aware of the political gains of an eastward expansion. The tearing down of a divisive wall and the expansion of a western European "zone of stability" toward the east must be in everybody's interest - because peace, stability and prosperity can only be guaranteed in the long term in an environment of political stability.

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