De la Beij: There should be no membership of candidates and potential candidates without compliance to conditions
TIRANA, March 4 – While optimism is not the right word to describe the current spirit in the EU, the Netherlands ─ one of the pioneer states of the community ─ is hoping for the EU to instrumentalise the current economical and political crisis in order to become stronger. This approach towards the current difficulties the EU is experiencing is accompanied by the belief that the EU should continue to rely on conditionality in order to fully prepare states to enter the union, which especially now cannot permit new, unready members. Accordingly, Albania does still have a long way to go and its candidate status and eventual membership does depend on its engagement and compliance, despite EU readiness to accept new members in the short run.
That was the main point of a speech the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Netherlands to Albania Martin de la Beij delivered during the second 2014 meeting of the Foreign Policy Forum organized by the Albanian Institute for International Studies.
Following the short address to the forum by AIIS Executive Director Albert Rakipi, where he stated that the EU enlargement policy has been one of the most successful policies of the union, Mr. de la Beij elaborated the argument further by stating that the enlargement policy has been one of the promoters of the democratization in Eastern European countries. The successful mechanism that accounts for this success has certainly been EU conditionality and countries’ preparation and reforms towards compliance with EU acquis, the political criteria and certainly an adherence to EU’s main values.
The Dutch perspective on the EU
Mr. de la Beij, while elaborating on the Dutch perspective on the EU, emphasized that the scenario of a ‘Nexit’ ─ the Netherlands exit from the EU ─ is neither possible nor desirable. He argued that the Netherlands are a trading nation, heavily relying on exports, which thus widely benefits from the common single market of the EU. In order for this market to be preserved and for the Netherlands to continue having its trading benefits, the country should be ready to deal with the current cost of continuing to be an EU member state. According to Mr. De la Beij, this is not just a value free calculation; countries should be part of the union, when they are most needed.
Not an ‘in or out’ question, rather an ‘in what kind of EU’ question
The Netherlands should be looking beyond the current crisis and thinking of the kind of EU they want to be part of. At this point, Mr. de la Beij elaborated a very supranational perspective of the EU by emphasizing the need for a stronger European Commission that acts on behalf of the union and beyond specific interests of the member states. Simultaneously, member states should also be more collaborative in working towards a prevalence of the EU level over the national level. Nevertheless, Mr. de la Beij believed that the EU could not function without the contribution and active membership of its strong member states, which on the other hand could not survive outside of the EU. This was a win-win situation.
Enlargement issues and Albania’s candidate status
Although after Croatia’s EU accession no new member states are expected to join the union in the near future, Mr. de la Beij is convinced that countries are the main responsible actors for the pace of their accession process. Albania is no exception from this rule, although the current rhetoric in the Albanian public discourse has been keen on emphasizing some presumably ‘hidden’ agenda of the EU. According to him, this rhetoric is not to be taken seriously.
Such assumptions have also been present when discussing the Netherland’s veto towards granting Albania the candidate status. Many have argued in the Albanian media that the Netherlands veto was a result of the xenophobic stances of some nationalist and far right Dutch parties. These opinions should also be met with scepticism and criticised according to Mr. de la Beij, given the fact that the Dutch decision to veto Albania’s EU candidate status was a consequence of debates in parliament and a common resolution of the Dutch parliament which assessed that Albania was not ready for this step. Many MPs referred to Albania’s recent loss of three points in the corruption index of Transparency International. Also, there was only one party that mentioned religious issues and this party was turned down by the rest of the parliament. Thus, the answer to the Netherland’s veto should be found in Albania’s not full compliance with EU conditions and especially the latest European Commission’s opinions.
Accordingly, Albania had three main issues to work on in order to be granted the candidate status according to Mr. de la Beij. First, a proper functioning of the parliament is a necessity. Issues of parliamentary boycott, harsh language in the parliament by both government and opposition, and other substantial problems should be addressed as soon as possible. Second, the public administration and public institutions should be impartial and law oriented. Finally, he emphasized the many problems with the judiciary system and the long way to go on making this system the guarantee of freedoms and human rights.
The ambassador ended his speech on a note of optimism on both the EU as a community of prosperity and hope and on Albania’s commitment to fulfil the EU necessary conditions to be granted the candidate status soon.
