Brussels
WHEN EUROPE THREW a big party in Copenhagen in December, Poland nearly spoiled the fun. Unhappy with the membership terms offered by the European Union, the Poles held out for a few extra billion euros, knowing full well the "historic" enlargement jamboree couldn't take place without the biggest of the Central European candidates. The E.U. caved and put up extra cash, securing the claim to have "reunified Europe" and "buried Yalta." Polish prime minister Leszek Miller, a veteran of one of his country's last Communist governments, thanked native son Pope John Paul II for getting Poland into "Europe."
The theatrics in Copenhagen may be a foretaste of things to come in the expanded Europe. Not since Britain joined in 1973 has the old guard in Paris, Berlin, and Brussels been so uneasy about a new member. Leave aside Poland's stagnant economy, its dangerous populists, and its corruption scandals. Poland is a pain because its heart isn't in Europe but across the Atlantic.
It's a deeply worrying prospect for the euro-nationalists. The E.U.'s constitutional convention, now underway in Brussels, aims to strengthen the common foreign policy after Europe's failure to stand up to America on Iraq, Kyoto, and the international criminal court. On January 14, France and Germany (a.k.a. Old Europe) backed the creation of the post of European president, in part to give the E.U. a stronger voice, and a week later Paris sided with Germany's pacifistic stance on war with Iraq. A European military force will be up and running this year. And while many different camps have a say in the often tedious debate over Europe's future, most are still tempted to define Europe against America, as in de Gaulle's day, and to see their values or interests as divergent.
The coming expansion of the E.U. to 25 countries and 445 million people (up from 15 countries and 378 million people today) might just make Europe better able to stand up to America in world affairs. But there's a hitch. Poland, the most important of the incoming members, with its 40 million people and strategic location on the E.U.'s future eastern frontier, is Washington's closest ally on the Continent. During the drawn-out negotiations over membership, French president Jacques Chirac pointedly warned Polish foreign minister Bronislaw Geremek that Poland better not be the "American Trojan horse in Europe" or Paris might veto its accession (as de Gaulle once did Britain's). Some in the Brussels press corps casually refer to Poland as a "Fifth Column."
Maybe they're right. Only a few weeks after Copenhagen, Warsaw bought 48 F-16 fighters from Lockheed Martin for $3.8 billion, snubbing two European offers. "As a thank-you present for entry into Europe, what a success!" said a scandalized Serge Dassault, whose French concern, Dassault Aviation, lost out. For three days, his newspaper, the Paris daily Le Figaro, ran letters from readers calling the Poles ingrates and bad Europeans.
The pique in Paris, however, was mostly for show. The French, like the Poles, had known all along that the biggest military tender ever in the former Warsaw Pact would go to a U.S. concern. (Congress gave Poland a favorable loan to cover the purchase, and Lockheed Martin threw in more goodies, including about $10 billion of "offset" investments, than either of the European concerns could muster.) While the jets will help Poland take a bigger role in NATO and any other U.S.-led coalition--the Poles, unlike the Germans, say they're ready to serve in Iraq--the planes were meant to send a clear signal. "With Europe, you have to talk and be on good terms," says Tomasz Lis, anchor of Poland's most-watched evening news show, Fakty. "But the relationship with America is sacred."
Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski didn't seem to care about French feelings. A former sports minister in the Communist era and a savvy politician, Kwasniewski knows polls show the Poles to be among the most pro-American of nations. They're still grateful to Washington for getting Poland into NATO--and ambivalent about the economic costs of joining the E.U. After the jet sale, Kwasniewski went to Washington for the second time in six months. At their White House meeting, President Bush said, "I have got no better friend in Europe today."
