w 109 long-run economic aspects of the european union's eastern ...

LONG-RUN ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION’S EASTERN ENLARGEMENT60The all-or-nothing interpretation sits uneasily with the first notion of erosion,because it would be discriminatory, in that a stricter performance standard wouldbe imposed on accession countries than on current Member States. After all, afragile internal market acquis must be due to undermining forces condoned by thecurrent Member States, unless one is willing to argue that the Commission, evenwhen it has the means, does not do everything in its power to act as the ‘guardianof the treaty’. Of course, one cannot exclude the possibility that Member Statesapply double standards, perhaps because of strong domestic pressures, or becauseof strategic considerations. It could also simply be that individual Member Statesoften have difficulties in recognising the nature and extent of the impact of theirown infringements or other undermining conduct on the proper functioning of theinternal market. A more functional explanation for the application of double standardswould be that Member States and possibly even EU institutions do realise thefragility of the internal market acquis and the undermining forces engenderingthis, but that they consider the system as stable and satisfactory for the aims of thetreaty. In a quasi-federal system – as the internal market regime undoubtedly is –an optimum will have to be found between the demanding restraints on nationalregulatory and fiscal powers and the remaining national discretion to satisfynational preferences. A degree of fragility may be seen as the expression of naturalfrictions in a system that will never be completely frozen. As long as the compliancemechanisms are not seen as overburdened or failing, minor deflections orinfringements might be regarded as part of the dynamic search for optimality. Anenlargement with possibly thirteen countries may, quite rationally, be consideredas risking to overburden greatly this system, and thus cause the much-fearederosion. Once this is observed to happen, individual Member States may mendtheir ways and become less disciplined when pursuing their own preferences viaregulation, exceptions, subsidies, etc. The compliance mechanisms, based on presumptionsof infringement as relatively rare exceptions, would then collapse, andthe confidence in the proper functioning of the internal market might dwindlerapidly.The all-or-nothing interpretation may, at first sight, seem to be applicable to thesecond notion, namely that of a robust internal market acquis, subjected to a shockof consistently lower standards of implementation and enforcement in up to thirteennew Member States. This shock would then clog the compliance system andsubsequently weaken the discipline of all Member States. The all-or-nothing approachprescribes that applicant countries with consistently lower standards ofimplementation and enforcement fail the entry test, and cannot accede until theirstandards are sufficiently improved. The unprecedented intensity of pre-accessionactivities by applicant countries, in very close co-operation with the Commission(and indeed in bilateral efforts with Member States, too) as well as the annual EUreports on progress by the accession conditions would appear to be an expressionof such an all-or-nothing approach. In none of the four previous enlargements hasthere been anything remotely comparable in terms of intensity, transparency andduration of efforts. And yet, despite this energetic pre-accession strategy, the fear