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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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European formula: 15 + 9 ½ + 2 + We'll See
Who are these new members and which hurdles can be met on the road of European unification? So far the European Union has functioned as a club of Western countries, sharing common ideals and interests. It has started in 1957 as a group of 6 countries Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg. In the 70s it invited the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark, later Greece, even later Spain and Portugal. After the Berlin Wall fell, EU included 3 neutral countries Sweden, Finland and Austria, which even during the Cold War have been developing as capitalist market economies. Norway twice refused the invitation. Switzerland, on the other hand, from the beginning didn't express any substantial interest of joining the EU. Thus the club by the middle 90s included all Western European countries, except those that decided to remain outside its structures. But the European continent isn't only its western part. It also includes many countries that by the lack of historic chance have remained for decades on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. When the Wall collapsed all these countries one after another expressed their hope to become EU members. At the beginning some if not all of them were very far from the high criteria set by the Union so the process of enlargement couldn't be easy and speedy. After years of discussions how exactly to make this enlargement, in the late 90s the Union decided to oblige the candidates to accept as a whole the Union legislation in many spheres of the social, economic and political life as a pre-condition for membership. The Club of 15 divided these legislature of more than 80,000 pages into more than 30 chapters and began talks on each of them with every individual candidate. The candidates could hope to close each chapter only after incorporating the whole EU legislature into their national systems of laws and regulations. So far so good! But to do it isn't enough only to translate the European laws, you have to enforce them and this was much harder to do even for the most advanced candidates like Poland, Hungary or Czech Republic. Officially the European Union has declared that 10 candidates** can by invited by 2004. As a matter of fact these 10 countries are indeed 9 1/2. Cyprus is still divided between the local Greek and Turkish communities and if nothing changes there the entry passes will be given only to the Greeks. Two more countries Romania and Bulgaria, can expect to become members in 2007 but this date isn't fixed firmly. Some skeptics say that these two countries can wait for 2 more years. There is one more country, Turkey, that hopes to enter the Union but its chances to enter quickly are slim because talks with the EU so far haven't even started. Even with Turkey as a member the process of European unification isn't complete. As white sectors on the map still remain some countries once part of the former Yugoslavia plus Albania plus some former Soviet Union states like Ukraine or Moldova. Without them the process won't be completed. And one more detail, the whole process of enlargement could be jeopardized if Irish voters on October 19 vote against the Nice Treaty on EU enlargement. Even the European commission that has an answer to everything in the world doesn't know what to do in such case. ------ * - Earlier the European Union was called European Community. ** - Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Malta and Cyprus.
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