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Hostility to expansion of the European Union reflects displaced fears of globalisation
EUROPEANS are in a funk about enlargement. National politicians fret about the European Union's "absorption capacity". They hold grand conferences on "the limits of Europe". The EU has just suspended the first stage of accession talks with Serbia. Next week, the European Commission is likely to postpone judgment on whether the next two candidates--Bulgaria and Romania--should join in 2007 or be delayed until 2008.
Partly, these decisions are efforts to get the candidates to speed up reforms (and, in Serbia's case, to hand Ratko Mladic, a war-crimes suspect, over to The Hague tribunal). But they also reflect a widespread view, in Brussels and even more in national capitals, that expansion must be slowed down to respond to "enlargement fatigue".
Many politicians have decided that public opinion is irrevocably opposed to enlargement. They think that opposition is understandable, if not justified, because of the impact of enlargement on jobs; that enlargement has gone too fast; and that another round may overwhelm the EU's institutions, making them unable to function. They conclude that it would be best for all concerned (including future members) to pause while everything settles down. Indeed, this is the emerging conventional wisdom. Yet it is wrong in almost every particular.
Europeans are not opposed to enlargement in general (though they may be to the specific case of Turkey). A slim majority is in favour. A new poll by the European...