New EU nations face many economic, cultural disparities

By Robert H. Reid
The Associated Press

	CZAREK SOKOLOWSKI / AP Downtown Warsaw, Poland's capital, glows at night. It is one of 10 nations joining the European Union on May 1.
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Poland's first day in the European Union (EU) will be the last in office for its prime minister, Leszek Miller. He steps down prematurely May 2 — a victim of high unemployment and unpopular spending cuts to get Poland ready for EU membership.

In veteran EU countries, meanwhile, labor unions, politicians and the public fret about job losses as industries shift from high-cost countries such as Germany to Slovakia, Hungary and other low-pay EU newcomers.

On May 1, the EU swells to 25 countries in welcoming 10 new members, mostly from the former Soviet bloc. If all goes as planned, Bulgaria and Romania will join in three years.

The expansion, the EU's biggest, will create a trading bloc of 450 million people and, so Europeans hope, give the continent greater global clout in an era of U.S. dominance.

However, the payoff may take time. Huge disparities separate the rich, established Western democracies from nations recently liberated from the Soviet empire.

Those differences vary from wages to the quality of roads to public attitudes about a citizen's relationship to the government.

Western European motorists cruise wide, well-maintained superhighways while easterners rumble over narrow, potholed roads. Glitzy malls and boutiques in Prague and Warsaw offer pricey goods, but only to tourists and the few locals who can afford them.

Germans and the Dutch would never think of bribing their way out of traffic tickets, a common practice in the east.

Rather than propel Europe into global leadership, expansion could lead to a long period of introspection as the EU struggles to digest the newcomers.

"Ireland was roughly at the level that we are now when it joined the EU and it took 20 years to catch up," said Miller, the outgoing Polish prime minister.
 
Most of the newcomers have only limited experience with democratic systems and market economies, and have had to enact extensive political and economic reforms, often over strong domestic opposition, to qualify for EU membership.

The average per capita GDP — gross domestic product — in the newcomer countries is only about 40 percent of the EU's current members.

In the bloc now, unemployment averages about 8 percent. Among the ex-communist newcomers, hobbled by obsolete and inefficient industries, the jobless rate is around 15 percent, said Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Center for European Reform, a London-based think tank.

"In countries such as Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, only around half of all people of working age have a job," she said.

To narrow the gap, current EU members agreed to provide aid worth up to 4 percent of their GDP each year — more than double what they spend on defense.

EU leaders, however, have set an effective cap of $32 billion on aid through 2006. By comparison, Germany has spent $1 trillion since 1990 to absorb former East Germany. Still, unemployment remains twice as high in the country's formerly communist east as it is in the west.

Nearly 50 years of Soviet domination have created political cultures still some distance from Western ideals of tolerance, respect for individual rights and the rule of law.

The ouster of Lithuania's Paksas spotlights the knotty problems of corruption and links between organized crime and state officials, a problem that has bedeviled former communist countries since the collapse of Soviet-era security systems.

Poland's Miller is stepping down nearly 18 months ahead of schedule, pressured by his own party after public support collapsed because of high unemployment, planned spending cuts and allegations of widespread corruption within the bureaucracy.

In Slovenia, a referendum this month raised questions about whether the country is prepared to adhere to EU goals of protecting minority rights.

Voters rejected restoring permanent residency and other rights to thousands of ethnic Bosnians, Croats and Serbs who were stripped of citizenship when Slovenia broke away from Yugoslavia in 1991.

Slovakia's resurgent nationalism and anti-foreign sentiment is also arousing concern.

Former Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar's authoritarian ways and treatment of the Gypsy and Hungarian minorities put Slovakia's EU membership on hold until he left office in 1998. He is seeking re-election Saturday.

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