in a referendum was a further blow to the belief
which had sustained him: that he was not like
other politicians. Need for a referendum was the
one issue on which the Conservatives would have
enjoyed overwhelming support in a general elec-
tion, and it was now snatched from them. It
looked more like a cynical political manoeuvre
than a genuine change of heart. Blair survived and
Labour remained well ahead of the Conservatives
as the next general election loomed. Tensions
became more evident between Chancellor Brown
and the prime minister as Blair embraced the
‘New Labour’ policies once more for an expected
third term, thwarting the more left-inclined
Gordon Brown. The Conservatives, meanwhile,
had found an effective parliamentary leader in
Michael Howard. Their problem was to find a
cause, another mission, as Blair straddled the
centre ground of policies.
For Europe the culminating achievement in
the new millennium has been its coming together
into a peaceful partnership – the European Union.
The divisions of Yalta, which left central and
Eastern Europe in Soviet control against their will,
have ended. The enmities of the Second World
War finally lie buried. There is no more amicable
and close partnership than that between Germany
and France, overriding political differences.
On 1 May 2004 eight continental European
countries and two islands in the Mediterranean
joined the Union. The largest and most import-
ant new member was Poland with a population
(38.2 million) almost as large as Spain’s. With a
failing government and a large farming popula-
tion, joining will cause painful adjustments. None
of the countries that join enjoy the full benefits
of subsidies from the start or are completely free
to seek employment in the West before 2007.
There is particular anxiety that persecuted minori-
ties, such as the Roma in Slovakia, will embark
on mass migrations. Even though growth has
resumed, all the new members except Slovenia
will take decades to reach the living standards of
the more prosperous West.
The economics of all the new ten members –
Slovakia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland,
Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Cyprus and
Malta, however, are growing faster than the stag-
nant continental Western countries. The free trade
market has become the largest in the world. It
seems inevitable that the twenty-five members will
group themselves into different blocs within the
EU. None of the new members, for instance, will
join the Monetary Union in the immediate future.
With a new decision procedure in the EU still to
be worked out so that policy is not paralysed, new
alignments will be formed. The draft constitution
will require ratification and some ten members,
including Britain, will submit the decision to a
referendum. If one member state or more fails to
ratify, the EU faces a new crisis. The new president
of the commission José Manuel Barroso also faced
the embarrassment, in November 2004, of having
to withdraw the line up of his new commissioners,
anticipating a European parliamentary rejection.
Dropping two commissioners and realigning the
rest won approval, but it was a significant victory
for parliamentary power. Intractable differences
have occurred before during the half century of
the community’s existence and ways have always,
in the past, been found to overcome them.
When on 1 May 2004 all the ten new members
celebrated their entry, there was one sour note. It
was hoped that all the people on the divided
island of Cyprus would agree to the UN-brokered
peace plan to unify the government. The Turks
said yes to the proposed settlement, the Greek
Cypriots said no. They felt they had little to lose
as the Greek Cypriot part of the island had been
promised membership anyway.
Not all of Europe is united yet. Bosnia remains
under the control of an EU peacekeeping force;
Serbian politics are turbulent and popular resis-
tance to compliance to hand over the chief per-
petrators of war crimes to The Hague court has
impeded relations with the West. Milosˇevic ́ who
was sent to The Hague has inspired defiance
rather than compliance. Bulgaria and Romania are
not yet considered to be far enough on the road
to reform and adjustment to become members
and have been set a target date of 2007. But
looking at the wider picture the transformation of
central and northern Europe has been astonish-
ing. The brutal communist dictatorships, secret
police, the dead hand of state control, bureau-
cracy, class discrimination, and party regimenta-952 GLOBAL CHANGE: FROM THE 20th TO THE 21st CENTURY