The Balkan Vision

"If you have a vision you better see a doctor." Austria's ex-chancellor Franz Vranitzky is said to be the creator of this infamos quote.

Realism is the new must-do for European governments after the French and Dutch electorate rejected so heartlessly one of the biggest visionary projects of the European Union, the Treaty for a European Constitution. Politics as usual, that is the credo of Barroso and the governments for now, and it seems to work out - at least for the moment.

Major problems have been avoided since last year's infamos referendums. Barroso and the Austrian presidency play the ball low and pride themselves in symbolic politics instead (like the hilarious fund for the victims of globalization).

Avoiding the big controversies means to avoid facing the European population for now, and it seems that this is exactly what the Union has in mind. But doing the Big Easy comes with a price: sticking with the status quo.

But this is exactly what the Europeans don't want: last year's negative referendums have been sparkled exactly by a current unhappiness with a bureaucratic, yet neoliberal and undemocratic status quo.

In this grey and rather sad European present, last week's announcement of the Union that the accession of all South-East European countries is the final goal is more than welcome. Serbia, Bosnia and Co. will certainly profit from it. But it's good for the Union as well. After all said and done: the enlargement was the biggest and most successfull policy of the Union ever. It brought peace, strengthened democracy and stabilized rule of law.

In contrast to the theatrical, hysteric but shallow constitution, accession of the Union's dirty and grubby neighbours is neither a new not a very compelling idea for the European bureaucracy and the governments. But exactly the lack of hollow illusions make the Balkan enlargement a pretty healthy vision for a change.