Bulgaria and Romania seen joining EU in 2007
Pastor Dale Morgan
Tuesday September 5, 8:29 PM Reuters
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Bulgaria and Romania seen joining EU in 2007*
By Marcin Grajewski
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union's executive arm is likely to
recommend this month letting Bulgaria and Romania join next January
rather than in 2008, but propose tough conditions for their entry, an EU
source said on Tuesday.
The European Commission will make the recommendation on September 26 and
the 25 EU member states are likely to give the final green light in
October for the bloc's second enlargement wave into ex-communist eastern
Europe.
But the two Balkan countries may be excluded initially from some EU
policies in areas where they are not fully prepared for membership, such
as the fight against corruption and organised crime, which is a worry
especially in Bulgaria.
"A serious option is to let the countries join the EU next year, but
with safeguards," a Commission official said, asking not to be named.
Commission spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy said no decision has been made on
when the two countries would join the bloc.
"We are in the final stage of preparing a report, but it is too early to
draw any conclusions, so any speculation is premature," Nagy said.
Prospects for an early accession date rose when EU President Finland's
Prime Minister, Matti Vanhanen, said after talks with his Romanian
counterpart on Tuesday he was confident Bucharest had made clear
progress towards EU entry in 2007.
Vanhanen also promised to open the Finnish labour market to workers from
Bulgaria and Romania once they join the EU, the first such declaration
from a member state.
FINLAND TO OPEN JOB MARKET
The issue has became sensitive in Britain since official figures last
month showed hundreds of thousands of workers from Poland and other new
members have flooded the British labour market since the bloc's eastward
enlargement in 2004.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was to discuss the
terms of Bulgaria's accession with Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergey
Stanishev in Strasbourg on Tuesday.
Last week, Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn warned Sofia it still
needed progress in fighting organised crime and sleaze.
Under the accession treaty, which the Black Sea neighbours signed last
year, either country could be delayed by a year from 2007 if it is
deemed not ready to join, or excluded for some time from some EU
policies for which it was unprepared.
The Financial Times said on Tuesday that Bulgaria will come under
tougher EU scrutiny for its shortcomings in handling fraud and organised
crime and could face financial sanctions.
A Commission source said the amount of EU aid is fixed by the accession
treaty and it is difficult to strip countries. But aid could be withheld
if the countries' payments agencies to distribute farm subsidies are
deemed not ready.
Applying safeguards could mean, for example, that court rulings of a new
member state are not fully valid in the bloc, or the country is excluded
from the EU's common border policy.
In May, the Commission postponed its recommendation on Bulgaria and
Romania to exert pressure on them for more reforms.
But Bulgaria has failed to pass some constitutional changes on fighting
crime sought by Rehn. Bulgarian Minister for Europe Meglena Kuneva said
last week those amendments should be ready before September 20 and
passed by parliament within 2-3 months.