German vote seals EU membership for Bulgaria, Romania next year
Pastor Dale Morgan
Saturday November 25, 5:22 AM
*German vote seals EU membership for Bulgaria, Romania next year*
Bulgaria and Romania have cleared the last hurdle to joining the EU next
year, the European Commission announced, after the German parliament
ratified their entry into the club.
"I welcome today's vote in the German Bundesrat (upper house) on the
accession treaty of Bulgaria and Romania, which completes the
ratification process in Germany. It also completes the ratification
process as a whole in the EU, since all the parliaments of the 25 member
states and both acceding countries have now ratified the treaty," said
EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn.
"This finalizes the last legal step for the accession of the two
countries. Thus I welcome Bulgaria and Romania as new member states in
our Union on 1 January 2007."
The upper house of the German parliament added the same caveat to the
accessions as the lower house, the Bundestag, had when it voted in
favour of the new members last month.
The assembly has called for a protective clause to ensure that EU
standards in justice and crime fighting are adhered to, but called for
the measures to apply when the two countries join in January, thus
ensuring that the matter would not delay membership.
The news was also hailed in Bucharest and Sofia.
Friday's vote represented "proof that the interest of the EU in
Romania's entry and the completion of our efforts," said Romanian
Foreign Minister Razvan Ungureanu in Bucharest.
"We see it as recognition of the efforts which Bulgaria has made to
fulfill" its obligations, said a Bulgarian foreign affairs spokesman.
Both incoming nations were worried some months ago about the time it was
taking some countries to ratify their memberships.
Some, including France, Denmark and Germany waited until the autumn to
adopt the necessary adhesion protocol to keep up the pressure on the two
countries to make further progress.
While the Bulgarians and Romanians will become full members of the club
on January 1, they will do so under close scrutiny.
The Commission, the EU's executive arm, in September eschewed the
possibility of delaying membership for a year, choosing instead to
impose the strictest conditions for any new members.
These concern the areas where Sofia and Bucharest are deemed most
deficient; the judicial system, management of EU funding and food
safety. Air security is another issue but only for Bulgaria, according
to a recent Commission report.
Sanctions in these areas will be available to the Commission and fellow
EU states for three years after admission.
The member states could refuse to recognise Romanian or Bulgarian
judicial decisions or could partially suspend farm aid to the pair.
Between now and January 1, the EU still has to tidy up the institutional
paperwork, in particular the acceptance of the future Bulgarian and
Romanian EU Commissioners -- each nation is allocated one portfolio.
The two commissioners-designate -- Bulgarian Meglena Kouneva will take
the consumer protection brief and Romanian Leonard Orban will become
commissioner for multilingualism -- will appear before the relevant
European parliamentary committees on Monday.
The eurodeputies will then endorse -- or not -- their nominations at a
plenary session on December 11-14.
Bulgaria and Romania began the membership process in 2000, along with
the 10 mainly ex-Soviet bloc nations who joined the EU in 2004.
Their admittance to the European Union continues the process of
embracing former members of the Communist bloc which crumbled 15 years ago.
Still waiting in the wings after January 1 will be the western Balkan
states of Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia,
with Croatia at the front of the queue.
However the Union wants to sort out its own constitutional crisis,
caused by the rejection of the bloc's draft constitution by Dutch and
French voters last year, before letting anyone else into the club.
Croatia could become the 28th EU member state but not until 2009-2010.
As for Turkey, another EU hopeful, the membership horizon is growing
more distant as relations grow more strained, and few observers expect
Ankara to be popping any European champagne corks for at least another
decade.