Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-15-Speech-3-198"
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"en.20041215.7.3-198"2
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"Mr President, the political context in which I am tabling this report has become clearer in recent weeks. Last week the Commission was able to close accession negotiations with Romania on the last two chapters, namely justice and home affairs, and competition. Moreover, legislative elections and then presidential elections have also been held in recent weeks, putting a different political party in power under conditions that have been recognised by all of the parties. This information obviously does not change the philosophy and general thrust of the report.
A final word on the amendments tabled: we did a good job, in my opinion, in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which enabled the report to be adopted by a very large majority. The remaining amendments to the report fall into two categories. There are those that improve the substance of the report, in particular on social protection, human rights, the disabled, the protection of children and young people, and recommendations on industrial policy, and I am obviously in favour of these. Then there are other amendments that call into question the existence of a joint accession treaty or which change the nature and balance of the report, which clearly I do not support.
This morning we made the historic decision to open negotiations with Turkey. I believe that concluding them with Romania and Bulgaria, and with Romania in particular, is, in contrast, a logical decision, and people would not understand if we did not do both of these things together.
I wanted to draft and submit a balanced report to the House, that is to say a report that was both rigorous and clear, because Romania’s situation poses many problems. Yet I also wanted it to be a friendly report, because we all want Romania and Bulgaria to join and because this country has worked hard to prepare for accession.
On this basis, we are proposing that we both take note of Romania’s progress towards accession and also remain aware of its limits and shortcomings, and the extent of the work that remains to be done. These two aspects, the limits and the progress, are actually set out for each of the areas in question.
They are presented first with regard to the political criteria, and it is there without any doubt that the main difficulties lie. There are limits to the progress made; for example, the reform of the civil service does not go far enough, the use of emergency ordinances is not desirable and quite excessive, and as for legislative procedures, everyone knows that they are not perfect.
But over and above this limited progress, a number of problems, serious problems, remain as far as freedoms are concerned. I am thinking firstly of the freedom of information and expression, which is denied to a great many journalists. I am thinking of the judicial system, which despite initial improvements is unquestionably in need of further attention. I am thinking, of course, of corruption, which is still endemic in Romania, even at high levels. On all of these problems – freedom of expression, corruption, the judicial and police systems – I believe that the European Parliament has a duty to be absolutely uncompromising.
At the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that progress has undoubtedly been made. The Commission has recognised that Romania satisfies the Copenhagen political criteria; the country has embarked on public administration reform, and constitutional reform is also underway. The judicial system, as I have said, is starting to improve and we are also seeing progress on child protection – requested by our own Parliament, incidentally – even though it is possible to go further. Overall then, I believe that Romania has listened to the recommendations made by the Commission and Parliament, in particular those that were made at the instigation of the previous rapporteur, Mrs Nicholson.
We find the same problem with the economic criteria: there are limits to the progress made, macroeconomic stability is not yet guaranteed and poverty remains at quite excessive levels. At the same time, we have seen progress in the fight against social exclusion, in the fight against poverty and in the adoption of legislation on social protection.
The third and final area is everything to do with the
. As I said at the outset, negotiations on this are complete. Moreover, I do not believe that it would be wise to reopen them, although I have read that the newly-elected president intends to do so. For my part, I think that the treaty should first be ratified and signed before it is renegotiated.
We need, however, to implement the legislation that has been adopted, in particular that relating to the free movement of goods and capital, financial control, the environment, industrial production, regional policy and issues of justice and home affairs. This assessment, which I hope is balanced, is the basis for the conclusions that I am recommending, and they are as follows: as things stand there is nothing to prevent a joint accession treaty – I repeat, a joint treaty – being signed for Romania and Bulgaria at the beginning of 2005 for accession in 2007. Clearly this is a political decision, but Parliament and the Commission need to keep a close watch on developments through all of the follow-up actions and other reports that we can table here."@en1
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