Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-12-Speech-2-177"
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"en.20050412.27.2-177"2
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".
Mr President, following your positive resolutions in December, in February the Commission adopted a favourable opinion on the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union. In fact, if they complete their homework successfully, these two countries will be represented in this House in less than two years’ time. They will take their places here as observers after the Accession Treaty.
Progress is also being made in the areas of police cooperation, where new laws on the Gendarmerie and the National Police have been adopted. Romania is engaged in discussions to determine the shape of its future funding commitments regarding border management.
The political determination now has to be further translated into concrete actions. Based on my frequent meetings with the Romanians in both Bucharest and in Brussels, I have a strong belief that the new government has understood the scope and the importance of the monitoring exercise, as well as the urgency to deliver concrete results in the first semester of 2005.
In my view we have reason to be cautiously optimistic as regards Romania’s preparation for accession. Let us have a fair game. The jury is still out and it is now time to give Romania the benefit of the doubt in terms of its preparations for accession as a fully-fledged member state of the European Union.
Before concluding, let me briefly touch upon the financial implications of the accession of Bulgaria and Romania, to which Mr Smith referred in his speech. Commissioner Grybauskaitė has worked closely with the two rapporteurs Mr Böge and Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, my former colleagues from the Committee on Budgetary Control. The Commission’s position on the matter is as follows. The amounts agreed in the accession negotiations with Bulgaria and Romania for the period 2007-2009 are included in the Accession Treaty. The financial perspective for 2007-2013 is to be broken into broad categories of expenditure for the EU-27, not on distinctions of allocations between certain groups of Member States, some of which can only be very indicative anyway. The Commission believes that distinguishing indicative amounts by certain groups of Member States is not in line with the spirit and the letter of the interinstitutional agreement.
To conclude, both the European Commission and our financial assistance programmes will continue to support the efforts of the two countries to intensify their necessary preparations. The timely signature of the Accession Treaty is important with a view to sustaining the momentum and ensuring the successful preparation for the accession of Bulgaria and Romania. I count on your support in this respect.
I wish to stress, as I did at the Foreign Affairs Committee on 29 March, that President Barroso and I have repeatedly underlined that while the conclusion of the negotiations and the signature of the Accession Treaty imply that agreement has been reached on the terms and conditions for the accession of Bulgaria and Romania, they do not mean that the preparations for membership are complete. In the remaining 21 months, Bulgaria and Romania must deliver on key reforms and fully meet the commitments they have made in the course of the negotiations. The clock is ticking. Every day, every week, every month counts from now on. Both countries are the subject of very close monitoring by the Commission, by the Member States and by Parliament. They will remain so until the eve of accession.
I want to reassure you that if the Commission judges, on the basis of its monitoring, that either Bulgaria or Romania are manifestly unprepared for membership, I would not hesitate to recommend the use of the remedial tools. This includes the clause allowing us to postpone accession by one year until 2008. I am convinced that the honourable Members of Parliament will agree to this approach. I therefore look forward to a regular dialogue with you on the implementation of Bulgaria and Romania’s commitments.
As President Barroso confirmed in a letter to President Borrell last week, the Commission will seriously consider the views of Parliament before issuing any recommendation on this issue, in particular after the release in November of our Comprehensive Monitoring Report on the progress towards accession made by Romania and Bulgaria. For this, I would like to thank especially the Committee on Foreign Affairs, its chairman, rapporteurs, and the coordinators for their cooperation and for a very sound solution. In my view, this respects the Treaty and at the same time gives the European Parliament a voice in the process in the spirit of true European democracy.
I visited Sofia in mid-March and Bucharest at the beginning of March. Let me give you a brief outline of the Commission’s current assessment of the progress made by the two countries.
Mr Van Orden’s report on Bulgaria welcomes the conclusion of the accession negotiations. The country has indeed made steady progress in recent years. Nonetheless, Bulgaria needs to keep up the momentum in its preparation for accession. We are watching this closely through our intensified monitoring mechanism. Bulgaria needs to make sound and solid efforts to reform the judiciary, and to fight against corruption and organised crime. The reform of the judiciary, in particular of the pre-trial phase, is the overarching priority until accession. This is the priority of all priorities for Bulgaria.
Let me turn to Romania. In its opinion on Romania, the Commission called on the country to pursue with determination the reforms that still need to be made. In particular, this covers the effective implementation of reforms of the public administration and the judiciary, the fight against corruption and the fulfilment of the commitments made in the field of competition and state aid, as well as the environment. In his report, Mr Moscovici adds to these priorities organised crime and the control of external borders. I fully share his views. These must be among the critical conditions when we evaluate Romania’s progress towards accession.
Romania has started to tackle the accession requirements seriously, especially in the field of justice reform and the fight against corruption. I am glad to say today that all the key strategic documents required as a result of the negotiations have recently been transmitted by the Romanian Government to the Commission on time. These concern the fight against corruption, reform of the justice system and border security. The documents are currently being assessed by the Commission.
In another key area which we will be watching very closely, that of competition and state aid, Romania has
fulfilled its obligation to submit its national plan for steel restructuring, and has done this on time before the deadline."@en1
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