Brussels, 04/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - Romania cannot unilaterally decide to withdraw from the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM), which has been in place since its accession in 2007, to monitor its, and indeed Bulgaria's, progress in reform of the judicial system and tackling organised crime and corruption, the Commission spokesman said on Tuesday 4 January. He was reacting to comments made the previous day by Romania's Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi, who said that Bucharest was considering quitting the CVM unilaterally because of the link being made by France and Germany between the reforms that remain to be carried out under the mechanism and Romania's being allowed to join the Schengen area. Paris and Berlin are calling for the decision on whether Romania and Bulgaria can become part of the Schengen area to be postponed until after the summer of this year, believing that the two countries are not yet ready and that “irreversible” progress still has to be made on tackling corruption and organised crime.
The Romanian government refuses to accept that the EU can change the rules of the game on accession to Schengen, Baconschi said in an interview with daily Adevarul on 3 January. He argued that Bucharest had already met the technical conditions required of member states for admission to the area. Making a further link between Schengen accession and the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, he complained, was unacceptable and would mean the CVM would become a “handicap” for Romania, or even a “pretext for pressure in other areas”. The Commission, however, has replied that unilateral withdrawal from the CVM is not a possibility. “The phasing out of the CVM would be based on a decision by the European Commission following the fulfilment of the four benchmarks (set in 2006). This would be best achieved through continued political commitment and close cooperation between the Romanian authorities and the Commission,” the Commission spokesman told press. Leaving the CVM would not be in Romania's interests, he added, as “various reforms would not have been possible without the CVM”.
“CVM is not a precedent for Croatia.” In the interview, Baconschi indicated that Romania might demand that Croatia, most probably the next country to join the EU, be subject to the same CVM as Romania and Bulgaria in 2007. “We support enlargement of the EU to the Western Balkans”, but in Croatia's case, “we cannot accept that this will happen without the monitoring mechanism when it has been kept in place for us,” the minister said. The Commission, on the other hand, “hopes that we will not have to set up the same mechanism for Croatia”. “The CVM for Bulgaria and Romania should not constitute a precedent” for Croatia or any future accession countries which will all be treated “on their own merits”, the Commission spokesman said. (H.B./transl.rt)