Strasbourg, 04/09/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday morning the European Parliament opened its annual consensus-seeking debate on European Union enlargement. This preceded a more detailed discussion that both praised and criticised the thirteen reports on the progress accomplished by the different candidate countries. The Presidency of the Council, European Commission and MEPs warmly congratulated the candidate countries on the progress they had achieved and on the decision taken at the Gothenburg Summit to fix the date of accession for candidate countries to 2004. Everyone recalled that the most difficult subjects still needed to be dealt with and insisted on the need to work even harder to minimise the fears of their citizens in both Member States and candidate countries about future enlargement of the EU.
Elmar Brok, President of the Foreign Affairs Committee and author of the draft resolution on enlargement that the plenary session will be voting on, opened the discussion by reiterating some of the European Parliament's demands: - that the enlargement process "suffer from no more delays"; - equality of candidate countries; - re-examination of the number of seats in the European Parliament allotted by the European Council of Nice to certain candidate countries, particularly the Czech Republic; - the importance of the principle of differentiation and the need for the EP itself to not have any "favourites"… The draft Resolution will be put to the vote by MEPs on Wednesday at the same time as the thirteen reports on the candidate countries. It insists on the importance of turning the prospect of new Member States in 2004 into a reality; the need to intensify the public information campaign on enlargement; the attention candidate countries must pay to the implementation of the Community acquis; the attention to be paid to the financial impact of enlargement, especially after 2006; justice and internal affairs; and the problems of cross-border relations.
On behalf of the Council Presidency, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Annemie Neyts stressed that the strengthening or the weakening of the European Union hangs on the good or bad management of this great political project. She stressed that it was important to avoid misunderstandings and an effort had to be made to meet the concerns of the different populations. She was pleased at the number of chapters already opened by the Belgian Presidency feeling that "critical mass" had been obtained for practically all candidate countries in terms of the number of chapters opened, which made the question of differentiation even more pressing and the issue of how to draw the negotiations to a close since this may well occur rather earlier than might have been thought possible a short while ago.
Mr Verheugen: The Commission is still keeping a close eye on the question
of minorities in the candidate countries
The European Commissioner for Enlargement, Günter Verheugen, opened his speech by talking about the Irish referendum and closed by taking about the need to respond to the fears of EU and candidate countries' citizens. Otherwise, he was broadly satisfied with the situation - progress by the candidate countries (adopting acquis, reforms, etc despite shortfalls in terms of implementing the acquis), the decision by the European Council of Gothenburg to set 2004 as the target for the first round of new Member States. The Commissioner stressed, however, that difficult chapters remained to be settled and that both Member States and candidate countries had to be prepared to compromise. For example, he defended the role of and the proposals put forward by the Commission, citing the compromise drawn up by the Commission on the free circulation of workers. Mr Verheugen stated that the Commission's role was to protect the interests of the EU as a whole in order to ensure that enlargement would not place demands on any Member State that went beyond its capabilities, while taking into account what candidate countries and future Member States could not tolerate. Mr Verheugen said that one of the "controversial subjects awaiting us" was the approach chosen by the European Commission to negotiations over agriculture before the Common Agricultural Policy had been reformed.
Mr Verheugen warned that the progress reports on the candidate countries that the Commission would be adopting in November would focus on the implementation of the acquis. He stressed the persistence of serious shortcomings in terms of administrative capacity which could form a serious obstacle to membership. He acknowledged, however, that most countries had taken extremely effective measures in organisational terms to be able to put through the large amount of legislative changes within the given deadlines. Over and above statistics and numbers, what counts is the quality of the agreements reached - some countries that have concluded fewer agreements are more advanced than others, he also stressed. Mr Verheugen also made it clear that the Commission continued to follow the situation of minorities and the development of the rule of law very closely: thus, while the situation of Russian minorities in the Baltic States continues to improve in a regular manner, the integration of the Roms remains a thorny and upsetting problem, he stated. The Commissioner, who did not speak of the situation of each candidate country, mentioned Romania (despite the ray of hope regarding the fate of children in institutions and adoption, caution is needed because of the many disappointments of the past).
Political groups express satisfaction about adoption by the Fifteen of the 2004 target date
The President of the EPP-ED Group, Hans-Gert Pöttering, insisted on the fact that the national governments must speak over and over again to their populations about the advantages to be gained from reminded Europeans not only of the risks but also of the advantages of enlargement. Pat Cox, President of the ELDR Group, welcomed the fact that the European Council had fixed the date of 2004 as a target for the first accessions, before insisting on the question of border regions. Heidi Hautala, Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, also said she was very pleased with the date 2004 and the progress made by the candidate countries. She called on them to "'take the adoption of the legislation on the environment and on sustainable development very seriously". André Brie (GUE/NGL) felt that equal treatment of candidates is not a reality, mainly when it comes down to free movement and agriculture. Gerard Collins (UEN) stressed that the Irish referendum was not a vote against enlargement. Jens-Peter Bonde, President of the Group of a Europe of Democracies and Diversities, called for all documents relating to enlargement to be put on the Internet. He also insisted on the fears of citizens in candidate countries, and called for membership referenda to be organised everywhere.
EUROPE will return tomorrow to the debates on country-by-country reports. For an overview of these reports, see EUROPE of 16/17 July, pp.16 and 17.
Cyprus: Duff warns against accession without "at least tacit agreement from Turkish Cypriots"
In a declaration, British Liberal Democrat Andrew Duff said on Tuesday that, in the current circumstances, Cyprus "cannot be said to conform to the Copenhagen criteria that stipulate that all EU accession states must possess stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities". "Accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the EU without at least the tacit consent of the Turkish Cypriots would have serious consequences" and would "inevitably lead to a serious crisis in a year's time when the Union has to decide about Cyprus' entry", said Mr Duff, who believes it would be "irresponsible" for the European Parliament, Council and Commission to ignore these consequences. In his view, the EU should, moreover, do far more to encourage Mr Denktash and Mr Clerides to "engage directly in substantive negotiations" on the island's future.
On the other hand, when the session opened on Tuesday morning, German Social Democrat Jannis Sakellariou had asked Nicole Fontaine to solicit explanations from the Turkish Foreign Minister, who had once again, in a statement, denounced the conclusions of the Poos Report on EU membership by Cyprus. The state of parliamentarism in Turkey is not perhaps sufficiently developed to understand this report, which was approved in committee with only ten votes against, said Mr Sakellariou, accusing the minister of "calumny" against his colleague, mainly when he affirms that Mr Poos is "well-known for his private connections with the Greek Cypriot administration". (EUROPE will come back to this declaration).