Ghent, 20/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - Guy Verhofstadt proposed taking a further step along the enlargement process: he would like the European Council of Laeken to draw up a list of candidate countries ready to conclude accession negotiations in 2002. "I believe that the Laeken Summit will be able to shed further light on the enlargement negotiations process. In Gothenburg we stated that negotiations could be over in 2002 for a certain number of countries, we shall now see if it is possible to provide indications as to which countries are on the right track to complete negotiations by the end of 2002" the President-in-Office of the European Council told the press. "It is also an incentive for candidate countries to further speed up the adoption of the acquis communautaire", he added. This list will be drawn up on the "basis of the individual progress of each country", he went on, "hoping that there will be a large group of countries".
"Following recent events, there is even more reason for enlargement and to speed up and complete negotiations", said Verhofstadt, stipulating that "the Council's very positive attitude has been very much influenced by the strong support provided by the candidate countries to measures taken by the EU in combating terrorism", which explains their participation in the Convention on the future of Europe.
Finally Guy Verhostadt will be in Poland next week with a "strong political message to encourage the new government to keep up the rhythm of negotiations". These past few weeks, negotiations with Poland "have seen breakthroughs with solutions, notably for transitional periods for the environment; we must continue down that road".