Brussels, 21/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - Training is probably the most difficult area. It is an easy and quick affair to change a Constitution and relatively simple to change laws and structures but it is not easy to change people, said the Enlargement Commissioner, Günter Verheugen, on Wednesday when invited to address the European Parliament's Justice and Home Affairs Committee on Justice and Home Affairs issues in the accession negotiations. Educated under Communism, people did not always understand the spirit of a democratic society, he said, adding that he was pleasantly surprised in the field by the young elite educated in the EU or elsewhere who go back to work in public services.
Providing an update on the JHA Chapter negotiations, the Commissioner said that ways had to be find for Member States to gain confidence in the candidate countries, which had to reach an acceptable level of change, including the creation of an acceptable, independent and autonomous legal system with sufficient qualified staff. He said they also had to be speeded up, rulings had to be rapidly implemented and good access to justice was required. The Commissioner mentioned border controls, noting that it should only be able to cross borders at official crossings where documents had to be checked by specially trained and well-equipped officials, adding that accession would not automatically lead to the scrapping of border controls between former and new Member States since full accession to Schengen would take a few years after accession to the EU itself (Schengen accession requires a unanimous Council decision). He said that for the moment, the EU was demanding a minimum on which they could build. Mr Verheugen explained that the twelve countries with which the EU was currently negotiating all met the political accession criteria, but this was not the case for Turkey. During his visit to Ankara the previous week, Mr Verheugen said he had been subject to enormous pressure to name a launch date for negotiations but had repeatedly said that the political criteria first had to be fully respected.
The MEPs asked the Commissioner about the quality of border controls (Hubert Pirker, EPP, Austria); Cyprus (Sarah Ludford, EDLR, UK); anti-Roma discrimination in EU candidate countries and the European Union itself (Alima Boubedienne, Greens, France and Jonathan Evans, Conservative, UK); and effective verification that acquis were actually being implemented in Justice and Home Affairs (Pierre Jonkheer, Greens, Belgium). The Commissioner said that the situation facing the Roma could not be sorted out before accession but all the candidate countries shad to adopt Action Plans. Asked about discrimination against national minorities (Hungarians in Romania, for example), Günter Verheugen asserted there was not problem of discrimination against ethnic minorities and that Romania's attitude was exemplary. In terms of the Russian minorities in Baltic States, the question was difficult, he said, but they had formulated very strict criteria and standards were being respected. In terms of checking the acquis were actually being implemented, the Commissioner said the EU did not close negotiations chapters until it was fully satisfied about implementation, which was constantly monitored and covered in annual reports. The Committee's President, Ana Palacio, said that what was important was relative progress (which is enormous) even if the countries in question are far from perfect.
The accession negations on the Justice and Home Affairs chapter have been provisionally concluded for Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Cyprus. They are ongoing with Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Malta and have not yet started with Romania.