Brussels, 09/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday, in a communication prepared by Commissioner Günter Verheugen (enlargement) in agreement with President Prodi and Commissioners Barnier and Vitorino, the European Commission defined the main elements to be contained in the EU draft common positions for accession talks with the twelve candidate countries on the institutions chapter. These draft common positions (DCP) will be presented in the very near future, in order to allow the Fifteen to approve their common position and immediately begin negotiations with the most advanced candidates. So far, the "institutions" chapter has not yet been treated with any of the candidate countries. The Commission stresses that its proposals are based on the hypothesis that the Treaty of Nice will be ratified and that it will come into effect. The Commission considers it is clear that the EU and the candidate countries should use the following as a basis in their institutional negotiations:
The provisions set out in the Treaty of Nice and the annexed Protocol on the enlargement of the European Union including in particular the provisions for adjustment of the institutions in the prospect of enlargement. For the European Parliament, this means the number of MEPs will be increased to 732 in a 27-member EU, with the distribution of seats between the different States being that decided in Nice. The Czech Republic and Hungary (which would receive only 20 seats each, compared to the 22 seats allocated to Belgium, Portugal and Greece) - all countries with a similar population size and identical voting weight in Council) have already indicated that they wished to seek, during negotiations, to improve their representation at the EP.
The agreements set out in the Nice Declaration N°20 on enlargement and N°21 on the qualified majority threshold in the Council. According to these declarations, the qualified majority threshold in Council in a 27-member EU will be reached with 255 votes (out of a total of 345). Given that the enlarged EU will not immediately have 27 members (but very probably only 25, because Romania and Bulgaria are expected to join later), it will be necessary to fix, together with the candidate countries, a new threshold for qualified majority. The Commission, however, insists on the need to apply, in the context of this delicate exercise, the "basic principles defined in Nice". Regarding the composition of the Commission, each of the new member countries will be able to designate a Commissioner (the "rotation" system providing for fewer Commissioners than Member States will not be introduced until after accession by the 27th member country).
The relevant provisions of the present Treaties and the corresponding secondary law (including on inter-institutional relations, transparency, languages or the Staff Regulations and other administrative provisions for the European Civil Service).
Alongside these basic elements (which, as the Commission sees it, should clearly be part of the EU common negotiating position), the Commission has also identified problems which are real, but which could only be resolved at a later stage in the enlargement process, especially transitional arrangements which should be negotiated with candidates concerning:
The European Parliament. If the new members were to effectively join on 1 January 2004, which is the declared ambition of both EU and candidates, a transitional system should be found to allow their participation in the outgoing EP (that is during the last six months of its term of office given that the new EP will not be elected before June 2004).
The Council of Ministers. As the Nice decision on vote weighting in Council will not apply until after 1 January 2005, it will also be necessary to find a provisional arrangement for 2004 (breakdown of votes for the new members, qualified majority threshold, etc.). At any rate, the qualified majority threshold will not be determined until the time when it is exactly known what candidates may join the EU from the first wave of enlargement.
The linguistic regime. Two issues are outstanding. The Maltese government demands that the Maltese language be recognised as official EU language (alongside English, the country's second language). The Commission will effectively propose to follow up Malta's request. In Cyprus, Greek and Turkish are considered national languages (Article 3 of the 1960 Constitution), but the Commission considers it necessary to reconsider the question of the official language at a later date, especially taking into account a possible political solution to the Cypriot question in coming months.