Brussels, 19/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - The EU/Romania Joint Parliamentary Committee, which met in Brussels on 15 and 16 April under the joint chairmanship of Domenico Mennitti (EP) and Liviu Maior (Romanian Parliament) appealed to EU Member States to offer Romania, as soon as possible, a new timetable, a readjusted "roadmap" and also additional pre-accession aid in order to give the country fresh impetus in its preparations for EU membership. It is more than likely that Romania (as well as Bulgaria) will no longer be part of the first wave of enlargement. It will therefore be imperative to adjust the pre-accession framework in their favour and to give them a new form of assistance as well as a precise timetable for the next stages that should take these two countries to accession, stressed the members of the joint parliamentary committee in conclusions adopted after the meeting. In order to be able to benefit from addition pre-accession aid, however, Romania should first of all improve its ability to absorb funds currently provided under the Phare, Ispa and Sapard programmes and strengthen its administrative capacity, say European and Romanian parliamentarians. The European Commission is also expected to do what it can to help Romania accelerate accession negotiations to open all the chapters still to be dealt with, they say. The aim of the Romanian government is to conclude all the talks towards end 2003 or early 2004. On the economic front, the Romanian governmet has made considerable effort for implementing the reforms necessary, although there are still gaps in other fields, such as the fight against corruption, the state of the public administration, or the independence of the judicial sector and of other public institutions. European Enlargement Commissioner Günter Verheugen said in his address before the Joint Parliamentary Committee that he was particularly pleased with the effort made by the Romanian government since it came to power a little over a year ago. The result is a positive one, and "considerable progress" has been made. Also, the Romanian government (which, immediately after its election, had announced many plans for reform and restructuring) kept its word by launching the reforms needed, said Mr Verheugen. Romania also proved it is a credible candidate, said the Commissioner, who believes that the progress made in 2001 for preparing for accession goes beyond what observers thought was possible. Mr Verheugen admitted, however, that the results were not 100%. Thus, as far as accession policy criteria are concerned, the Commission is still "concerned" by the lack of independence of the public institutions (mainly justice), by the magnitude of corruption and by the unpredictability of the justice system in Romania, "where laws may be voted to be abolished again just one week later". In economic matters, structural reforms have not yet reached the depth hoped for and Romania can still not be considered as a market economy. The privatisation process is too slow and inflation too high, although an improvement has been noted, said Mr Verheugen.