Brussels, 16/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - The Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase came to Brussels on Tuesday to appeal to the European Commission to approve on 5 November a positive assessment report on the ongoing reforms in Romania and that it accords it the status of a functioning market economy. In order to reach this objective, the Romanian government has developed an "eight-point plan" aiming to meet the demands of the EU in this area, notably concerning privatisation, sorting out public finance and management of public companies. The President of the European Commission Romano Prodi at the end of his meeting with Mr Nastase, said that the plans were good but they still needed to be translated into concrete action on the ground. Romania has till the end of September to convince the Commission of giving it the promotion that it gave to Bulgaria in 2002 (the other candidate countries are in negotiations) and classifying it as a "functioning market economy". Last year the Commission pointed out in its regular report on Romania that the country had a chance of being categorised as a "market economy in the medium term ". Mr Nastase stressed in his meeting with Mr Prodi that "considerable progress" had been achieved recently in the implementation of economic reforms launched by his government and he was committed to pursuing them without fail. Commission sources highlight the fact that no decision has been taken on the status of the Romanian economy, "Assessment is still ongoing, it is still too early to draw conclusions".
In the context of accession negotiations, Commissioner Günter Verheugen confirmed in his meeting with Mr Nastase, that the Commission was going to try to finish them by the end of 2004 (before the expiry date of the current Commission mandate) in a way that would enable Romania to join the EU before 1 January 2007.
Romania has still a great deal of work to do and the Commission has identified a number of areas where additional progress will be needed to achieve this, Mr Verheugen stressed. "It will be difficult but manageable", the Commissioner said. Accession talks on the trickiest issues, namely the chapters that have a strong financial and budgetary impact (agriculture, Structural Funds, contributions to the EU budget, etc.) will no doubt begin early next year as the Commission intends to present its "financial package" (that is, its proposal for an EU negotiating position) for Romania and Bulgaria by January or February 2004, Mr Verheugen states. In answer to press questions about the recent allegations made against Minister for European Affairs Hildegard Puwak (the Romanian press had affirmed that Community funding from the Leonardo programme - totalling EUR 150,000 - were to the advantage of companies belonging to the minister's husband and son), Mr Prodi was very clear. He said investigations opened last week by Commission audit experts sent to Bucharest, as well as by OLAF, are still under way and, so far, they have not shown the minister is responsible for any conflict of interest.