Brussels, 05/10/2004 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday the European Commission will confirm in its 2004 regular reports on Bulgaria and Romania that the two candidate countries should be able to fulfil the economic criteria by 2007 and that they in principle will be able to join the EU on 1 January that year. However, the Commission also explains in its reports that the future accession treaty for Bulgaria and Romania will contain a reinforced safeguard clause that would allow the EU to decide at the end of 2006 whether to postpone the accession of either of the two countries by a year (until 2008) in the even of one of them not pursuing the economic reforms or having entirely failed to implement the Community acquis (see p 6). For the first time, Romania (which is expected to be able to finalise accession negotiations by the end of the year) should be considered as a functioning market economy.
The Commission is also expected to propose on Wednesday, the opening of accession negotiations with Croatia next year (but the report will not suggest an exact date), while underlining that negotiations could be suspended if the Croatian authorities do not respect the principles of freedom, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.