Brussels, 18/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - Commissioner Olli Rehn (enlargement) is to meet Turkey's chief negotiator for accession talks, Ali Babacan, in Brussels on Friday. On Wednesday, during his visit to Sofia (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.4), the Commissioner called on the Turkish authorities to return to the road of reform as soon as possible if it wishes to avoid problems in membership talks. “It is necessary for the Turkish government to take immediate action to restart the momentum of the reforms in the country”, Mr Rehn told the press. “That is the best and only way to avoid a train crash later this year in the negotiations between the European Union and Turkey. It is really in the hands of the Turkish government, parliament and civil society to achieve results”, he stressed.
France calls for October 2005 enlargement strategy to be completed before stating what conditions must be met by the EU and candidate counties at every stage of the process
In the context of the debate on preparation for the next European Council of 15/16 June, France submitted a paper to the General Affairs Council on Monday in which it sets out its views on enlargement. The document no longer makes any mention of the French wish for an indepth debate on the EU's external borders but, on the other hand, calls for the conditions to be met by the EU and the candidate countries to be clearly specified and regularly assessed, at any rate before each new stage in the enlargement process. The document first of all refutes the growing fear of the current and potential candidate countries that France has become sceptical, if not to say hostile, to future EU enlargement due to the difficult context created by the French “no” to the European Constitution and the uncertainty prevailing on the future of Europe. Enlargement, Paris states, provides a historic opportunity for Europe to contribute to peace, security, stability and democracy. It will offer new prospects for economic growth and general wellbeing, not only to candidate countries but also to the current EU Member States. Paris also said that the 2004 enlargement was a “remarkable success”.
It is necessary to ensure, however, that enlargements contribute to strengthening European construction, in respect of acquis communautaire, including its common policies, the document continues. This means that the enlargement strategy must be implemented while taking into account the EU's capacity to absorb new members, France stresses, recalling that the term “capacity to absorb new members” corresponds to that used in the conclusions of the European Council in Copenhagen in June 1993 (when the accession criteria were defined) to designate the Union's “capacity to absorb”. This capacity is a condition for membership and must be fully taken into account at every stage of the process when integrating candidate countries. For France, the EU's absorption capacity takes on several dimensions: - a democratic dimension: the EU must fully bear the opinions of citizens in mind concerning continuation of the enlargement process, an essential aspect of the European project; - the institutional dimension: - the EU must adapt its institutions to enlargement while ensuring their democratic legitimacy, their transparency and the effectiveness of the way they work and of the decision-making process; - and a political and financial dimension: - enlargement must be compatible with the overall political project of European construction. It is therefore closely linked to the debate on the future of the Union's common policies and their financing, with a fair breakdown of costs between Member States. France therefore trusts that the European Council will invite the Commission to present it with an assessment of the state of the EU's absorption capacity every time a further stage in the enlargement process is envisaged so that the Council may make its own assessment known.
The rate at which each candidate country or potential candidate comes closer to the EU must also depend, France says, on the efforts deployed by that country to meet the accession criteria, in full respect of the priorities set by the European or accession partnerships and the contractual obligations sealed with the EU. It goes on to conclude that candidate countries cannot move forward from one stage in the process to the next until the conditions for each of these stages is met. With this in mind, the European Council invites the Council and the Commission to complete the enlargement strategy proposed in the Commission's strategy paper of November 2005, in order to specify the conditions attached to each stage.