Brussels, 07/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - The Romanian minister for European integration, Anca Daniela Boagiu, was in Brussels on 6 September to provide European Commission experts with the most recent written contribution from the Romanian government to the monitoring report on Romania's accession preparations that the Commission will adopt on 26 September. The Commission will have to decide in this report whether to stick to 1 January 2007 as the date for Romania and Bulgaria's accession, as well as on whether there is a need to use safeguard clauses as included in the accession treaty. Asked about Bulgaria at the beginning of the week, Commission president, José Manuel Barroso indicated that Sofia could expect to join the EU in 2007 but that accompanying measures, in other words, safeguard measures, were “most likely to be inevitable” (EUROPE 9259) due to the delays the country has incurred in the implementation of the Community acquis in certain fields. Mr Barroso did not make any reference to Romania. On the other hand, Justice Commissioner, Franco Frattini, said on Wednesday that the two countries were expected to accede without any conditions or safeguard measures (EUROPE 9259).
While awaiting the report from the Commission, the Romanian minister for European integration refused to speculate on the possibility of safeguard measures being imposed on this country, but underlined the need to respect the accession treaty. At the end of her meetings with officials from the Commission's DG Enlargement on 6 September, Anca Daniela Boagiu declared, “I do not want to comment on the declarations of Mr Barroso and Mr Frattini” on Bulgaria, adding, “We have an accession treaty, which is clear (and which includes the possibility of applying several kinds of safeguard measures: EUROPE 9259). She affirmed that “if one sticks to the provisions treaty, don't consider personally that we can speak about a second class membership” and explained that everything would depend on how and in what fields such measures were applied and that, “the treaty has to be respected”. She also asserted that, “We will see at the end of the year whether safeguard measures will be applied or not. It is up to the Commission to decide. Our objective is to fulfil our commitments and avoid such measures”.
On Tuesday, the Romanian prime minister Calin Tariceanu went to Helsinki to explain to his Finnish counterpart, the president of the European Council, Matti Vanhanen, that, “Romania is meeting the EU's accession demands”. The Romania prime minister stressed that, “We want acknowledgement of our efforts”. Calin Tariceanu will be in Brussels on 21 September, at the invitation of the president of the European Parliament, Josep Borrell, to meet leaders of the EP's political groups.
During a press conference at the end of the vote on the Middle East in the plenary session (see other article), the president of the Council of the EU, Erkki Tomioja, in a reply to a question about the lifting of the blockade, declared, “We welcome this move. I would have liked it to have come sooner”. It is “exactly that” averred President Borrell, who was at Tomioja's side, echoing his sentiments.