Brussels, 27/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - The procedure for Iceland's becoming part of the European Union opened on Monday 27 July, when the General Affairs Council asked the European Commission to prepare its “opinion” on the Icelandic candidacy, in line with the procedure laid down by Article 49 of the EU Treaty. Once the Commission opinion is ready, member states will decide initially whether they wish to make Iceland an “applicant country”. Then, should they decide to do so, and no one doubts that they will, the member states will have to decide unanimously (as is the case for each and every enlargement decision) to open accession negotiations with Reykjavik, most probably in the course of 2010. These talks will very likely be shorter than usual given the Iceland is already a member of the European Economic Area (EEA) and the Schengen area, but there will be no fast-tracking or preferential treatment for Reykjavik, the Swedish Presidency stressed on Monday. “There will be no fast track for Iceland, but, obviously, the procedure will be shorter for it because it is already a member of the (European) common market and the Schengen area,” said Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who currently chairs the Council of the EU. It is estimated that 75% of European legislation (the “acquis communautaire”) is already applied by Iceland. Each applicant country must be “assessed on its own merits,” ministers stress in conclusions adopted on Monday. Usually, roughly 12 months are required for the Commission to prepare its opinion on candidacy for accession. In Iceland's case, the time required is likely to be shorter, but the Commission has not yet given any idea of the timetable. Some ministers (Lithuania, Denmark) expressed their hope that the opinion would be with the Council before the end of the year. Commissioner Olli Rehn said only that Iceland's candidacy would be dealt with “by the book” and that there would be no “shortcuts”.
This view was shared by the Council with several ministers insisting on Monday that Iceland must receive no preferential treatment over the Western Balkan countries. A difference in the speed of progress can already be seen, however. Montenegro, for example, applied for accession in December 2008, but had to wait until the end of April 2009 for the Council to decide to call for the Commission to prepare an opinion. Albania, which applied to join the EU on 1 May of this year, has still not been informed if the request will be put to the Commission - officially this is because of the uncertainty still surrounding the final results of the general election that took place at the end of June (the Council stated in conclusions on Monday that Albania's accession application would be dealt with once the electoral process in Albania “has been completed”). The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), which has been an applicant country since December 2005, is still waiting for accession negotiations to open. It still has to meet a number of technical criteria set by the Commission and must also resolve with Greece the (highly political) issue of the use of the name “Macedonia” before it can even hope for the Council go-ahead on accession talks. There is, then, the real possibility that Iceland will jump ahead of the FYROM in the queue to become an EU member state. “We have to build up momentum once again” on integrating the Balkan countries into the EU, or there is the risk of a slip back, warned Bildt. That was why, in the conclusions adopted on Monday, the Council repeated its “full support” for the European prospects of the Western Balkans.
The Dutch delegation, led on Monday by Permanent Representative Tom de Bruijn, said that, for his country, it was very important that satisfactory compensation be paid to Dutch savers who had lost their savings in the nationalisation of Icelandic online bank Icesave. The Netherlands was not against the Commission's preparing its opinion on Icelandic accession (a purely technical step), but the approval by the Icelandic parliament of a compensation agreement for Dutch (and British) customers of Icesave was a “prerequisite” if the accession process was to continue, de Bruijn said. The Commission opinion would have to allude to this issue and to the need for Iceland to comply with the acquis communautaire on this, stressed the Dutch Ambassador. (Olli Rehn promised to keep a very close eye to ensure that Iceland fulfils its obligations under the EEA and the acquis communautaire.) French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that, if France was to agree to any further accession, the Lisbon Treaty would have to be in force. It was “unreasonable”, he said, to speak of further accessions until the new treaty came into force. Other countries, such as Germany and Luxembourg, made the same link. Kouchner also warned against “excessive haste” in dealing with Iceland, even though it already met many of the European requirements.
The Icelandic government hopes that the country will be able to join the EU in 2012 provided that the referendum planned at the end of the negotiations backs accession. Officially, the EU does not want to make any comment on the timetable, but diplomats say that accession at the same time as Croatia (whose negotiations are currently deadlocked because of its border dispute with Slovenia) might be a possibility. This scenario has the advantage of combining the ratification of two accession treaties in member states. Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger argued specifically on Monday for the two countries to join the EU together. (H.B./transl.rt)