Applicants told they must do more

Date: 05/11/1998

By Simon Taylor

THE European Commission has told the 12 countries bidding for EU membership that they will have to do much more to meet the requirements for entry.

In a set of reports on progress in the applicant countries from central and eastern Europe, Cyprus, Malta and Turkey, the Commission says the pace of reform has slowed worryingly in some cases.

The Commission recommends that EU leaders should not add any of the 'second-wave' applicants to the list of frontrunners at next month's Vienna summit, but says Latvia could be invited to start negotiations next year provided it maintains recent progress.

Foreign Affairs Commissioner Hans van den Broek singled out the Czech Republic and Slovenia as countries where the speed of matching their national laws to Union legislation had slowed “worryingly”.

“If the stagnation observed continues, they could have a problem in the medium term in meeting their obligations,” he said.

Van den Broek nevertheless claimed that the enlargement process remained broadly on track. “The momentum in the candidates towards enlargement is being maintained,” he insisted.

The Commissioner praised efforts by all the first-wave applicants to push through the economic reforms which would allow them to compete in a single market with the EU.

But Slovakia was criticised for “excessive government intervention and a lack of transparency”, and Van Den Broek said Bulgaria and Romania could not yet be treated as “functioning market economies”.

The reports show that the applicant countries have a much poorer track record when it comes to passing the necessary legislation to allow them to implement Union rules. The Commissioner expressed concern that the pace of lawmaking had “slowed significantly” in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. He also said that Bulgaria and Lithuania had failed to meet their commitments on nuclear safety.

On the question of allocating enough staff and administrative resources to carry out EU policies, the reports warned that Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia had failed to make the necessary changes.

Turkey, which has to meet stricter criteria on human rights before it can join the ranks of second-wave candidates, was criticised for failing to ensure that the civilian government controlled the army. The report also highlighted other areas where public authorities had failed to guarantee human rights and protection for minorities, and urged Ankara to find a civilian solution to the problems with ethnic Kurds in south-eastern Turkey, stressing that “many of the violations of civil and political rights” were linked to this issue.

On Cyprus, the Commission noted that representatives of the Turkish Cypriot community had rejected an invitation to join the enlargement negotiations. The Commission's report on Cyprus' progress could not therefore cover the entire island.

Meanwhile, Valletta will have to wait until next year for the Commission to complete its report on whether Malta meets the criteria for EU membership.