Obstacles remain on CEECs’ road to accession

Date: 05/12/1996

By Mark Turner

NONE of the applicant countries from central and eastern Europe will fulfil existing EU requirements in the field of justice and home affairs before the end of the century, and several will not do so until well into the next.

The size of the challenge facing would-be EU member states is spelt out in the first draft conclusions drawn up by the European Commission after assessing the CEECs' responses to a wide-ranging questionnaire on their readiness for accession.

The draft report concludes that the candidate countries still need to ratify and implement a wide range of international and European conventions which form the basis of many existing EU third pillar rules.

It also lays down a long list of measures which its authors believe the Union should take via its Phare technical assistance programme to prepare the CEECs for enlargement.

The draft report points out that international conventions on extradition and the Council of Europe convention on data protection, for example, have still not been ratified by the CEECs. It warns that this state of affairs would pose severe difficulties for cooperation on justice and home affairs in an enlarged Union.

The report indicates that the states which come closest to fulfilling EU requirements are the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland and Estonia. But countries such as Romania, Lithuania and Bulgaria still have “a long way to go”.

It also concludes that while all the CEECs have difficulties with organised crime, only a few are taking sufficient steps to combat it.

Also of concern is a lack of efficient measures - both legislative and practical - to deal with asylum seekers. The draft says Lithuania has not even ratified the basic Geneva convention on refugees and several countries lack the means to deal with asylum applications.

The Dutch, who will take over the EU presidency from 1 January next year, have already indicated that they will focus on asylum issues at structured dialogue meetings with CEEC justice ministers during their six-month term at the helm.

The draft report also warns that improvements would be needed to border controls before the CEECs would be ready to cooperate in third pillar work. On this issue, it adds that Polish and Czech accession would be much easier if their neighbours could join at the same time.

In addition, the Commission casts doubt on whether Slovakia's existing judicial system and its human rights record would fulfil EU requirements.

In order to improve matters, the draft proposes that general financial assistance to the applicant countries be increased under the Phare programme. But it says specific needs in each of the ten candidate countries should also be targeted.

Although the Commission is reluctant to make any hard and fast statements about which countries will be able to join in the first wave of enlargement, the draft report points out that political will within the EU to help the CEECs achieve their targets in the justice and home affairs field will be very important.