| Author (Person) | Taylor, Simon |
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| Series Title | European Voice |
| Series Details | Vol.12, No.18, 11.5.06 |
| Publication Date | 11/05/2006 |
| Content Type | News |
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By Simon Taylor Date: 11/05/06 The European Commission is expected to announce next week that Romania and Bulgaria can join the EU in 2007 but only if they can show concrete progress in tackling organised crime and stamping out corruption by the autumn. European Commission President José Manuel Barroso this week hinted very strongly that the executive would urge that the two candidate countries should be able to join next January but with strict conditions. Speaking at a meeting of MEPs and national parliamentarians in Brussels on 9 May, Barroso said there were three possibilities for the Commission - saying 'yes' to 2007 or 'no', "let's wait until 2008". A third possibility was "yes to 2007 provided you do this, this and this". He told one German member of parliament that the Bundestag should go ahead with planned ratification of the two countries' accession treaty because "it can be a conditional decision" for them to join on 1 January 2007. Barroso told European Voice that if the two countries were not ready for membership, "we [the Commission] have to say it". Repeating Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn's stress on the need for the two countries to have a credible track record on arrests and prosecutions of organised crime figures and corrupt officials and politicians, Barroso said that some reforms could take "three, four, five months to be implemented". Hence the need for the Commission to check once more, in the autumn, that the two countries' governments have indeed kept their promises to fight corruption and crime. Article reports on comments by European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso, on the date for accession to the EU of Romania and Bulgaria. The European Commission was expected to announce on 16 May 2006 that Romania and Bulgaria were able to join the EU in 2007 but only if they could show concrete progress in tackling organised crime and stamping out corruption by the autumn. |
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| Source Link | http://www.european-voice.com/ |
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| Countries / Regions | Bulgaria, Romania |
