Bulgaria and Romania jump first monitoring hurdles

The EU’s two newest member states comfortably met their 31 March deadline for reporting to the European Commission on their progress in justice and home affairs.

Despite their accession in January, Bulgaria and Romania still have to prove they comply with the EU rules in full. Last week’s deadline was the first stage in breaking out of their ‘twilight’ membership status.

Each of them submitted dozens of pages of closely-typed text listing in detail the efforts they have made over the last three months to satisfy the benchmarks the Commission established last year as the condition for their accession.

Bulgaria has the toughest task. It has six benchmarks, which include amending the country’s constitution to assure independence of the judicial system, bringing in a new civil procedure code, boosting professionalism in the judiciary, investigating high-level corruption, eliminating corruption at borders and fighting organised crime. Romania faces only four benchmarks - similar, but less challenging.

But submitting reports is only part of the challenge. "It is not judgement day today," said one Commission spokesman. The Commission has to deliver its own comments and findings on these reports in June and these will in turn be reviewed by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.

In the meantime, the Commission is organising two expert missions in April to make its own assessment on the ground. Bulgaria will get the most rigorous check: seven days, followed by five days in Romania. The Commission will also seek information from other sources, including non-governmental organisations.

This unprecedented monitoring exercise - member states have not, in the past, provided experts to conduct evaluations of this type in other member states - is to continue until each of the two new members emerges from the twilight. They both have to submit reports on 31 March of every year until the Commission decides that the benchmarks have been achieved. And until then, the Commission has to keep up its vigilance and provide a report of its own at least every six months.

In addition, the two countries are still subject to special measures in other areas of the acquis, the body of EU laws. Their accession treaties provide for checks on compliance with a wide range of EU rules and in September 2006 the Commission specifically mentioned that agriculture and food safety needed verification. These will not be assessed by the expert missions in April and there is still some uncertainty over how the Commission will discharge this responsibility.

Already, tensions have flared between the Commission’s Secretariat-General - which is responsible for overall co-ordination - and Commission Vice-President Franco Frattini, who has discouraged intrusion into his responsibilities for justice and home affairs. Questions also remain about the effectiveness of the monitoring, the willingness of the Commission or the member states to invoke safeguard clauses in the event of persistent deficiencies and the efficacy of any sanctions. The most extreme measure so far revealed in the EU’s arsenal is the suspension of other member states’ obligation to recognise and execute the two countries’ judgments and judicial decisions, such as European arrest warrants.

• Peter O’Donnell is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.

The EU’s two newest member states comfortably met their 31 March deadline for reporting to the European Commission on their progress in justice and home affairs.