Hard work starting to pay off for Romania

Date: 27/04/06

Romania has just managed to nose ahead in its bid to become an EU member from 1 January next year.

While problems remain and work needs to be done, the country's slightly better performance in judicial reform and in tackling corruption and crime has given it a modest lead over Bulgaria.

Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told MEPs in a meeting behind closed doors on 3 April that recent progress in tackling corruption had sent a signal that for the first time in the country's history "nobody is above the law". Reforms of the judiciary were also "on track" although the pace of implementation had to be maintained, he said.

Rehn's message to Romania was the same as he sent to Bulgaria. The country needed to show "tangible results" of investigations such as convictions and sentences that would deter criminals.

But the praise for Bucharest's performance so far has led to the surprising realisation that Romania, so long seen as the more backward of the two south-east European candidates, may, for the time being at least, have overtaken its neighbour.

When Rehn presents the latest reports on the progress of Romania and Bulgaria in preparing for EU membership on 16 May, he is expected to recommend that the two countries be allowed to join from January 2007. Despite increasingly hostile noises about EU enlargement from politicians across the Union, concern or opposition to taking in additional members seems to be concentrated on Turkey and Ukraine. Political support among EU leaders for honouring the commitment made at the 1999 Helsinki summit to admit the two states, when they were ready, is holding up.

Despite Rehn's words of encouragement, both Romania and Bulgaria still have some way to go before meeting all the conditions for membership. But with a backdrop of strong political support among the EU's member states for admitting them in 2007, the Commission needs to find a mechanism for keeping up the pace of reform once the two countries know their entry date is secured.

This is why the focus has shifted to extra mechanisms to ensure that the governments in Bucharest and Sofia continue their efforts to come into line with the EU's entry requirements.

Rehn has pointed out that, as with previous enlargements, he will recommend the use of safeguard measures which would shut the two countries out of parts of the internal market after they join. He has also warned the two candidates that the Union might withhold some EU funding for farm support and regional development should they fail to get proper agencies in place to receive money and spend it correctly.

The commissioner's problem is to convince Romania that the Union will have the political will to apply such measures when it has not done so for other new members in the past.

Article reports on Romania's progress in the preparations for EU accession, scheduled for 1 January 2007. While problems remained and work needed to be done, the country's slightly better performance in judicial reform and in tackling corruption and crime had given it a modest lead over Bulgaria. The European Commission's decisive report on the two countries' readiness for accession in 2007 was due on 16 May 2006.
Article is part of a European Voice Special Report, 'EU enlargement'.

European Commission: DG Enlargement: Romania http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/archives/romania/index_en.htm

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