MEPs turn screw on Rehn over enlargement

By Simon Taylor

Date: 20/04/06

MEPs will next week press Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn for details of how the Commission plans to keep up the pressure on Romania and Bulgaria to maintain reforms if they want to join the EU next January.

German centre-right member Elmar Brok and the two MEPs who drafted the Parliament's opinions on Romania and Bulgaria have drawn up five searching questions for Rehn. The commissioner's appearance before the assembly comes as the Commission is drawing up its reports on whether the two countries have done enough to qualify for membership in 2007. The reports are to be presented on 16 May.

Brok wanted to have a full debate and vote on a resolution next week. But this was rejected by the leaders of the Parliament's main political groups who feared a divisive debate. They agreed instead to pose questions to the commissioner.

But the two MEPs also fought Brok's attempt to paint a very negative picture of the countries' reform progress.

UK Conservative MEP Geoffrey van Orden, who drafted the Parliament's position on Bulgaria, said the first version of the questions was drawn up without him and Pierre Moscovici (French Socialist rapporteur on Romania) being consulted and would have been "very negative". He and Moscovici had insisted that the "tone and content" of the questions was changed, he said.

MEPs will ask Rehn to confirm whether Romania and Bulgaria will be ready to join the EU at the end of 2006. They also want him to clarify the details of how safeguard measures might be used and whether there should be a three-year "close monitoring system" during which special measures could be invoked. He will be asked to explain the advantages and disadvantages of making recommendations on the timing of accession and necessary safeguard measures in May or in the autumn.

Van Orden said that EU leaders should take a political decision on Romania and Bulgaria's membership in June but that a decision on safeguards should be taken later in the year. "By November we will have a clearer idea if they need safeguards," he said, adding: "There is nothing to be gained by sending out messages about delays."

Rehn warned Romania and Bulgaria recently about the need to make progress on reforming the judiciary, tackling corruption and organised crime. They should have a "credible track record of convictions" by the time the reports were drawn up in order to qualify to join in 2007, he said.

He has also warned that they could lose part of the EUR 6.4 billion a year they stand to receive in structural and farm support funds unless they get effective bodies to handle the funds up and running.

Article anticipates the appearance of the European Commissioner for Enlargement, Olli Rehn, before the European Parliament, to answer MEPs' questions on Bulgaria's and Romania's preparedness for EU accession in January 2007.