Monti maps out route to Union membership

Date: 25/09/1997

By Rory Watson

A SPECIAL series of 'road maps' is being drawn up to help steer the countries of central and eastern Europe towards their eventual destination of EU membership.

The guides are the brainchild of Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti and will be individually tailored to the specific needs of each of the ten applicants pressing to enter the Union.

The maps will display the differing degrees of progress the countries have made in implementing almost 1,000 individual internal market measures and establish specific priorities which must be tackled if the end target is to be reached.

The various routes will be discussed for the first time at an informal meeting between EU internal market ministers and their CEEC counterparts next Saturday (4 October) - only the second time the two sides have met at this level during the past three years.

“The single market is the most important aspect of the accession negotiations. It offers the key to entry into the Union and the applicants must demonstrate that the measures are in place and being implemented,” explained an EU official.

In its recent Agenda 2000 report on the Union's future, the European Commission noted that the candidate countries had some way to go to put all the necessary legislation on to national statute books and that shortcomings in implementation were even greater.

It reserved its strongest criticism for Bulgaria. Not only did it have the lowest implementation rate - just 126 of the 899 internal market measures - but even where these had been introduced, they were “only very partially in line with the acquis”.

At the other end of the scale, the Commission concluded that countries such as Hungary, Poland and Slovenia could fully meet their internal market responsibilities in the medium term if current efforts continued or were stepped up in areas where they were inadequate.

The 'road maps' are designed to achieve that target. Although they will be adapted to individual countries, they are all expected to point to the need for greater progress across the board in implementing and enforcing legislation on data protection, intellectual and industrial property, financial services and, in particular, public procurement.

Even within the Union itself, EU officials acknowledge that public markets do not always run smoothly despite a full complement of procurement directives. Monti himself recently admitted that it was “tempting to portray public procurement as the Achilles heel of the single market”.

The various road maps drawn up for the CEECs will go into greater detail than the 1995 White Paper which first set out the single market challenges for would-be members. They will be used to step up cooperation and technical assistance between the Union and the applicants, set specific priorities and timetables, and improve enforcement and implementation measures.