Romania should be in 2004 poll, says premier

Date: 13/06/02

ROMANIA wants to take part in the 2004 European Parliament election, even if it has not joined the EU by then.

The country's prime minister, Adrian Nãstase, said Romania and Bulgaria, the two laggards in the EU enlargement talks, 'should not be decoupled' from the ten other states involved in the negotiations.

Their voters, he said, should be allowed elect MEPs in 2004; they would have observer status in parliamentary debates and only enjoy the same entitlements as fellow deputies once their countries' accession treaties are ratified.

Nãstase, who was speaking at an event organised by the European Policy Centre think-tank in Brussels, disputed European Commission claims that the pace of the talks should not be accelerated.

Enlargement chief Günter Verheugen recently told Danish MPs 'it would simply not be possible to receive the two countries into the European Union within the existing budgetary framework'.

The Romanian premier insisted that signing an accession treaty would cost only 'the money to buy the pencils' and no extra finance would be needed before 2007. Bucharest should be ready to sign such a treaty by the summer of 2004, he predicted.

The factors separating Romania and Bulgaria from the other applicants are economic, rather than political, he said. 'The discussions are too linked to practical considerations and take less account of the principles of solidarity and equality. We should not fall hostage to statistics.'

Bucharest has faced criticism for not guaranteeing the full independence of the judiciary. But Nãstase defended a recent decision that a new anti-corruption prosecutor should be nominated by the Ministry of Justice rather than by judges. The Romanian constitution provided for this post to be filled in that way and 'no one in the EU' has suggested an alternative, he said.

Romania wants to take part in the 2004 European Parliament election, even if it has not joined the EU by then, according to Prime Minister Adrian Nastase.