Support for accession talks to start together

Date: 18/04/1996

By Thomas Klau

DESPITE strong concern over the cost of enlargement, the European Parliament has given its overwhelming backing to calls for the simultaneous start of membership negotiations with all Central and Eastern Europeans knocking on the EU's door.

With 325 votes in favour, just eight against and 59 abstentions, MEPs yesterday (17 April) threw their weight behind a report calling on member states not to differentiate between candidate countries at the beginning of the enlargement process.

But the report warns the EU to avoid the temptation to expand eastward too hastily by allowing politics rather than economics to dictate the speed at which new members are allowed in.

During the debate, Dutch MEP and rapporteur Arie Oostlander acknowledged the necessity to take a differentiated view of the applicant countries. Stressing that acceptance of the 'acquis communautaire' and adherence to the rule of law and democracy were basic preconditions for membership, he underlined that accession could not be granted on economic criteria alone.

However, MEPs warned that “overhasty accession by the countries of Central and Eastern Europe on purely political grounds would undermine the internal market itself and would not help the Union to function efficiently”.

But the Parliament's insistence that negotiations with all the applicant countries should begin at the same time is likely to be resisted by several member states.

Some Brussels-based diplomats fear that starting accession talks in 1998 with countries which will not be ready for membership will either bring these countries into the Union too soon, or make a mockery of the negotiations.

Oostlander's report was expanded by several amendments during yesterday's vote. The most politically sensitive of these, and one which received strong support from Socialist members, declared that “no decision can be taken on the outcome of these negotiations until the full financial consequences of a future accession are available”.

Responding to this concern, Foreign Affairs Commissioner Hans van den Broek emphasised that the Commission was examining the impact of enlargement on the Common Agricultural Policy and regional spending.

MEPs also gave their backing to other recommendations in the report which are likely to run into opposition from EU governments. Amongst them is a call for the temporary or permanent exclusion of countries not respecting human rights, and the abolition of individual member states' right to veto a new member's accession single-handedly.

Oostlander has stressed the importance of having one and the same starting point for all accession negotiations. Any other approach, he argues, might discourage candidates demoted to the second division of applicants and slow down, rather than hasten, their economic and political drive towards membership.

The resolution stipulates, however, that none of the applicants should be allowed to join the Western European Union without the prior agreement of NATO, and adds that their entry into the EU will necessitate a strengthening of its common foreign and security policy.

The former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, meanwhile, criticised the approach being taken by EU governments for being too uncertain.

The enormous scale of the enlargement project, Rocard said, made it “the greatest political adventure man has ever known”.