TEN NATIONS ON TRACK TO JOIN EU

Views on BG | November 13, 2001, Tuesday // 00:00

Financial Times; Nov 13, 2001
By LEYLA BOULTON and JUDY DEMPSEY

European Commission officials yesterday said they saw no reason why up to 10 countries could not be ready to join the European Union by 2004.

The remarks, made ahead of today's annual progress reports by the Commission for all the applicants, mean that the 15-member EU is contemplating its biggest enlargement since it was established 50 years ago. Five central and east European countries, excluding only Bulgaria and Romania, as well as the three Baltic states, Malta and Cyprus could be included.

It would also be one of the most challenging enlargements for the EU; member states have done little to reform the institutions required for accommodating a "Big Bang" or, for that matter, a small enlargement.

The Commission is not expected in its 13 separate reports to say explicitly which countries are most likely to complete negotiations by the end of 2002.

This is the timetable agreed at last year's Nice summit and at the Gothenburg summit in June when EU leaders said they intended to complete negotiations with the "best prepared" countries by the end of next year.

They can then enter the Union before the European parliamentary elections in June 2004, assuming parliaments and, in some cases, referendums in member and applicant countries have ratified the accession treaties.

Nevertheless, said officials, today's reports might well be the penultimate ones for all the applicant countries except Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, which has yet to formally open negotiations.

Romano Prodi, Commission president, said that in a year "we shall be giving our assessment of each country's ability to take on the rights and obligations of membership of the Union".

Despite the upbeat assessment by Commission officials, the reports are expected to spell out serious shortfalls among all applicants in implementing the acquis communataire. These are the 80,000 pages of EU legislation that applicants are supposed to implement - unless transition periods are granted - as a condition for joining.

* The Turkish politician who persuaded his government to accept the EU's offer of full candidacy yesterday warned Ankara against emotional reactions to an EU report expected to criticise Turkey's slow progress in meeting membership criteria, Leyla Boulton reports from Ankara.

"The report should be welcomed and assessed in a cool-headed manner because there is no point in quarrelling with a mirror showing us as we are," said Mehmet Ali Irtemcelik, former minister for EU relations.

The report is expected to highlight shortcomings such as Ankara's failure to abolish the death penalty.
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