Romania lags behind in negotiations with the EU

(story to be published in tomorrow’s issue, March 13)

Of the six new candidates to European Union joining, Romania is the country that will start integration negotiations with the fewest chapters, namely five. These are small and middle-sized enterprises, research, education, foreign relations and foreign policy and joint security policy, which are common chapters for all the new six candidate states. The European Commission suggested Malta to add three additional chapters, industry, telecommunications, culture and audio-video sector. Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia were proposed three new chapters – competition, statistics, culture and audio-visual sector, while Bulgaria was proposed a single additional chapter, the culture and audio-video chapter. For the time being, negotiations with Romania will merely include five common chapters, a spokesperson of the European Commission announced on Thursday. These proposals were on Thursday communicated to the 15 permanent representatives of the European Union with Brussels, who will have to make a decision in this sense next week. “As our country advances in the legislative process, the necessary conditions will be created for a simultaneous start of negotiations concerning the other chapters of the acquis,” the spokesperson of the Romanian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Ireny Comaroschi, stated on Thursday. The first six candidates (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus and Slovenia), invited to start negotiations in December 1997, have already kick-started discussions linked to the 31 chapters that are to be reviewed with all candidates, to the end of their acquiring the “community acquis” of “The 15.” The candidates included in the “first wave” have only finalised discussions related to eight or maximum eleven chapters, differing from case to case, while the most difficult files, such as agriculture, have not yet been approached.