LONDON, May 16 (UPI) -- Bulgaria and Romania will be granted entry to the European Union in January 2007 provided they fulfill a series of conditions related primarily to organized crime and corruption, the European Commission announced Tuesday.
The controversial decision prompted anxiety in many EU states concerned about the potential impact on wider European security.
While the final decision on the accession of the two countries will be taken in October, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso recommended they be allowed to join as long as they meet a list of 10 conditions -- four for Romania and six for Bulgaria.
While Romania's conditions are largely technical, related mainly to food safety and the distribution of EU agricultural aid, Bulgaria must demonstrate substantial progress on high-level corruption and organized crime.
The Commission report demanded tangible results -- indictments, prosecutions, trials, convictions and dissuasive sentences. If these were not forthcoming, accession could be postponed for another year, it warned.
Alternatively, a special monitoring system could be put in place for the first three years after accession if efforts to tackle corruption and reform the judiciary prove insufficient. This could mean that judgments or warrants issued by Romanian and Bulgarian courts and prosecutors would not be automatically recognized in the rest of Europe -- a move which some say would amount to second class membership.
"The rules of the club must be respected," said Barroso, singling out Bulgaria's sluggish progress in justice and crime prevention. Sofia "still needs to demonstrate clear evidence of results" in this area, he told European parliamentarians.
The decision represented a compromise between those who argued that a firm accession date was needed to reassure the two countries, and those whose who claimed that postponing the decision would have better maintained pressure on Bulgaria in particular to step up its fight against crime and corruption.
However it also epitomizes the vivid debate in Europe over the wisdom of allowing countries with diverse political and cultural backgrounds to accede to a union which was once rooted in Western values and ideals. Following the accession of 10 member states, mostly eastern European, in 2004, public enthusiasm for continued expansion is on the wane, while concern over the threat of crime and corruption to EU security is escalating exponentially.
Critics argue that Bulgaria in particular is a long way from meeting the high standards of the Union in relation to crime and justice. Formerly a key ally of the Soviet Union, the country only emerged from communist domination in 1990, when it held its first multi-party election since World War II. While Sofia has undertaken far-reaching democratic and economic reforms, it has so far failed to root out the organized crime and corruption in the judiciary and public administration that permeated the country during its communist years.
But Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, writing for the website EUPolitix Monday, insisted the country had made considerable progress with reforms aimed at joining the European Union.
Neither was the country complacent, he said; Bulgaria's institutions and citizens were aware that further efforts were needed particularly in the areas of crime and corruption, and that reforms would have to continue at "unremitting pace" even after EU accession.
Bulgaria and Romania's accession would be "mutually beneficial," he argued; it would enhance political and economic stability in the Balkan region and give impetus to reforms in other countries vying for EU membership.
The two countries also had a key role to play in the future security of the European Union, he said: "Bulgaria and Romania have an important geopolitical location and can contribute to the fight against terrorism, organized crime, trafficking in people, drugs and the transportation of natural resources."
Bulgaria was a country with "excellent" economic indicators, he said, citing 5 to 6 percent annual growth, significant foreign direct investment and falling unemployment. It was prepared for and adaptive to the challenges of globalization, Stanishev continued, adding: "I believe that we shall help the EU cope with world competition and strengthen its importance and role in world affairs."
Meanwhile Pierre Moscovici, the European Parliament's rapporteur on Romania's EU accession, insisted Monday that the country had come "an impressively long way" since the demise of the Ceausescu dictatorship. Romania had made remarkable progress on reforms, he said, calling for this to be the focus of the accession debate, rather than the political climate surrounding EU reform and enlargement.
Postponing Bucharest's entry could have a highly detrimental effect on the motivation of the Romanian government and people to carry on reforms, he said.
But Dr. Richard Whitman, senior research fellow on Europe at London international affairs think-tank Chatham House, said it was inevitable that Europe's current "enlargement fatigue" would play a role in the accession decision.
"The bottom line on the European side is enlargement fatigue," he told United Press International.
Following the 2004 round of accessions and the subsequent rejections of the EU constitution in France and Holland, Europe had become wary about the consequences of further enlargement to the point where the entire body politic was "wracked with self-doubt," he said.
However concerns over the suitability of Romania and Bulgaria for EU membership were legitimate, he said. Both countries had "significant problems," he continued; Bulgaria in particular was a "problematic country with a demonstrated inability to get to grips with organized crime."
Nearby countries were highly anxious that with accession -- specifically with unrestricted cross border travel -- such crime would spread, impacting their own security, he said.
Germany in particular was "writhing in anxiety" over the prospect, and notably, had not yet ratified the accession treaties, Whitman said. Berlin was "the one to watch" in the accession process, he added.
The European Commission's decision Tuesday was "a big dollop of fudge," he said, but probably the best thing they could have done in the circumstances.
"It is clear that Romania and Bulgaria are not really ready to become members of the European Union, and should not really have got this far," he told UPI.
However as accession negotiations had already ended, it was now simply "too late to put the brakes on," he concluded.
