In its plenary session on 15 March, the European Parliament discussed a report, drafted by German MEP Elmar Brok, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, on the EU’s future enlargement strategy. The own-initiative report is a critical look at the Commission’s enlargement strategy as spelled out by the latter in 2005. The plenary session is scheduled to vote on the report on 16 March.
Among other issues, the report:
- Calls for a comprehensive Europe-wide communication strategy to address the public’s “legitimate concerns”;
- Calls on the Commission to clear up the principles behind the EU’s absorption capacity in a report to be submitted to Parliament by 31 December 2006;
- Urges authorisation for Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Constitutional Affairs Committees to tackle the issue of the EU’s absorption capacity in an own-initiative report;
- Reminds the Council that any further enlargement of the EU must be conditional on the availability of adequate budgetary resources;
- Urges an increase for the purse available for the Pre-accession (IPA) and the Neighbourhood and Partnership (ENPI) instruments;
- Calls for the drafting of a framework for a “close multilateral relationship with the EU” which all countries with recognised membership prospects should be able to join on their way to full membership.
On Turkey, the report notes that the pace of reforms has slowed down in 2005. It reiterates the expectations and conditions associated with Ankara’s quest for membership of the EU, and says that Turkey should “present as soon as possible a plan including a timetable and specific measures to meet these deadlines." Specifically, in connection with the still outstanding Turkish implementation of the additional protocol to the Ankara Agreement, the report reminds Turkey that "recognition of all member states is a necessary component of the accession process."
On Croatia, the report welcomes the country's "good progress" and "full co-operation" with the international war crimes tribunal in the Hague. The report notes that while Croatia "meets the necessary political criteria" for EU membership, "it faces a number of major challenges" in the fields of judicial reform, fighting corruption and improving the situation of the Roma population.
In its assessment of the situation in the Western Balkans, the report notes that unemployment "is still unacceptably high" in the region, and calls on the Commission to make job creation "one of its priorities in its overall policy concerning the region."
