Bulgaria: Fighting for the Tape

Bulgaria: Fighting for the Tape

Both Bulgaria and Romania could enter the EU in 2007, Brussels
hints–but the prospect of early accession is soured by Bulgarian
calls not to be bracketed with Romania.

With just two months to go before the European
Union invites the first wave of applicant countries to join,
Brussels has given Bulgaria hints that it might be able to join
within five years.

However, while making haste to broadcast the
signals, Bulgarian politicians have urged EU negotiators to
consider their bid on its own merits rather than linking it to
neighboring Romania’s slower-moving talks.

“Right now reforms in Bulgaria are much more
advanced [than in Romania]; this is the European Commission’s
conclusion, not my own opinion,” European Affairs Minister Meglena
Kuneva told Reuters on 2 October. She noted that Bulgaria has
closed 22 of the 31 chapters in the process of bringing the
country’s laws and regulations in line with the EU’s and aims to
finalize the rest by the end of 2003, while Romania has closed just
13 chapters.

Romanian reactions to Bulgaria’s attempt to go
it alone ranged from diplomatic to withering. Romania’s chief EU
negotiator Vasile Puscas said on 3 October that Bulgaria had
adopted a “Machiavellian” attitude that shows it stands “at the
doors of Byzantium.”

Prime Minister Adrian Nastase tried to downplay
Kuneva’s statement, saying that it was intended for “internal use”
in Bulgaria. He also commented that Bulgaria had initially refused
to cooperate with Romania in the negotiation process, until it
understood that competition was useless.

As with the other Central and Eastern European
candidate countries, the EU has not given Bulgaria a firm accession
timetable. However, after talks in Brussels, President Georgi
Parvanov told reporters on 4 October that European Commission
President Romano Prodi had mentioned 2007 as a likely date.

“Bulgaria’s progress on the road to EU
membership over the past year was assessed as remarkable, and this
will be recorded in the [forthcoming] annual report of the European
Commission,” Bulgaria’s president said.

“Bulgaria may get a later target date for
accession”–perhaps 2009, Foreign Minister Solomon Passy warned the
next day. “Our questions will be answered on 9 October, when the
commission releases its annual report.”

A Reuters report from 4 October quotes an
unnamed EU source as saying that both Romania and Bulgaria might be
given entry in 2007, three years after the expected first wave of
expansion, which is expected to include Poland, Hungary, the Czech
Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia, Cyprus,
and Malta.

In April 2002, EU Commissioner for Enlargement
Guenter Verheugen praised Bulgaria’s progress in its negotiations,
which he said “surpassed expectations.” But he also suggested the
country should not seek to “artificially” accelerate the process.
“It makes no sense to open or close negotiating chapters when the
correspondingly necessary preparations are in reality not there,”
Verheugen said on Radio Liberty. “The actual speed of future
processes is not determined by the European Commission, but the
accession candidates themselves.”

Foreign Minister Passy told the Bulgarian
Telegraph Agency (BTA) that “Bulgaria is not trying to artificially
speed up negotiations. On the contrary, we believe that our speed
has sometimes in past years been artificially slowed down.”

Pushing EU accession could be very risky for
Bulgaria on several fronts. The economy–along with Romania’s the
weakest among the current candidates–could have a hard time
withstanding the combined pressures of competition and meeting EU
regulations.

The controversial Kozlodui nuclear station is
one of the chief sticking points between Sof ia and Brussels. The
EU continues to press for closure of two reactors at the plant by
2006, but, according to Kuneva, “Bulgaria only agreed to negotiate
the closing of units 3 and 4, but no deadlines were mentioned.”
More than three-quarters of Bulgarians polled in a recent survey
said they would oppose early mothballing of the old reactors even
if it meant a delay in accession.

“We have confidence in our power plant,” Kuneva
said in a 24 September radio interview. She suggested she would
support closing the two units in 2006 only if the entire plant is
put through a safety test “by 2003 at the latest, that is, by the
closing of [accession] negotiations.”

President Parvanov also mentioned the Kozlodui
plant when he told BTA in Brussels on 2 October, following a
meeting with Prodi, that “Bulgaria deserves to receive a clear road
map, including a fixed date for accession.” He declined to comment
when asked whether Bulgaria did not want to be linked with Romania
in the run-up to EU accession.

“Bulgaria continues to support Romania as a
prospective EU member country,” Kuneva told TOL on 4 October. “The
road to the European Union is a common road for our two countries,
but it is better for every single country to be treated
individually.” She said Sofia would urge Brussels to offer it an
individual road map at the EU’s December summit in Copenhagen.

“I sincerely wish our neighbor country Romania
to make extremely good progress so that we can achieve our target
date for EU accession together,” Kuneva said.

Kuneva seemed to be toning down her earlier
statement on the different speeds of the two countries’ EU
negotiations. Those words elicited a reaction on 2 October from
Romanian European Integration Minister Hildegard Puwak, who said
Kuneva’s words revealed “a lack of elegance and fair play.” Puwak
also said her government was surprised that Sofia had learned the
contents of the European Commission report ahead of its official
release date.

Puwak also put distance between the two
neighbors’ accession efforts, saying, “Romania continues to regard
the year 2007 as its target accession date, and it is Bulgaria’s
internal problem if it wishes to join earlier.”

To read more about the candidate countries,
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