The "four" approaching the threshold” “

If 2004 was the year of the “great enlargement” of the European Union to Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean with the accession of ten new member states, 2005 could bring four other countries to the threshold of the EU: Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Turkey. FOUR COUNTRIES HEADING TOWARDS THE UNION. For Bulgaria and Romania the key decisions have already been taken. The European Council last December definitively fixed the accession date of the two new “members” for 1st January 2007. During the same Council renewed appeals were made to Sofia and Bucharest to complete the process of the modernization of their state structure, legislation and internal administration. At the same time widespread recognition has come from the Twenty-Five of the great progress made by these former Communist countries in adjusting to EU requirements. The same Summit in Brussels, acknowledging Croatia’s “status” as a candidate country (decided in June 2004), gave the go-ahead to the opening of membership negotiations next spring: for Zagreb too the goal of the blue flag with the twelve stars seems within reach. Lastly the same summit of heads of state and of government tackled the tricky problem of Turkey. After a heated and at times tense discussion, it was established, as a condition for EU membership negotiations, that Turkey would have to extend the Protocol of the customs and trade accord to Cyprus within the first half of 2005, de facto recognizing the (Greek) Cypriot Republic. The final document of the summit confirms 3rd October 2005 as the date for the go-ahead to membership negotiations with Turkey: they will last at least ten years; the “suspension clause” of the recognition of Cyprus remains in any case in place. But if these steps now seem essential to extend the frontiers of the Union, it should be said that the process of enlargement to the East has a very long history behind it. The pre-membership strategies, established to bring these countries only recently liberated from the Soviet influence (the symbolic date in this case was 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall) closer to Brussels, date back to the Councils held in Copenhagen (1993) and Essen (1994 and 1999). During these summits the Copenhagen criteria were also fixed – in other words, the requisites that need to be satisfied to obtain access to the EU – and the Phare and Sapard programmes and funds boosted to overcome the political, economic and social difficulties that were the legacy of Communism. POPULATION, ECONOMY AND STATE: IDENTIKIT OF THE CANDIDATES. Naturally a specific negotiation is opened for each candidate country, given that the situation of each is very different. Bulgaria, for example, is a country of 110 square kilometres, with just under 8 million inhabitants. The population is slightly declining; the most widespread religion is Orthodox Christianity, though with a significant Moslem minority (12%). The structure of the state is that of a parliamentary democracy; the Constitution dates to 1991. As far as the economy is concerned, the service sectors and heavy industry predominate; farming is maintaining fairly high levels of employment (though not of income). According to the figures for 2003, unemployment was in excess of 14%. Croatia is half its size, covering an area of 56 sq km, with a population of just over 4 million (Croat majority with minorities of Serbs, Bosnians, Hungarians and Slovenes). Three quarters of the inhabitants profess the Catholic religion. The State is organized as a parliamentary republic. The Constitution, adopted in 1990, has already been amended three times. The economy is fairly sound, again with a prevalence of services and industry, but also with substantial facilities for tourism. Romania, in turn, covers an area of 238 sq km, and has a population of some 21 million. The largest ethnic group is Romanian; minorities include 8% Hungarians and almost 2% gipsies. The religion diffused among the vast majority of the population is Orthodoxy. Politically Romania is a semi-presidential republic; the Constitution has been in force since 2003. As for its economy, the Romanian industrial system is fairly substantial but obsolete, while new plants established by foreign firms are now being developed. There is a high rate of inflation. Unemployment is lower than the EU average. The last of the four candidate countries is Turkey, by far the largest of the four (780 sq km) and also the most populous (68 million inhabitants). Infant mortality is high (36 per thousand). So too is illiteracy (18%). The population is subdivided as follows: 78% Turks, 20% Kurds, the remaining 2% distributed between Greeks, Armenians and Arabs. Islam is professed by 98% of the inhabitants. Ankara is the capital of a parliamentary republic. The Constitution dates to 1982; it was amended, to make it more democratic, in 2001. The economy, which is rather backward, is based on industry, services and agriculture. The inflation rate is high. GDP is growing and promises good results in terms of economic growth in the short and medium term. ———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1357 N.ro relativo : 6 Data pubblicazione : 26/01/2005