Tuesday September 26 sees the release of the European Commission report on the readiness of Bulgaria and Romania to join the European Union. Editor-in-Chief CLIVE LEVIEV-SAWYER attempts to decode the signals being sent in the days leading up to the report.
Semantics, nuances, jargon, context.
It is in the art of balancing all of these that one may deduce what may be expected on September 26.
Mulling over the most recent official statements from various bodies, and public pronouncements by key players, there is much to be found in the choice of language.
When Tuesday’s report is released, it is certain that those who have not had prior sight of it will scan it hastily first for clarity on the date of accession. The next priority will be to see, if the accession date is January 1 2007, whether any safeguard clauses - or “accompanying measures”, a term to which this article will return later - are to be imposed. However, remembering that there were a variety of interpretations of the May report, the September 26 report may leave some issues unresolved. Before proceeding deeper into that issue, it is worthwhile recalling how the May report was seen. Some viewed it as signifying little, because it was silent on the question of the accession date and rehearsed all the well-known points about items on the "red list" of problem areas that could bar accession, even though it shortened this list. A different interpretation was that, by remaining silent on the question of the accession date, the report in effect confirmed a 2007 date for membership. The reasoning behind this was that, had the EC wanted to push accession back to 2008, it would have had to have made a specific recommendation to do so.
What will the September 26 report say about a date? Some Bulgarian-language headline writers, and the platoon of cheerleaders within Government, appear to believe that the report will name a date, or at least confirm the date of January 1 2007. Let us, however, take a closer look at what actually has been said recently about this. On September 13, Michael Leigh, the EC director-general for enlargement, said that the report would provide the commission’s position about Bulgaria’s accession date. That choice of phrase is open to a wider range of meanings than simply reading it as a commitment to name a date. Theoretically, it may mean that the EC may again decide not to decide. At the same time, even if a date is recommended, remember that this would still only have the status of a recommendation. Official finality may come only on October 20, the scheduled date for the meeting of the European Council. Nor should it be forgotten that the fact that not all countries have yet ratified the April 2005 accession treaty between the EU and Bulgaria and Romania is more than a technical issue.
More semantics, now, but with everything to do with the accession process, semantics are everything. Bulgaria has made it known that rather than references to “safeguard clauses” it prefers to speak about the lesser option, of “accompanying measures”. It has been extensively reported and discussed that Bulgaria could face some kind of precautionary measure by the EU, especially likely in regard to organised crime and corruption, even if the country is allowed into the EU on the first day of next year. But now the language being used is that term “accompanying measure” and it has been used by everyone from European Integration Minister Meglena Kouneva to EC and European Parliament officials participating in the EU-Bulgaria Joint Parliamentary Committee. What does it mean? It appears to mean that, post-accession, EU officials will work very closely with Bulgaria to rectify problem areas.
Let’s allow Kouneva to speak for herself, as she did when bTV morning show presenter Nikolai Bareikov asked her about the possibility of Bulgaria being subjected to strict monitoring after accession in January 2007.
Said Kouneva: “I would like to cite the text of the (accession) treaty that we all talk about but unfortunately very few of us actually have read it. In the infamous article 38, which refers to the preventive clause on the judicial system and interior order, there are in fact two paragraphs. One paragraph refers to the preventive instruments, the actual preventive clause. Whereas the second part of the text, which is the second paragraph and is comprised of two excerpts, is the monitoring, which does not mean the imposition of a preventive clause. This monitoring could also be conducted before the accession of the two countries, Bulgaria and Romania in the European Union. Indeed the list of tasks, which Romania had to fulfil after the negotiations were concluded, was in essence such a monitoring and they did perfectly well. So they managed to meet their commitments. This mechanism turned out to be effective.”
Asked whether this meant that she expected that Bulgaria would face “intensified monitoring” rather than safeguard measures, Kouneva did not give a plain answer, but did in the interview raise an important issue that goes to the context of the process.
She referred to the stance of European commissioner Franco Frattini, who is keen on making all EU member states report on progress against organised crime and EU-related fraud. Kouneva’s point appears to be that if the September 26 report recommends a monitoring process with regard to Bulgaria and its efforts against organised crime and corruption, this would hardly be an isolated case in the context of what is going on in among all EU member states. It is as well to state the obvious, that it is not as if other EU states, of whatever vintage, do not have organised crime problems within their own countries.
More context and more semantics. Bulgaria was keen to draw attention to the “final statement” by the EU-Bulgaria Joint Parliamentary Committee (indeed, publicly expressing joy that the report was called a “final statement” instead of a “conclusion”, the term used previously - the joy being based on the fact that such committees cease to exist when a country is about the join the EU). This statement, over about half-a-dozen pages, saw the committee “welcoming” a series of things and “taking note” of others. The committee reiterated its strong support for Bulgaria joining the EU on January 1 2007.
One key paragraph, among many important ones, said that the committee “Welcomes the continuing efforts of the Bulgarian Government to fulfil the commitments made in the area of Justice and Home Affairs and the steps taken to combat organised crime and corruption and to complete the reform of the judiciary; expects those measures to be implemented vigorously and to produce tangible and visible results.”
Elsewhere on the same issue, the report used a less enthusiastic verb in “noting” a serious mobilisation against organised crime “evidenced by accusations brought recently against key figures of the criminal world and a great number of organised criminal groups” and also “noted” indictments for money laundering while “expecting” concrete results.
All of this, and other uses of the terms “welcome” and “takes note” appear to indicate that if it was up to this committee, Bulgaria would be in the EU on January 1 next year, probably with some form of monitoring process.
One other source to look for to detect signals about what the September 26 report will say is European enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn. But from Rehn of late there has been little change from the standard theme tune of the past few months, of wanting to see concrete results in the key areas, while acknowledging progress in technical areas. The only solace to be taken from this may be that, like the May report, Rehn has made no firm statement of late that a delay of accession to 2008 is definitely on the agenda. Emerging from his most recent meeting with Rehn, on September 14, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin said that he expected that the September 26 report would name January 1 2007 as the accession date, to contain criticism, but to be “positive as a whole”.
Kalfin’s statement was more definitive than that of Kouneva in the bTV interview, who preferred to stick to “it is too early to say”. She said: “You must remember that we encountered some very difficult moments before our acceptance in Nato”.
Indeed, whatever is said or not said in the September 26 report, a few difficult moments before Bulgaria joins the EU remain a distinct possibility, but these moments may relate only to the precise details of “accompanying measures” and at domestic level within individual member states, to the process of ratification of the accession treaty and to how individual countries deal with the question of Bulgarians' access to labour markets.
Should one plan a New Year’s Eve celebration for Bulgaria joining the EU? Probably, but before midnight that night approaches, it may be as well to mark the calendar in pencil.
