MEPs welcome Bulgarian and Romanian observers

Eighteen members of the Bulgarian parliament and 35 members of the Romanian parliament start their roles as European Parliament observers on Monday.

Parliament President Josep Borrell will welcome the Romanian and Bulgarian MPs and deputies at the start of the September 26 Strasbourg plenary session.

The observers do not have voting or speaking rights but do participate, with speaking rights, alongside MEPs in the parliament’s committees.

The observers arrival, postponed from before the summer break after worries over Sofia and Bucharest’s EU readiness is expected to cause Strasbourg bureaucrats a few headaches.

Parliament officials are downplaying rumblings from the political groups that seating, office space and translation arrangements for the observers are not up to scratch.

The observers have been told to steer clear of the Strasbourg chamber during votes as there will not be enough seats.

With translation services into Bulgarian and Romanian being kept to a minimum, the observers are unlikely to spend much time in the plenary chamber.

And they have been warned that the shortage of office space in the Brussels parliament buildings means they may have to share a room with up to six others.

Meanwhile both Bucharest and Sofia will shortly receive crucial European Commission enlargement reports that will decide their EU readiness. 

Sluggish movement on crucial EU legislation and on cracking down on graft by both capitals has raised serious concerns in the EU that they will not be ready to join by 2007.

‘Safeguard clauses’ adopted by Brussels could delay both countries entry by a year, leaving the Bulgarian and Romanian observers in a state of political limbo.

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