By Daisy Ayliffe - 5th April 2006
EU governments have failed to sell the benefits of enlargement, trade commissioner Peter Mandelson argued on Thursday.
In an address to business leaders in Bucharest, Mandelson blamed EU leaders for the public disenchantment with future expansion.
“The political failure of the past 15 years has not been to secure enlargement but it has been a failure to sell it – and for that political responsibility is widely shared.”
“Because Europe’s leaders have failed to sell enlargement to their own electorates, we have not prepared for its economic, social and institutional consequences as thoroughly as we should have done.”
The British commissioner is in Romania to lend EU support to the creation of a single free trade agreement for south eastern Europe.
Plans for a revised and enlarged Central Europe free trade agreement (Cefta) are being launched by the prime ministers of Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Macedonia.
The scheme is expected to come into being in 2007 after being ratified in each country.
“Cefta will be an important training ground for the region,” a European commission official explained earlier this week.
“The EU is not party to the agreement but supports it because it will benefit the area. This is about the region’s broader preparations for EU integration.”
“The process of strengthening trading links between the economies of south eastern Europe is an important part of any wider strategy of growth and stability in the region.”
Mandelson hopes the experience of trade liberalisation will form an important precursor to economic cooperation for candidate countries.
“For the countries of south eastern Europe, developing trade between themselves is an essential part of building closer commercial, economic and political relations with the EU.”
“For candidate countries, it is an apprenticeship in the economic cooperation that is an inherent part of membership of the EU.”
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