By Daisy Ayliffe - 14th December 2006
EU Summit: Europe’s leaders will toughen the rules on enlargement at this week’s Brussels summit.
Draft council conclusions call for stricter conditions to be imposed on EU candidate countries.
Under the new rules difficult enlargement issues such as judicial reform and fighting corruption will now be tackled at an early stage and will become conditional to further accession advancement.
And EU leaders are set to agree that setting a target date for a new country’s entry will not happen until negotiations reach their closing stages.
Member states will discuss Europe’s new approach to enlargement at a dinner date on Thursday evening.
But guests are unlikely to conceal splits from their Finnish presidency hosts and discord is expected.
The UK will urge Brussels keep its promises to Turkey and the Western Balkans and will argue that now is not a good time for Europe to send negative signals to the East.
But France and Germany will insist that the EU must better define its borders and call for a less relaxed attitude to expansion.
Berlin and Paris insist Europe’s “absorption capacity” is reaching breaking point and that the EU is institutionally unprepared for another wave of enlargement.
The discussion on expansion comes just 18 days before Europe opens its doors to two new member states – Romania and Bulgaria.
The European commission has trumpeted their entry as a European success story but in an increasingly enlargement weary Europe not everyone will be popping the champagne corks on January 1.
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