Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popescu-Tariceanu is un-fazed by reports that the decision on whether his country will join the European Union next year will be delayed. “We will be able to succeed in fulfilling our obligations up to January 1 2007. We have worked very hard”, he told Emerging Markets.
Romania and Bulgaria make up the next round of EU enlargement, and are due to enter on January 1 2007. They are the only two countries left whose eventual accession is guaranteed.
However, last month the EU’s enlargement commissioner, Olli Rehn, warned both countries in strong terms that they need to make a lot of progress in the areas of crime, corruption and judicial reform, or risk having their entry delayed by a year.
Rehn is due to make his recommendation about whether the two should join in the annual Monitoring Report, which comes out on Tuesday. In the run-up to the report, senior EU officials have said that Rehn will delay his recommendation until October.
“The accession calendar be entirely followed”, insisted Tariceanu. “We still have work to do in fields like agriculture, taxation, justice or administration reform, but more progress will be made in the second part of this year”.
He highlighted areas in which Romania has made particularly strong progress: new technology to bring border security up to European standards, and a re-organisation of Romania’s Home Affairs Ministry which was praised by a peer review mission earlier this year.
“I am aware and - frankly speaking - satisfied - with the progress achieved, but I am also determined to carry on putting pressure on the ministries and the public administration to meet European standards”, Tariceanu said.
Romania’s economy is performing well without joining the EU. Inflation is falling, GDP growth is running at over 5% a year and unemployment at 6.8% is lower than the EU-wide average of 9.4%. Over €10 billion of investment has poured into the country since 2000, following privatisations in sectors from banking to power generation.
Matthew Vogel, head of emerging markets research at Barclays Capital, said that he expects Romania to enter at the start of 2007. He had “mild” criticism for the government, praising its overall reform effort, and for doing a “tremendous job” of attracting foreign direct investment.
Spyros Economides, senior lecturer at the London School of Economics’ European Institute, said the real cost of delayed entry will be political, not economic: “The Romanian authorities are obviously going to say that they expect to join in 2007 for international reasons... to keep up pressure on the EU to relent”.
“The government is going to pay the price for a delay”, he continued. “The longer this drags out the more the Romanian people become fatigued”.
Tariceanu, however, maintained that he has no complaints about the EU’s procedures: “Let me stress that I am very grateful for the support we have received”.