Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-12-14-Speech-3-182"
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"en.20051214.15.3-182"2
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".
Mr President, I welcome the informed and thought provoking-debate that has taken place this afternoon on this important issue for the European Union. The interventions we have heard have reinforced the importance of enlargement in my mind and underlined the benefits it brings to candidate countries and indeed the wider Member States.
Mr Piotrowski suggested – on a different matter entirely, but one that it is apposite to respond to, not least given the timing of this debate – that the Presidency’s proposals on the financial perspective for 2007 to 2013 could not accommodate Romania and Bulgaria and failed to meet the criteria for solidarity. I do not accept either charge.
On Romania and Bulgaria, our proposals fully respect their allocations under the accession agreements and provide for a historic shift of spending towards the new Member States and accession states and offer them greater flexibility as to how to distribute those European Union funds to the greatest possible effect. That historic shift in funding, which includes significant cuts in receipts for the United Kingdom, shows why our proposals are all about solidarity, which featured prominently in his remarks.
There is no virtue in repeating the word ‘solidarity’, while avoiding the difficult challenge of finding the common ground on which both net contributors and net recipients can meet in the course of the coming hours and coming days.
In relation to both Bulgaria and Romania, I would recognise that significant progress towards European Union accession on 1 January 2007 has been made, but more work needs to be undertaken. The Commission, under the capable leadership of Commissioner Rehn, will continue to monitor progress closely and will produce a follow-up report in April or May next year. This report will provide the basis for any decision on whether to activate the so-called ‘safeguard clause’. To avoid delay, Romania and Bulgaria must now step up the pace of reform in the critical months at the beginning of the coming year and, in particular, tackle corruption, which has featured so prominently in this debate this afternoon.
They have a short space of time in which to implement these reforms, but accession in 2007 is still achievable, as long as they fulfil those important, outstanding commitments.
As in our previous debate, honourable Members’ points and questions went to the heart of the issue and raised some interesting issues for us to consider about Romania and Bulgaria’s accession processes and the wider policy of enlargement.
Given the constraints of time, I shall limit my concluding remarks to a few of the points that were addressed directly by honourable Members.
Mr Tannock and Mr Belder mentioned the issue of corruption and, in particular, concern in relation to border guards and the security thereof. Both countries certainly face major challenges in tackling corruption, and Bulgaria, in particular, must step up the fight against organised crime. The new governments have demonstrated a real commitment to tackle these problems and we have seen some progress, but there is still a long way to go. It is right to acknowledge that before this House today.
In Romania examples of progress include: a new head of the anti-corruption department in the General Prosecutor’s office; 11 new senior prosecutors removed for ineffectiveness; and 22 cases of corruption by former and current senators and deputies now under way. In relation to the further work that Romania has undertaken, border police and customs have dismissed large numbers of senior border and customs officers at several posts for ineffectiveness and corruption. But let us be very clear: there is considerable and important progress that needs to be made on these important points.
Mr Beglitis and Mr Tannock also mentioned the issue international adoption, a point that was then touched upon by Ms McGuinness in a later contribution to the debate. Corruption in international adoption has been clearly a problem. Recent measures have been introduced to protect the interests of the child, as we have heard from a number of speakers, to improve domestic child protection and family facilities and to reduce the numbers of institutionalised children, in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and European Union norms.
In relation to the specific question as to why the Romanian Government is blocking pre-arranged adoptions, for example to the United States, a number of the so-called pipeline cases, which have been mentioned in the course of contributions to this debate, relate to requests made during the period of the 2001 to 2004 moratorium on international adoption. The Romanian authorities set up a group of experts in June 2005, who are working through the files of the children concerned, to analyse each specific case and to look for solutions within the context of the legislation currently in force.
Ms McGuinness, Ms Sbarbati and Ms de Groen-Kouwenhoven also mentioned children in the wider sense and asked what is being done in relation to the treatment of children in both of these countries. We are certainly concerned about the plight of institutionalised children whose living conditions are generally inadequate in both of these countries. More work is needed to improve conditions, but we are encouraged by both governments’ recent actions. For example, in the case of Bulgaria, the government has established six regional offices of the State Agency for Child Protection since early 2005 to take forward improvements. It has started to implement a new action plan to close old state care homes.
In the case of Romania, the government is working hard to take children out of care homes and move them in with foster parents or relatives. It has closed almost all of the 85 large, old-style institutions for children and replaced them with modern child protection alternatives. Since 2000, it has reduced the number of children in care homes from 37 000 down to the present figure of 32 000."@en1
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