Romania's progress towards accession. Strategy paper and 2004 report

The European Parliament adopted a resolution based on the own-initiative report by Pierre MOSCOVICI (PES, FR) stating that Romania fulfils the political and economic criteria for accession, but that it still has to make important efforts to fulfil its obligations on time. (Please see the summary of 30/11/2004.)

Parliament discussed, in particular, the areas of justice and home affairs as regards combating corruption and organised crime and as regards border checks; the area of competition as regards state aid, and also in the field of the environment as regards the implementation of legislation in all sectors and the alignment of horizontal legislation.

On the political situation and criteria, Parliament expressed concern about the following matters:

- the Commission's finding referring to official surveys which confirm that the executive continues to influence the outcome of judicial proceedings, and renewed its call for the judicial system to be made more independent and professional;

- the registration of alternative political organizations representing national minorities has encountered considerable administrative obstacles, preventing them from participating in elections;

- corruption remained a matter of serious concern;

- the fact that people with mental disabilities are subjected to arbitrary detention in mental hospitals and at the inadequacy of conditions and lack of appropriate care in many mental hospitals and other residential institutions for people with mental disabilities;

- the Commission's view that violence and de facto discrimination against the Roma minority, even in official institutions, are still very widespread.

On economic criteria, Parliament called on Romania to:

- make the improvements required to bolster macroeconomic stability and consolidate the structural reforms; it pointed out that, in order to continue reducing the public sector deficit, it is necessary to ensure financial discipline, continuously adjusting energy prices so as to enable costs to be covered and improving the financial performance of public enterprises;

On the acquis, Parliament felt that Romania has achieved a satisfactory degree of alignment in the vast majority of areas and that, if it continues to advance at the current rate and honours its undertakings, it will have every prospect of completing the requisite legislative transposition before the scheduled accession date. Romania must do much more to implement the legislation in all sectors related to the environment. It must also improve the alignment of horizontal environmental legislation, especially in the sectors of air quality, waste management, water quality and nature conservation, and in a number of other sectors.