EU hopefuls receive mixed report

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Commission has said the countries seeking to join the European Union had made "considerable improvements" but could still not join before 2002.

The Commission on Wednesday released reports on 12 countries that are negotiating to join the 15-nation bloc, saying that the end of 2002 was the earliest possible date they could join.

But some officials signalled privately that enlargement was unlikely to happen before 2005.

The EU began talks with Poland, Hungary, Cyprus, Estonia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic in 1998. In January, it included Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, and Slovakia.

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A strategy paper was released setting out a "roadmap" to accelerate negotiations, concentrating on getting candidates in line with EU rules as soon as possible by using transitional periods on an issue-by-issue assessment.

The EU reports, which update progress made in the candidate countries over the past year, highlighted that many have met the EU's political criteria on human rights, the rule of law and the establishment of solid democratic governments.

Guenter Verheugen, the EU's enlargement commissioner, told the European Parliament: "Democratic structures and the rule of law have on the whole been strengthened. Protection of human rights has continued to improve."

However, Turkey still does not meet the basic criteria on human rights, and still lacked guarantees of minority rights for the Kurdish population there, Verheugen said.

Democracy has been strengthened, says Verheugen

Corruption in many of the 13 countries also remained a problem for the Commission.

Verheugen said Poland, Hungary, Estonia and the Czech Republic looked likely to meet the stringent economic criteria for membership "in the near future," while the two small Mediterranean island nations of Cyprus and Malta have already met those criteria.

"Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey still fail to satisfy either of these... criteria," Verheugen said.

Verheugen also alluded to the growing problem of human trafficking, especially in women and children, adding that "radical measures" needed to be applied to improve the situation.

Turkish officials met on Wednesday night to discuss the document and the Council of Ministers was expected to meet on Thursday.

"There are some difficulties we had expected. But I'm hopeful we shall overcome them," deputy prime minister responsible for European Affairs Mesut Yilmaz said after talks with Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit.

In the Czech Republic's first response to the report, officials said they still hoped to join by 2003.

"The Czech Republic aspires to finish negotiations in the course of 2002. I don't rule out finishing even before that," the chief Czech negotiator Pavel Telicka said.

Poland said it was "relieved" at the report. Chief negotiator Jan Kulakowski said "it removes any doubts about us being in the leading group in the enlargement process."

But officials and political analysts said the time needed for the 15 EU member states to ratify enlargement would probably push the date of the first accession to 2005.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.

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