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Two more for European Union

The admission of the two Balkan states, Romania and Bulgaria, into the European Union (EU) with effect from January 1, 2007 marks a second transition for the 30 million people who experienced a change of social system. It takes European enlargement into the former Warsaw pact community (outside the Russian Federation) a step closer to completion. While the other signatories of the 1955 Treaty were among the 10 states that acceded to the EU in 2004, Albania is still kept waiting. The ratification of the admission of Romania and Bulgaria by the national parliaments of the 25 EU member states is a triumph for the view that stalling the process of enlargement — advocated vociferously in some quarters in the wake of rejection by France and the Netherlands of the European Constitution — is not the best response to the challenges of economic and political integration. The decision not to exercise the option of putting off the enlargement by another year has boosted the process of resuscitating the European charter.

The prospect of the migration of east Europeans undercutting the cost of labour and squeezing out welfare benefits in the more affluent west has cast a shadow over European debates on future enlargement. Even those states that adopted a relatively liberal position on the influx of migrant labour have said that they would take advantage of the transitional period to delay the entry of Romanian and Bulgarian workers. Europhiles and eurosceptics alike have voiced apprehensions about the preparedness of the two states to undertake the responsibilities and obligations of membership, given their unfinished work in the areas of judicial reform and tackling organised crime and human trafficking. These voices tend to ignore or underplay the consistent record of economic growth Romania and Bulgaria have achieved over the past five years. Impressive economic performance and the prospect of support from EU institutions in the form of regional aid offer a reasonable basis for the hope that harmonisation of their national regulations with those in the larger union will be addressed as a priority task.

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