The European Parliament remains firmly attached to its enlargement policy but candidate countries must persevere in their efforts to reform. This is the outcome of the Parliament’s draft resolution on the 2009 strategy document by the European Commission on enlargement for the Western Balkans, Turkey and Iceland. The resolution, written by Gabriele Albertini (EPP, Italy), was approved by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on 23 November, and will be voted on during the 26 November plenary session.

The Parliament highlights certain points, including reforming the judiciary, the supremacy of rights, freedom of expression, freedom for the press, the fight against corruption and the fair treatment of ethnic minorities.

The MEPs congratulated themselves on Iceland’srequest for accession in July 2009. Because of its strong alignment with Community law, the country should gain candidate status in the near future.

According to the politicians, Turkey has made progress on the Copenhagen criteria. They underlined diplomatic efforts for the normalisation of relations with Armenia and said they were happy to see the country sign an agreement on the Nabucco gas pipeline. They called for the opening of a negotiation chapter on energy.

However, the resolution says the EP is not satisfied with the limited progress in the field of freedom of expression and of worship and condemns broken commitments on the additional protocol to the EC-Turkey association agreement. The resolution insists it is necessary to put in place judicial reform as soon as possible in order to improve the functioning of the Turkish state and society.

The resolution specifies that total cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is a fundamental condition for the Western Balkans. It requires all the countries to improve the situation for ethnic minorities, specifically the Roma.

On Croatia,the MEPs said they were satisfied with the bilateral agreement to resolve the border conflict with Slovenia. The Parliament expects accession negotiations to finish by mid-2010 if Croatia continues on track.

The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia ( FYROM), like the other countries,  must also make more progress with its reforms, including work against corruption and for women’s rights, but the MEPs said they were pleased the country has met all its obligations in terms of visa reform.

The MEPs also stated that they were satisfied with Serbia’s progress, particularly unilaterally putting in place an interim agreement. That shows the country’s commitment to moving forward on the path to accession and the agreement should be ratified by the EU at the December summit. Serbia was asked to strengthen its cooperation with EULEX (the EU’s police mission in Kosovo) and is waiting to see a constructive attitude on Kosovo’s participation in regional trade.

Bosnia-Herzegovina came in for criticism for its limited progress, its unstable political climate and the absence of a common vision shared by the two entities. The MEPs asked the Council to pursue its efforts to maintain the dialogue with the political leaders of Bosnia-Herzegovina to help keep the country on track for integration.

The resolution asked the Commission to initiate without delay talks with Kosovar authorities about visas, as mentioned in the intermediary report, and said that the EP was happy with the progress made by EULEX to an operational capacity, which would allow it to perform its function promoting law and order and opening up the path to EU integration.

Progress made by Albaniaand Montenegrowas also noted. These two countries were also asked to continue with their reform programmes. n