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European leaders are set to put the brakes on EU enlargement, at a two-day summit in Brussels opening Thursday, to allow time to get the bloc's constitutional house in order.
The European Parliament on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly in favour of reforming the EU's institutions before admitting any more member states, a call endorsed by the EU's executive arm, the European Commission, on the eve of a summit where enlargement tops the agenda.
The buzzwords are “integration capacity” or “absorption capacity”, putting the emphasis on the EU's ability to handle new members more than the readiness of candidate states to join up.
“A new institutional settlement should have been reached by the time the next new member is likely to be ready to join the Union,” Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told euro MPs during their enlargement debate in Strasbourg.
“We need it to strengthen the legitimacy of the Union. We need it to strengthen Europe's role in the world,” he said, adding that the steps to achieve that settlement should be taken before 2009.
Bulgaria and Romania will become the 26th and 27th members of the European club on January 1, but under the strictest conditions ever imposed on new members amid continued concerns over corruption and their judicial systems.
After that there is general agreement that the doors must be closed while serious EU housekeeping is done. Bad news for Croatia and the other, mainly Balkan, nations behind it in the queue.
A new method of introducing the institutional reform is needed after French and Dutch voters last year rejected a draft EU constitution that was meant to do the job.
The heads of state and government will stress that the Union should “maintain and deepen its own development while pursuing the enlargement agenda,” according to draft conclusions for their summit seen by AFP.
Mindful of the enlargement fatigue, or plain hostility, which set in after the big bang of 2004 when 10 mainly ex-Soviet members joined, the European leaders will also put the accent on communication.
“The European Council recognises the necessity to ensure public support to the enlargement process and agrees to increase the communication transparency of the enlargement process,” they are expected to say.
The issue of Turkey will also be brought up at the summit, though this should entail little more than endorsing this week's decision by EU foreign ministers to partially freeze talks with Ankara as punishment for its refusal to open its ports and airports to EU member Cyprus.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a staunch advocate of Turkey's bid to join the EU, is expected to pay a brief consolatory visit to Turkey immediately after the summit on Friday.
Elsewhere on the agenda the heads of state and government will discuss such thorny issues as Sudan, the Middle East and migration — of particular concern presently to Italy, Spain and Malta.
There will also be a discussion, though no firm conclusions, on the increasingly high-profile issue of sustainable energy supply. The real initiatives on that subject are expected in the first half of next year when the Germans assume the rotating EU presidency from the Finns, for whom this is the final EU summit in charge.
With Turkey tucked away for the time being and nobody ready to wade too far into the issue of institutional reform, two issues were looming as possible bones of contention, in what diplomats said was not expected to be a fiery summit.
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi is expected to raise the issue of Serbia over dinner.
The Union froze in May a Stabilisation and Association Agreement — a first step toward joining the EU — over Serbia's failure to hand over former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic to the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia.
Prodi could ask his EU counterparts to list full cooperation with the international court in The Hague as a condition for continued talks, sources said.
But Britain and others oppose this idea and most would prefer to reassess ties with Belgrade, and the situation in the breakaway province of Kosovo, after Serbia's January elections.
The other potentially lively issue, which some diplomats said was creeping towards the summit agenda, is the question of where to base the authority that will oversee its Galileo satellite navigation network.
Prague, Ljubljana, Munich, Valletta, Brussels, Strasbourg, Barcelona, Cardiff, Noordwijk, Athens and Rome are in the running to host the site.
