Potentiële lidstaten werken samen om toetreding tot EU te bereiken (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A number of new member states, due to join the EU in May next year, are to step up co-operation with their neighbours in an attempt to stop the so-called `Brussels curtain' dividing Europe.

Meeting in Warsaw a group of 17 countries - including current, future and potential EU member states - have vowed to work with the EU in order to ensure that "the entire [central Europe] region proceeds towards the EU".

The grouping, known as the Central European Initiative (CEI), is to step up co-operation and to use know-how from existing and soon-to-be member states in order to help countries which find themselves outside the EU next year.

"These actions could be very effective if the new EU members focused on co-operation with their immediate or close neighbours" said Anton Rop, the Slovenian Prime Minister.

"We welcome the CEI's intention to allocate some of the available funds to programmes through whcih those countries that that are about to become EU members pass on the experiences they have gained in their transition".

The CEI includes countries from the Western Balkans as well as Romania and Bulgaria who hope to join the European Union in 2007.