Mr Olli Rehn
Member of the European Commission, responsible for Enlargement

"The regional dimension in European integration"

The South-East European Co-operation Process - 8 ^th Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the Participating Countries
Bucharest, 11 May 2005

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends,

Let me first thank our host, President Basescu, for inviting the European Commission to this important meeting. I bring you greetings from President Barroso, who wishes you every success in your work.

It is a pleasure to address you here in Bucharest just two weeks after the historic event of the signature of the accession treaty with Bulgaria and Romania in Luxemburg. It is a tangible proof to other candidate countries and potential candidates that accession to the EU is a realistic goal and that its fulfilment is primarily in the hands of each and every country.

I am confident that the two acceding states will take all the necessary remaining steps to allow us to welcome them in the Union in January 2007. We work together with them to achieve this objective.

It is very welcome that Romania has had the chairmanship of the SEECP just at the time when it signed its accession treaty. This coincidence symbolises the important link between entry to the EU and regional integration. The regional dimension is deeply embedded in our policy of Stabilisation and Association. The Commission has supported and participated in a variety of regional activities in South-Eastern Europe, including trade liberalisation, establishing a regional energy market, and developing an integrated regional transport strategy, as well as activities in the areas of combating organised crime and border management. EU financial support is significant. We have worked closely together with the Stability Pact, as well as other actors involved in regional co-operation.

Next, we need to reflect on ways to adapt regional co-operation to the changing reality in South Eastern Europe, and to the region's growing integration with the EU. Within this framework, a stronger role for the South East European Co-operation Process would be useful. From the Commission's perspective, we highly value its growing role as the voice of the region and as a forum for discussing matters of common concern.

It is up to the participant states to decide on the future course of their initiative, but we welcome its further development. In addition to its role as a regional political forum, the SEECP could improve its administrative capacity to co-ordinate and streamline regional activities in a European perspective, and to liaise with the Commission. This would have to be done without adding heavy structures to already existing ones, of course, and in close co-operation with the Commission and other actors.

What I have in mind more specifically is to search for synergies between the SEECP and the Stability Pact. We must together explore how to use our institutions and instruments together to better effect.

The countries of South Eastern Europe are progressing towards membership of the Union, although the pace of progress of each country varies. We shall continue to support your efforts to that end. I already referred to Bulgaria and Romania, Turkey has been a candidate country since the Helsinki summit in 1999 we should start accession negotiations in October as long as Turkey fulfils the criteria set by the European Council in December as to the completion of the legal reform and the extension of the Customs Union.

Croatia was declared a candidate country last June, and we are looking forward to opening accession negotiations as soon as the remaining obstacle is overcome. The Commission is preparing its opinion on the application for membership of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia .

We are getting closer to the conclusion of negotiations for a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with Albania , and hope to see the forthcoming elections held in accordance with European standards. Thanks to significant progress in fulfilling the political conditions, we have just decided to start SAA negotiations with Serbia and Montenegro ; Bosnia and Herzegovina will probably follow soon.

For the Western Balkans, 2005 and 2006 will be crucial years. We are at a watershed. We have to overcome short-term policy dilemmas to be able to focus on long-term economic and social development. The most critical immediate issues are to conclude the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the settlement of the future status of Kosovo. The less we need to focus on stability and security in this region, the more we can channel our resources to economic and social development, as well as to institution-building required for EU membership - or as some call it, `member state-building'.

We are approaching a moment where decisions will have to be taken on complex constitutional and status issues, which currently hamper progress in the region and remain sources of potential unrest - I am thinking of the future status of Kosovo in particular.

It is of the utmost importance that all the countries in the region help to create an environment that will allow these difficult issues to be resolved under the best possible conditions. The Commission will be actively present in these developments, because whatever solution is found it will have to be compatible with European integration - and indeed conducive to a European future for Kosovo and for the whole region.

This autumn the Commission will present its `enlargement package' covering the whole South Eastern Europe. It will consist of an overall assessment of the state of enlargement, as well as of separate, detailed assessments of each country, along with recommendations. We will also use a tool that proved to be very effective for the countries which joined a year ago - the `European Partnerships', which set out reform priorities to help the countries of the region to develop their own action plans.

In addition to our enlargement package, it would be timely to take stock of progress made so far in fulfilling the Thessaloniki agenda - to see what we achieved and where further efforts are still needed - from your side and ours. I have in mind a consolidation of progress made so far, in order to help us to map out the road ahead in greater detail.

In particular, I would like to ensure that we are able to fulfil the commitments made at Thessaloniki nearly two years ago to start concrete discussions on the visa regime. I have been working with my fellow Commissioner, Vice-President Franco Frattini, who has the lead on this issue, on how to ease the visa burden on the people of South-Eastern Europe. I am optimistic about the prospects for progress - although it will also depend also on the willingness and ability of political leaders in the region to tackle organised crime and corruption.

In conclusion, allow me to congratulate the Romanian chairmanship for its work during the past year, especially on Justice, Freedom and Security issues. I also wish full success to the incoming Greek chairmanship, and I look forward to working with you all.