Romania & Bulgaria entry to the EU

Speech delivered on Tue 26th Sep 2006

Graham Watson, on behalf of the ALDE Group. - Mr President, there is a Romanian proverb: Unde-s doi puterea creste. It means where there are two or more, we are stronger. Well, there are two: Bulgaria and Romania recognise that they will be stronger in the European Union and the European Union will be stronger with Romania and Bulgaria.

Size matters. With the supranational challenges we face, in today's world, the more countries that share our values and practise good government and democracy within our Union, the more able we will be to promote those values beyond it. So I salute the people of Romania and Bulgaria. I salute their governments, in which Liberals and Democrats are proud to play an important role. I salute, in particular, Meglena Kuneva and Anca Boagiu, who have conducted the detailed negotiations on behalf of their countries like a pair of swans, apparently gliding serenely across the surface of the water but with their feet paddling away ten, to the dozen underneath.

I express my thanks to the European Commission, and in particular to Commissioner Rehn, for a difficult task imaginatively tackled and accomplished appropriately under a Finnish Presidency.

We all recognise that there is unfinished business. The European Union is a moving target with the acquis communautaire constantly evolving. Bulgaria and Romania are developing themselves. We know that democracies are sometimes run by crisis management: often problems are not solved until they have to be solved. We acknowledge that there is only a certain elasticity in the management of public affairs. Moreover we recognise that there is a need, as in previous enlargements, for transition periods and safeguard clauses.

I urge the governments and people of both countries to continue their reforms, but to those who doubt their readiness I ask, would they be better off and would we be better off with them outside? Should we say 'no' or 'not yet'? As the American commentator Mencken once said, that 'For every complex problem there is an answer which is clear, simple and wrong.' Leaving them outside the Union would be the wrong answer.

I am pleased, however, that the Commission draws attention in its report to the need for greater efforts in the fight against crime and the need for more serious efforts in improving the situation of the Roma people in both the countries joining us. The rule of law and social inclusion are fundaments of our Union. More action needs to be taken by the governments of both countries and the Commission needs to monitor that action on our behalf.

What matters to the health of a society is less what it possesses than the direction in which its face is set. It seems to me that the direction of both countries is the right one. To quote from the hymn to St Cyril and St Methodius: 'March ahead, oh revived people, to your future march ahead, forge your destiny of glory ...'. Forge it with us.

There is work to be done in Romania and Bulgaria to make the European Union a reality. We build the European Union together. It will never be built purely from the top down. It must be built from the ground up. That was perhaps summed up by the Romanian writer Adrian Marino, when he wrote: 'Sa aducem Europa, din nou, la noi acasã' - 'We must bring Europe into our homes'.

But there is work to be done in the European Union, too, to convince our citizens that the cost they are paying for the accession of Romania and Bulgaria is not a net negative. To explain to them, as the Špidla report showed us, that those countries which welcome new countries as partners gain economic benefits. To point out to them that unless we let low-cost labour come to where the investment is, then the investment will go to where the low-cost labour is. It is a win-win calculation in bringing new countries such as Romania and Bulgaria into the Union. We will all be winners.

There are some who ask whether this will be the last enlargement. I believe that our Member States will be obliged to sort out Europe's constitutional challenges before new countries are taken in. I hope that is what the Commission President meant when he said that this might be the last enlargement. We owe our citizens and the citizens of these two future Member States the duty of sorting our Europe's constitution before we take in further countries. In conclusion, let us welcome Romania and Bulgaria today, not in a spirit of triumph but in a spirit of satisfaction with work well accomplished.

(Applause)