Date of Romania’s Adhering to EU to be Announced in Strasbourg Today

The European Commission is to present on Tuesday, September 26, in the Parliament in Strasbourg, the last country report for Romania and Bulgaria before they join the European Union. A number of observers claim that within the European forum, no other dates except January 1, 2007 are considered in relationship to the adhering of the two countries. The Romanian press writes that, up to this date, Romania underwent a long and difficult road to distance itself from the so called totalitarian socialist camp and to get closer to the democratic values of the European space. In 1974, six years after the Spring episode in Prague in 1968, when Nicolae Ceausescu had delimitated himself from the soviet intervention against Czechoslovakia, Romania became the first country in the Eastern block that established relations with the European Community. The economic block coagulated for 17 years around the Community of Coal and Steel which had nine members: the founder states – the FGR, Italy, Belgium, Luxemburg and Holland, as well as Great Britain, Ireland and Denmark. In 1990, Romania established diplomatic relationship with the European community; the European forum had extended its borders in the Western and Southern part of the continent in two stages: in 1981 Greece adhered, and five years later, Spain and Portugal did too. In 1993, despite the reputation problems caused by the post ’90 events and the formation of the so-called Red Quadrilateral, Bucharest signed, on February 1, the Agreement of Association with the EU. In 1995, it came into force, and in June 1995, Romania presented the official request to adhere to the EU. At that moment, Austria, Finland and Sweden adhered to the EU. In December 1999, at the Helsinki summit, the European leaders decided to approve the start of negotiations with Romania. In Bucharest, a continuous political crisis caused by the resistance to step down of the Prime Minister Radu Vasile follows. In 2002, the European Council in Copenhagen decides to postpone the integration of Romania and Bulgaria, approving the integration of the other ten countries from the East of the continent and the Mediterranean. Two months before this decision, the Romanian minister of integration, Hildegard Puwak, quit because of allegation regarding the embezzlement of EU funds. In 2004, the 10 countries from the East and the Mediterranean become full right members of the EU on May 1. Romania finalizes the negotiations. On April 25, 2005, in Luxemburg, the Treaty of Adhering of Romania to the EU is signed.