WRITTEN QUESTION E-2070/02

by Bob van den Bos (ELDR)and Lousewies van der Laan (ELDR) to the Commission

(12 July 2002)

Subject: Treaty of Accession

Paragraph 22 of the Conclusions of the Seville European Council refers to a Treaty of Accession, while paragraph 10 of the Conclusions of the Laeken European Council refers to accession treaties.

1. Can the Commission confirm that just one Treaty of Accession is being drawn up?

2. If so, when was the decision taken that just one Treaty of Accession would be drawn up, and on the basis of what considerations is just one Treaty of Accession being drawn up?

3. Does the Commission agree that precedent cannot be invoked in this instance because what is at issue here is the simultaneous accession of up to ten countries?

4. How does the principle of the individual assessment of the various applicant countries square with the inclusion of all the applicant countries in just one Treaty of Accession?

5. Does the Commission share our view that the democratic scrutiny of the accession process is being adversely affected, since the national parliaments may say simply yea or nay to the entire Treaty and not to individual applicant countries? Does the Commission feel that this constitutes a good example of democratic procedure to be setting the applicant countries?

6. Does the Commission still intend to give the national parliaments a say in the individual assessment of the applicant countries? If so, how will it do so?

Answer given by Mr Verheugen on behalf of the Commission

(20 August 2002)

The Commission can confirm that a single accession Treaty is being drawn up. The conclusion by Member States of a single accession Treaty with several candidate countries that accede to the Union at the same time is a standard procedure. Such a procedure has been used for the accession of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom which took effect on 1 January 1973, for the accession of Portugal and Spain which took effect on 1 January 1986, and for the accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden which took effect on 1 January 1995. In each case, one single Accession Treaty was approved.

If several States accede at the same time, it would indeed not suffice to establish the required legal relationship between any single future Member State on the one hand and the current Member States on the other hand, since it is also necessary to create the required legal links between the acceding States themselves. Moreover, there are a great number of common provisions, annexes and protocols which it would otherwise be necessary to repeat as many times as there are new Member States acceding.

The Presidency Conclusions of the Seville European Council (21/22 June 2002) state, in paragraph 22, that the drafting of the Treaty of Accession should continue so that it can be completed as soon as possible after the conclusion of the accession negotiations. It would seem reasonable to expect that the Treaty of Accession could be signed in spring 2003. The Commission also recalls the Note from the Presidency on enlargement annexed to the Conclusions that states that in line with the conclusions of the European Council in Laeken (14/15 December 2001), the drafting of the accession Treaty has started in March. It should be recognised that it is not the Commission but the Council that is the major actor in this respect.

The Commission refers to the intergovernmental nature of an accession conference. Therefore all agreements that are reached in the course of the negotiations are based on unanimous decisions of all parties, which may already involve their national Parliaments in accordance with their constitutional requirements. Once the accession Treaty is signed it shall be submitted for ratification by all contracting parties in accordance with their national requirements. These national requirements include an assent by national Parliaments of the Treaty agreed beforehand by the negotiators of the contracting parties.

The Commission also refers to the procedure foreseen in Article 49 of the Treaty on the European Union. As a result the decision of the Council to sign the accession Treaty is based on a positive vote of the European Parliament on the accession of each single country.

The Commission contributes to this process by providing the Member States with a considerable amount of monitoring and assessment information, in particular through its Regular Reports on each individual candidate country.