WRITTEN QUESTION E-0483/99

by Gianfranco Fini (NI) and Cristiana Muscardini (NI) to the Commission

(5 March 1999)

Subject: Enlargement and the Mediterranean

The fear has been expressed in many quarters among the public at large, that the increase in the EU budget necessitated by enlargement to include the Central and Eastern European countries will work to the detriment of Mediterranean regions. The view being taken in other circles, however, is that enlargement offers a unique opportunity for trade between Eastern European and Mediterranean countries, helping, by means of targeted financial investment, to alleviate unemployment and regulate migration in a more rational way.

The Commission:

1. Does it share this latter view?

2. If so, what steps will it take to foster such relations and help establish regular traffic flows instead of the intermittent traffic which has occurred to date?

3. With the above points in mind, does it not believe that it should consider what large-scale transport infrastructure projects might be undertaken to facilitate passenger and goods traffic between Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean?

4. Does it not consider that an expansion in tourism in both directions, for artistic and cultural purposes as well as during the holiday season, could afford new development opportunities?

5. What programmes will it draw up to assist SMEs and craft businesses with a view to ensuring that, once enlargement has taken place and frontiers have been opened up, they will not be swept away by industrial giants and mass marketing?

Answer given by Mr van den Broek on behalf of the Commission

(21 April 1999)

As the Agenda 2000 paper explains, the Community's enlargement to the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe will involve an increase in the size and population of the areas covered by cohesion and structural convergence policies (paragraph 3.3 of the Impact Study) and produce new market and job opportunities by making the internal market larger (paragraph 2 of the Impact Study). These developments will impose a greater need to compete on parts of Europe which may have difficulty in seeing what immediate benefit they can derive from such a situation.

Much depends on how the transition is handled, and this is why the Commission has set out a pre-accession strategy that takes account of the various considerations. It should be stressed that the process of enlargement should actually raise the standard of living of the inhabitants of the applicant countries and thus increase their buying power, a development which will benefit all the Member States. Another effect will be a reduction in potential flows of migration and a rise in the flow of trade with the Member States.

The Trans-European Networks will be extended into the applicant countries; in this, the pre-accession phase, substantial assistance is already being given to develop and connect the Networks. Support for investment in infrastructure has moreover been provided as part of the cross-border cooperation programmes between Bulgaria and Greece and between Italy and Slovenia.

The opening-up of the Community to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe has already provoked considerable new tourist traffic between those countries and some parts of the Mediterranean.

Since the beginning of the 90s, the Community has been contributing through the Phare programme to the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in the applicant countries. Such support continues to be one of the Community's priorities, and is identified as such in the Accession Partnerships with the countries in question. The national programmes within Phare are only one component of the large-scale support for this sector; Phare also provides funds for the applicant countries to take part in the third multiannual programme for SME (the Community programme for the sector). Seven applicant countries are already participants, and the process of involving the three Central and Eastern European countries still outside the programme, plus Cyprus, should be accomplished by the end of the year. The applicant countries' participation in the third multiannual programme will promote closer cooperation between Community and applicant-country enterprises and organisations and greater policy dialogue in this field.