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Hungary, which is due to replace Belgium at the EU helm on January 1st, has said that further consolidation and enlargement of the 27-nation bloc will be among the key priorities of its six-month chairmanship of the Union.

Romania is threatening to create problems for Croatia's EU accession bid in a diplomatic counter-attack against delays to its own entry into the EU's border-free Schengen zone. Romanian foreign minister Teodor Baconschi in an interview with the daily newspaper Adevarul on Monday (3 January) attacked Germany and France for linking Romania's Schengen bid to progress on corruption and organised crime.

EUobserver understands that this option is not really feasible however, as the monitoring was a jointly agreed commitment of Bulgaria and Romania when they joined the bloc. "It's unwise to give it up if you want something else at the same time," one EU official told this website. For its part, Croatia has already been held hostage by its neighbour Slovenia, which in recent years delayed its EU accession progress over a maritime border dispute. Romania's sabre-rattling seems to be directed primarily at Germany - Croatia's main supporter in the EU - rather than the Balkan state itself. But it could, in theory, delay the process. Croatia is hoping to finish EU accession talks in the coming months. EU governments and the European Parliament then have to approve and ratify its accession treaty, with membership likely to happen in 2013 if everything goes smoothly.

Mr Petkov's allegations reflect a dire image painted by EU officials in talks with US diplomats in Sofia, as reported in a US cable dating back to 26 June 2009 and published by WikiLeaks. Under the headline "How to you make them reform when they don't want to?" the US diplomats spoke of EU commission officials' "growing and by now extreme frustration with Sofia's cosmetic fixes to get a 'good report' while failing to undertake real reforms." "The government's defensive arrogance - and lack of political will - is intensifying enlargement fatigue in Brussels," an EU source told the US diplomat. "According to reliable contacts, Brussels Eurocrats have dubbed enlargement fatigue the 'Bulgarian Break,' further tarnishing Bulgaria's bad image within the EU," the cable added.

Just over 50 years ago, Hungary fought back against a bloody invasion by the Soviet Army. Just over 20 years ago, it hastened the fall of the Berlin Wall, granting East German refugees free passage to West Germany.Now, Hungary marks another achievement in its transformation from a communist satellite to democratic republic as it assumes the presidency of the European Union on January 1, for the first time since joining the bloc in 2004. Speaking recently in Budapest following a meeting with EU officials, Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, said a key priority for his country's presidency would be enlargement, which he said had given countries like his own the motivation to get their domestic affairs in order."We would like to return the impetus for EU enlargement," Orban said. "Enlargement will help solve the internal affairs [of new members], because those who enlarge, grow, and extend themselves believe in their future prospects. And what the European Union really needs today is to believe strongly in its own prospects."

But many in the EU are worried the "special flavor" that Hungary brings to the EU Presidency will come with a bitter aftertaste. Van Rompuy's words of support came as the Hungarian parliament was passing new media legislation that critics say will return the country to communist-era levels of state control.

Turkey’s chief European Union negotiator and foreign and justice ministers dispelled negative assessments regarding the current state of Turkey’s EU accession negotiations Tuesday, reaffirming the government’s commitment to reform and full membership, despite ongoing political obstacles.

Diplomatic sources told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review that speakers at a Tuesday panel in Ankara regarding Turkish-EU talks do not see Turkey’s position in the negotiations as having progressed very far. “The problems facing Turkish negotiations were discussed. It was agreed that the current picture is not worse than it was at the 1997 Luxembourg summit,” they reported.

In Brussels this week, Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic submitted the answers to more than 2,400 questions regarding reforms being implemented and the country's readiness to become a candidate for EU membership. After a meeting with EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Monday (January 31st), Cvetkovic said he is confident Serbia would become a candidate by the end of the year.

The impact of the European Union integration process on democratization in candidate states is often considered to be gradual. Yet it could also be argued that the effects can be seen more immediately, often in parallel to the membership negotiations. This paper investigates the impact of EU conditionality on gender attitudes and policies in Turkey to verify the above-indicated hypothesis. Furthermore, impacts may come during the pre-accession and accession negotiations phases and thus the effects on gender equality may be short or medium term. Despite major shortcomings that still exist in Turkish legislation, one should acknowledge that the actions of the Turkish government have been particularly significant given the context in which these reforms take place. The Turkish case clearly shows that the speed and depth of reforms of EU conditionality must be examined within a country's political and socio-cultural context.

Against a background of unfolding revolutions in the Arab world, speakers at a conference in Istanbul last weekend said Turkey could provide a democratic model for Islamic countries to follow. But ironically, EU-Turkey relations have reached "stagnation point," they said.

Brussels - Croatia's efforts to reform its judicial system, fight crime, prosecute war criminals and protect minorities are still not good enough for European Union membership, a report concluded Wednesday.

The negative findings meant the commission was unable to recommend closure of talks with Croatia on the judiciary and fundamental rights, a key step towards accession.

The arrest of the former Bosnian Serb commander is good news for the relatives of those killed at Srebrenica; for international justice, which may be slow but has a long memory; for Serbia, which has taken a leap towards integration with Europe; and for the European Union, which, despite its economic and political troubles, has shown its potential to transform even intractable Balkan disputes. That the arrest took place on the same day as a visit by Cathy Ashton, the EU's foreign affairs boss, was a coincidence. But few doubt that the EU played a big part through the power of its unique tool, enlargement. The promise of EU membership, on condition that Serbia first cooperate with war crimes prosecutors, strengthened the resolve to find Mladic.

Even if Brammertz says Serbia has more to do (Goran Hadzic, former leader of the Croatian Serbs, is still at large), Serbia will probably win EU candidate status this year. Whether it can start talks immediately (i.e., in early 2012) or, more likely, be asked to do more homework first will depend on how far Tadic pushes judicial reform and reconciliation with Kosovo. Montenegro, already a candidate, may also be deemed fit to begin accession talks. Senior Eurocrats cling to the hope that this month's election in Macedonia will produce a government able to end the tedious dispute with Greece over the country's official name, clearing the way for talks to begin. Bosnia might look less dire if Serbia moves closer to Europe. Even Albania, denied candidate status because of its democratic failings, still sees the EU as its destination.

EU commissioner Olli Rehn, in charge of enlargement, said the Macedonian government should see the move as "very strong encouragement" to "finally settle the name issue," however. The reference concerns an 18-year old dispute between Macedonia and neighbouring Greece about the use of the name Macedonia. Croatia, hoping to join the EU in 2011, is "nearing the finishing line" after years of negotiations, said Mr Rehn, but needs to further tackle corruption and organised crime "before negotiations can be concluded." The commission report urges Turkey to do more to ensure freedom of expression and freedom of religion as well as bolster the rights of women and trade unions. Ankara has been lagging far behind Zagreb in its EU progress in part due to poor relations with EU member Cyprus, with whom it still has to fully implement a customs agreement. Progress is also slow due to a lack of enthusiasm on the part of several member states for Turkish membership and the pace of Turkish domestic reform.

Of the remaining five entities - Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo - that want to join the EU, Mr Rehn had the most to say about Bosnia and Herzegovina. The war-torn country was recently given an ultimatum by the EU and the US to sort out internal problems between Bosnian Muslims, Croats and Serbs by 20 October. Defining the country as of "paramount importance for the region and for the European Union," Mr Rehn said that Bosnia and Herzegovina could only consider an application for EU membership once it "can stand on its own two feet." "No quasi-protectorate can join the EU," he said, spelling out that the Office of High Representative would have to be closed down first. The post was created as part of the peace deal that ended the 1992-1995 war in the country, and can only be closed after a positive international assessment. Meanwhile, the Serbian government, which is being pushed to arrest two war crimes suspects from the 1990s, was praised for being "stable" and "demonstrating" a high degree of consensus on EU integration as a strategic priority." But even as the EU tries to bind all of the countries of the western Balkans and Turkey ever more closely through political and economic ties and the promise of eventual membership, there are continuous doubts about whether it has the political appetite to go through with another large round of expansion. Apart from Croatia, strongly supported by Germany and where EU membership is virtually assured, internal EU question marks remain over the rest.

The Annual Report notes that Serbia needs to continue its efforts to carry out and implement EU related reforms and to fully commit itself to the path of European Integration. The EU has for its part shown clear support for these efforts by earmarking substantial financial assistance - €1 billion for the period of 2007-2011 and additional €200 million of micro financial assistance.

Ankara believes that stalled negotiations on Turkey's EU accession can be unblocked swiftly if the Cyprus talks make headway, the minister of European affairs and Turkey's chief EU negotiator, Egemen Bagiş, told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

Five chapters of Turkey's EU accession negotiations are currently being blocked by France, while three are being held by Austria and Germany.  The chief negotiator said his country had been promised full membership and was therefore requesting "nothing less, nothing more".  "I checked the 100,000-page acquis," Bagiş said, referring to the EU's lengthy body of approved legislation. "There's nothing besides membership. There is no alternative to membership. It doesn't exist."  "What President Sarkozy used to say […] does not exist," stressed Bagiş, adding that "his colleagues promised me not to use those insulting, those horrible phrases again".  Although he insisted that the Cyprus problem was not directly related to Turkey's accession negotiations, he admitted that a positive development in the island's reunification talks could lead to an unblocking of Turkey's negotiating chapters. 

Croatia made "substantial progress" by opening six and closing five negotiating chapters with the EU, said Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn after a meeting between representatives of Croatia, Slovenia and the EU on Friday (2 October). But Zagreb recognised the difficulty of the challenges ahead in its accession talks, especially in justice and home affairs.

The conference, led on the EU side by Swedish Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Bildt, and on the Croatian side by Gordan Jandrokovi, minister of foreign affairs and European integration, opened negotiations on six chapters: Chapter 4 (Free Movement of Capital), Chapter 11 (Agriculture and Rural Development), Chapter 12 (Food Safety, Veterinary and Phytosanitary Policy), Chapter 16 (Taxation), Chapter 22 (Regional Policy and Coordination of Structural Instruments), and Chapter 24 (Justice, Freedom and Security). It also provisionally closed five other chapters: Chapter 2 (Free Movement of Workers), Chapter 6 (Company Law), Chapter 18 (Statistics), Chapter 21 (Trans-European Networks) and Chapter 29 (Customs Union). Rehn insisted that the reopening of the negotiations, which now comprise a total of eleven chapters, represent a crucial step in Croatia's accession process.

Links European Union Council of the European Union: Eighth meeting of the Accession Conference at ministerial level with Croatia (2 October 2009)

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — European and U.S. officials met with Bosnian leaders on Friday to discuss ways of overcoming a stalemate that has kept the nation behind others seeking to join NATO and the 27-nation European Union.U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg; Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt; and Olli Rehn, the EU's enlargement commissioner, said they will return on Oct. 20 to see how much local leaders have coordinated their positions.

Rehn told reporters that a constitutional reform should improve the functionality of the state institutions and that only a sovereign country with efficient institutions can be a credible candidate for EU membership.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn presented in Brussels last Wednesday the new European Commission (EC) report on Macedonia, assessing the country's progress towards kick-starting its EU membership negotiations. "Now we can recommend the opening of negotiations for membership", said Rehn. The positive recommendation comes after the EC said Macedonia "has made satisfactory progress in fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria", according to Rehn. Macedonia "achieved convincing progress and substantively addressed key reform priorities".

First of all, let me thank the organisers of this policy dialogue. I could not have thought of better timing for discussing the progress and prospects of EU enlargement. That is not only because the Commission's annual enlargement package was presented last week. Even more so, it is because the Lisbon Treaty will – let's assume so – enter into force soon and enhance the EU's role in foreign policy. This is the right time to discuss a key main tool of the common foreign and security policy, EU enlargement.

A joint EU-US mediation effort aimed at ending years of political deadlock in Bosnia-Herzegovina ended on Wednesday (21 October) with no agreement on giving the central government a stronger role over the semi-independent Serbian and Muslim-Croat entities. The talks were spearheaded by Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, who used to be the first international high representative in Bosnia after the 1992-1995 war and is now chairing the EU presidency.

Despite wanting to see the office's powers downgraded, Mr Dodik strongly rejected the legislative package put forward by the EU-US mediators, saying it risked diluting the power of Republika Srpska. In the past years, he had repeatedly called for a referendum on separating from the Bosnian federation. As for the Bosniaks and Croats, they rejected the proposals for not going far enough in strengthening the state institutions. Under the 1995 Dayton peace accords, two separate entities were created - the Bosnian-Croat federation and Republika Srpska - linked by a common parliament, a three-member presidency and a council of ministers. However, the division of powers remains unclear, especially with the office of the international representative in place, and each side interprets it the way it suits best its own interests.

The European Commission (EC) last week gave a thumbs-up to Serbia's implementation of European standards on the road to EU membership and called on the Union to implement its Interim Trade Agreement with Serbia. Serbia signed the accord and the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU in April 2008. Both agreements were suspended pending Serbia's full co-operation with The Hague tribunal. Currently, the only EU member blocking the Interim Trade Agreement is the Netherlands, which demands that fugitive Ratko Mladic be apprehended and extradited.

Serbia, however, still has some work to do. The country must take a more constructive stance on Kosovo, pass the Vojvodina Statute, combat corruption and crime, continue with judiciary reforms, enhance the rights of minorities, and help bring those that attack journalists, human rights activists and members of the gay and lesbian population to justice. Tomislav Nikolic, leader of the Serbian Progressive Party, also noted that European officials reprimanded Serbia's excessive budget spending, adding that if the trend continues, "Serbia will be heavily indebted with no advantage of becoming an EU member." Tanja Miscevic, head of the Serbian EU Integration Office from 2005 to 2008, also expressed restraint in assessing the report.

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