European Union

European Union takes over the sovereignty.

The issue of Kosovo having a foreign ministry was also not mentioned in the document but the source said it was clear that the next Government of Kosovo can set up that department

The European Commission is set to recommend holding off on Western Balkan enlargement until the "medium to long-term" in a keynote report today, urging all the six states in the region to do more on political and economic reform before the accession process can move forward

Since May 2004 the European Union borders countries that have not yet accomplished their transformation process or are still struggling for stability. These countries are now the neighbours of the European Union, but are they also candidates for accession? The European Neighbourhood policy is a policy that explicitly excludes the possibility of accession. However, possible future membership is the strongest implicit argument for pushing the new neighbours towards reform. How does the European Union deal with its new neighbours and how do they deal with the European Union? What plans and programs of cooperation exist? What prospects and risks does the new neighbourhood imply? Are there further attempts of cooperation and European integration besides these at the EU-level? The authors try to answer these questions by providing a critical perspective of the EU policy, regional overviews, and country reports from Eastern and South Eastern Europe.

The European Commission in a key Turkey report on Wednesday (8 November) condemned Turkey's continuing blocking of trade from EU member state Cyprus, but did not spell out the consequences if Ankara fails to lift the blockade before the deadline at the end of this year.

On 8 November 2006 the Commission approved the Strategy Paper and the candidate countries' (Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey) and potential candidate countries' (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo under UN Security Council Resolution 1244) progress reports on their road towards the EU.

Hintergrund:Am 8. November 2006 hat die Kommission ihren Fortschrittsbericht zur Türkei sowie eine Mitteilung zur künftigen Erweiterungsstrategie der EU vorgelegt. Der Fortschrittsbericht übt scharfe Kritik an dem nachlassenden Reformtempo und dem mangelnden Fortschritt bei den Menschen-, Bürger- und Minderheitenrechten und fordert zudem eine Justizreform zur Sicherstellung der Redefreiheit sowie eine Lösung in der Zypern-Frage.Kernfragen:Die Kommission warnt in ihrem Bericht davor, dass Auswirkungen auf den gesamten Verhandlungsprozess zu erwarten seien, sollte die Türkei weiterhin nicht ihrer Verpflichtung nachkommen, ihre Häfen und Flughäfen für den Verkehr aus Zypern zu öffnen. Die Kommission werde die Entwicklungen beobachten und eine entsprechende Empfehlung im Vorfeld des Dezember-Gipfels der europäischen Staats- und Regierungschefs aussprechen.Erweiterungskommissar Olli Rehn unterstrich noch einmal die Möglichkeit einer Aussetzung der Beitrittsverhandlungen: Dies sei die letzte Chance, Bewegung in die Zypern-Frage zu bringen, so der Kommissar.