BRUSSELS – Italy and six other EU Member States have pushed back against a proposal by France, Germany and the Benelux countries to build new and restrictive legal safeguards into accession treaties for future members, Euractiv reports.
A diplomatic paper circulated in June from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg proposed devising additional safeguards for new member states, especially in the rule of law, as well as temporary and transitional limitations of voting rights
Italy, Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Greece, Slovakia and Slovenia have pushed back in a grouping known as the “Friends of the Western Balkans”, according to Euractiv.
The paper by these countries rejects “any approach that could foster the perception of ‘second-class’ candidacies or membership” and urges “the uniform application of negotiating procedures to all candidates, without fast-track arrangements or parallel tracks”.
“New requirements, political preconditions or additional institutional steps should be avoided, as they would discourage candidates and weaken the Union’s influence in its neighbourhood”, the document as reported by Euractiv, says.
The grouping states that safeguard mechanisms should only exist if they are “based on objective needs, proportionate, legally sound and consistent with the Union’s overall institutional architecture”.
“The safeguard framework should be based on a catalogue of instruments drawing on the experience of previous enlargements and updated in light of current challenges, with the flexibility to adapt to the specific circumstances of each candidate country,” said the paper.
