European Commission
Malmström

Yesterday the Croatians voted yes to EU membership. That ‘yes’ means a lot for the country and it is also very welcome, especially for a Union that is now trying to emerge from a severe crisis, that more countries would like to be part of the future EU. As MEP, I was the vice Chair of the Delegation to the EU-Croatia Joint Parliamentary Committee and I have been following the country’s development for many years, therefore it is particularly pleasing that EU membership will soon be a reality for Croatia. The date for Croatia’s membership is set for the 1 July 2013 and hard work still remains for the government until that date. There are several areas – including mine – where reforms must be implemented, and from the Commission side we will do everything we can to assist in this work.

This summer we announced that we will welcome Croatia as the 28th EU Member State in 2013 if the remaining reforms are implemented according to the timetable. The news on EU enlargement from today’s meeting with the College of Commissioners is that we recommend candidate status for Serbia which means that, with the provision that the relationship with Kosovo is improved, we could start membership negotiations. We also recommend that accession negotiations are opened with Montenegro. Towards the end of the year I also hope to be able to launch a visa dialogue with Kosovo, with the long term goal of achieving full visa liberalisation. The report points out the enormous progress made by the countries in this region, which was torn apart by war not so long ago. At the same time there remains a lot to be done in all of these countries to strengthen the rule of law, to fight organised crime and corruption and to strengthen the minorities’ rights.

With Turkey it is unfortunately not going as well as I would wish for but we continue to cooperate within my area of responsibility, on things like visa issues and migration and I hope that in the near future we will be able to move forward with accession negations as well.

Today we also adopted a new policy on agriculture. Together with colleagues and allied Commissioners I have fought hard for important improvements. I had hoped for a greater reform and market adjustments but taking into account how difficult our previous discussions on this topic has been, I am very happy about the changes we managed to get through today. For example we are earmarking money for environment and climate measures and there will be greater flexibility to move money to environmental and more long term projects. We will also be removing the quota system on sugar by 2015 which currently only makes it more expensive for consumers. These are significant improvements, although they are not, in my opinion, enough.

2011-06-24 The Swedish Midsummer tradition has just begun and the weather is -as usual – rainy. Every now and then there is a little sunshine. Just around this time of year I miss the ocean and the Swedish West Coast the most.

The EU Summit across the street has just finished. There were some tough decisions on Greece, which has to make serious efforts to reform its economy. Croatia is expected to become the 28th Member of the EU in July 2013.

Regarding migration, the European Council produced better results than I expected. A lot of the things that me and my colleagues have been working on during this spring are to be found in the Council Conclusions. The Member States reaffirm the goal of the Common European Asylum System by 2012 and they even mention in the text that achieving this is crucial.

The Commission is invited to go ahead with a dialogue for a Partnership on mobility with the new democracies in the Southern Mediterranean. There was also a big discussion on Schengen, but the final text is good. The text states the importance of Schengen and that it needs to be strengthened. There is a need for better monitoring and evaluation by the Commission and Member States in order to detect flaws and to provide better support for countries with difficulties. The Commission is also invited to introduce a temporary mechanism that could – under exceptional circumstances – be triggered, without jeopardising the principle of free movement of persons. The Commission should propose such a mechanism in September.

2011-05-27 Today I have been in Ljubljana in Slovenia. I met with the Prime Minister, the Minister of Interior and the Minister of Justice. The discussions mainly focused on visa regulation, Schengen, the Common European Asylum System and the situation in Northern Africa. Prime Minister Borut Pahor and I know each other from the European Parliament where we both were members of the EU-Croatia Committee. Therefore, we obviously also talked about the EU-Croatia accession negotiations.

I visited the National Centre of Investigation where I met with the Director of the Anti-Corruption Commission. It was an interesting meeting in light of the proposal on corruption that I will present in two weeks time.

I also visited an asylum centre in Ljubljana. It was opened in 2005 and it is a centre for families, people with special needs and unaccompanied minors.