20Sep02
EU Commissioner Reassures Romania Country Will "Not Be Left Outside".
Brussels, 20 September: Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana met EU Commissioner for enlargement Guenter Verheugen on Friday, 20 September, in Brussels, where a Romanian delegation participates in the Conference of the International Office for Migration on human traffic, the national radio says...
Commissioner Verheugen assured Geoana that the enlargement process is an integrating one and would not close by 2004, so Romania would not be left outside. Therefore, Copenhagen will be for Romania a signal that the process is irreversible, he said. Verheugen also promised a gradual increase in the assistance given for the pre-accession and stated that Romania is still the second biggest beneficiary of pre-accession funds from the EU.
Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana said for his part at a news conference after the talks that during the meeting, in which Finance Minister Mihai Tanasescu participated as well, he presented Romania's ambitions in the accession process and its realistic interests in the process itself and in connection with the Copenhagen summit.
Answering a question about how Romania would overcome the situation created after it signed a bilateral deal with the United States over the International Criminal Court, Minister Geoana said that Romania was interested that this Court stays unaffected from any point of view of credibility and juridical practice. In the context, the Romanian foreign minister assured that Romania would not ratify this accord unless a common stand is accepted by the US and the EU sides.
Source: BBC Monitoring Europe - Political Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring (Excerpt from report in English by Romanian news agency Rompres) - 20Sep02.
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This document has been published on 04Oct02 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights