Vision Of The Government Of România On The Future Of The European Union

The EU enlargement is the greatest challenge of Europe at the beginning of the 21st Century due to the chance to unite a continent where two world wars took place and resulted in losses of millions of human lives in less than 100 years. The EU enlargement is a political imperative. Romania is a country willing to be part of the European Union.

For Romania, integration in the EU means a guarantee of stability, economic growth and performances. The EU enlargement leads to a genuine revolution at the level of the European policies.

Romania has enrolled in this irreversible process and takes part in the modernisation required by the integration into the European Union, which entails the general evolution of the whole Romanian society. Romania s bid to join the EU is overwhelmingly sustained by citizens (over 80% of the Romanians declare themselves in favour of the country s admission to the European Union) and the consensus of the Romanian political class, which regards Romania s accession to the European structures as a fundamental objective of national policy.

For Romanian citizens, as well as for those of the European Union, the identity of the European space is expressed by working places, fighting poverty and social exclusion, decent education, adequate health-care, a common approach of environment protection, of climate change and food security. They also want a Europe more involved in European external affairs, in defence and security problems, in fighting crime and terrorism. Reducing bureaucracy and creating a prosper economy, preserving the identity of the Union s countries and deepening the integration process are other aims of the citizens of the member and candidate states. At the end of 2004, concluding the future Intergovernmental Conference is foreseen with the signing of a new treaty or legal fundament of the European Union (in the case in which a thoroughgoing restructuring of the existing treaties is to take place), which could come into force during the year 2006. This means that Romania s accession may be realized almost in the same time with the European Union s change, thus the natural interest of the Romanian society to involve in this debate and to contribute with ideas and solutions for a future structure to be part in. In Romania, the internal debate on the future of Europe has been launched on May 9, 2001. This debate was materialized in contributions of the political factors, of the civil society, of the academic medium, think-tanks and, not lastly, of the citizens that, together, shape the vision of a candidate country, but which aspires to the status of the smallest country of a large size in the EU. Under these conditions, the emphasis is on the EU political construction and the sensitive sectors for Romania. This is the initial position that the Government of Romania reports at the Convention and synthesises the majority of the opinions presented during the public internal debate in 2001. This ...