Bulgarian and Romanian EU membership

"The European Commission is warming up to telling Romania and Bulgaria that they can join in January", writes foreign editor Bronwen Maddox, "it is making a lot of noise, implying that it has plenty of room for manoeuvre in that decision, but it doesn't. It maintains that it has plenty of sanctions up its sleeve if they fail to reform once they are in the European Union, but it doesn't. The next official report from the Commission on the two applicants' progress, or lack of it, is due on September 26. After that, the 25-member club will decide whether to admit the two new members in January, or delay for a year. ... The Commission has too many incentives to press ahead regardless of its misgivings about the entrants' readiness. Logistical pressures weigh against it: the cumbersome mechanisms for paying subsidies to farms are being put in place, and it would be difficult to unpick them in four months."

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