Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 774: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs the position in regard to further enlargement of the EU with specific reference to the western Balkans and Turkey; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2417/09]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Croatia hopes to conclude its accession negotiations in 2009. A road map proposed by the Commission in its annual assessment sets out the way for their conclusion, provided Croatia makes the required progress on the outstanding issues. These include privatising shipyards; judicial reform; organised crime; minority rights; and cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). To date, Croatia has opened 22 of the 35 chapters of the negotiations, of which 7 have been provisionally closed. A dispute with Slovenia over maritime and land borders has blocked the opening of a further eleven chapters to date, but I hope that the two sides can find a way to resolving the issue so that the accession negotiations are not adversely affected.

Negotiations with Turkey are also proceeding, albeit at a slow pace. Of the thirty five negotiating chapters, ten are now open, of which one has been provisionally closed. In its 2008 assessment of Turkey's preparations for accession, the Commission calls on Turkey to reinvigorate the process of political reform. It states that significant further reforms are needed in particular on amending the rules governing political parties; freedom of expression and freedom of religion; and to establish an ombudsman function. In the Commission's view, further progress is also needed in other areas such as judicial reform, the fight against corruption, gender equality, minority rights and the civilian control of the military and to bring the legislation on trade unions into line with ILO and EU standards. The Progress Report makes it clear that the pace of the accession negotiations will reflect the pace of reform as well as Turkey's fulfilment of the necessary conditions for membership.

The EU continues to work closely with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on its preparations to open accession negotiations. Elections are due to be held there in March and the international judgement on these elections is likely to influence the Commission's progress report in November. On 15 December, Montenegro submitted its application to join the European Union. The next step will be to place this application on the agenda of the European Council and it is up to the Presidency to decide when to do this.

Ireland has always supported the European perspective of the countries of the Western Balkans as laid out in the Conclusions of the European Council at Thessaloniki in 2003. The accession negotiations are a complex and open-ended process whose outcome cannot be predetermined. In the wake of the accession of twelve new Member States and the likely accession of Croatia in the next two years, a period of consolidation and adjustment is needed. In the Western Balkans, the focus should be on encouraging the candidate countries in their reform programmes in order to bring them closer to the EU.