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European Council: 14-15 December 2006

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is important to see what lessons the member state governments of the European Union have learnt from the 50th enlargement? I am pleased to see that, among the many lessons that there should have been, they have certainly learned one in saying that, "““The Union will refrain from setting any target dates for accession until the negotiations are close to completion””." Although we welcome Bulgaria and Romania coming in, it was not a terribly smart move to tell them that they would fail the exam in 2006 but were guaranteed to pass it in 2007. That is no way to give a country’s government incentives to make necessary reforms on time. Would the Minister also agree that we need some assurance on whether one other lesson has been properly learnt? It is clearly great folly to bring into the European Union any state that has serious unresolved disputes with another non-member state. We do not want—the European Union should not want and should never allow—that kind of problem to be imported into the European Union. I hardly need mention what country that is. The lesson needs to be learnt because we must be extremely vigilant that in the case of Kosovo and Serbia that cannot happen again. Disputes need to be resolved before a country comes in. We made a mistake in the fifth enlargement in that one case.