The European Commission has given a generally positive assessment of Slovenia's progress in EU membership preparations over the past year, but the regular annual report released on 8 November also includes criticism of the country similar to that heard before from Brussels. The European Commission is satisfied with the tempo with which Slovenia is harmonising its legislation in key areas such as the internal market and agriculture. The country's macroeconomic situation is satisfactory too and Slovenia can be said to have a functioning market economy that will soon be able to face the competitive pressures of the EU market. While praising the general economic situation, Brussels is dissatisfied with the fact that Slovenia has still not closed down its duty-free shops and criticises the country's slow progress in privatisation, in particular of banks and insurance companies. The Commission points to the low level of foreign investment in Slovenia and the slow pace of denationalisation.
Slovenia continues to meet the political requirements for membership, the Commission believes, but again warns of delayed denationalisation, insufficient progress in public administration improvement and shows a wariness of reforms for the judiciary. Brussels maintains that Slovenia has in fact made progress, but adds that it is still too early to assess the efficiency of the steps taken to do away with delays in the court system. The Commission maintains that the role of the state in some areas of the economy remains too strong, especially in the financial sector where the state-owned banks are hindering development and competition. Slow privatisation and rigorous business conditions are an impediment to the influx of foreign investment, the European Commission's report says.
The Commission hails the progress made by Slovenia in securing the free movement of goods and the freedom to provide services. Slovenia is nevertheless advised to make further progress in abolishing administrative impediments to the movement of capital and in ensuring the free movement of people. Slovenia has also made progress in harmonising its legislation in agriculture and energy as well as in the environment. There has also been progress in adopting the acquis in the fields of judiciary and home affairs, where Slovenia is encouraged to prioritise strengthening control of its borders. In telecommunications and audio-visual policy, Slovenia has only made limited progress and has still not passed the key laws involved. Slovenia has generally managed to consolidate its administrative capacity needed to implement the common EU legislation. There has been considerable progress in the areas of state subsidies, energy and agriculture, while in the future Slovenia must concentrate on strengthening its administrative capacities in the areas of the environment, border control, public procurement and insurance companies.
In the Commission's opinion, Slovenia has fulfilled a number of short-term priorities listed in the Accession Partnership, especially in meeting economic criteria, transport, the environment and social affairs. In other areas, the goals set have only partially been fulfilled, but Slovenia has started implementing several medium-term priorities.
Slovenia's relations with its neighbours remain good, the European Commission establishes in the report. There are still a number of issues to be settled with Croatia, but the overall relations between the two countries can be considered to be good. Slovenia's role and the special contribution it can make to SE Europe have been reconfirmed in the course of the past year, the Commission said.
Slovenia and Croatia should rapidly settle the consequences of their dual ownership of the Krıko Nuclear Power Plant, a "unit of Western design", the Commission recommends. Other bilateral problems that need to be solved are the issue of identifying the border and the debt of Slovenia's Ljubljanska banka to its former Croatian account holders at the bank's former Zagreb branch.
Brussels is satisfied with Slovenia's progress in its alignment with the acquis in the area of common foreign and security policy. Slovenia has regularly shared the views of the 15-nation bloc. Only once has the country turned down an invitation to align itself with the Union's foreign policy stance, when it disagreed with the wording supporting the reintegration of Yugoslavia into the international community in the Union's response to the recent elections in that country. Ljubljana maintains that such a formulation implies the recognition of the FRY as the sole successor to the former Yugoslav federation. Slovenia has achieved a "reasonable degree of compliance" with the acquis in the area of the Economic and Monetary Union, the progress report says, but points out that the Slovenian central bank has still not achieved full financial independence.
The European Commission made an assessment on 8 November according to which the best qualified EU candidate-countries could well complete accession negotiations with the EU in 2002, with new members being admitted to the 15-nation bloc after that year.
While the Commission has set no specific dates for full EU accession for new member-states in a document in which it sets down the further course of the accession process, European Commissioner for Enlargement Guenter Verheugen said that under this scenario new members could actually take part in the next elections to the European Parliament that are scheduled for June 2004.
In addition to the generally positive progress reports about EU candidate- countries, the enlargement strategy released on 8 November analyses full- membership negotiations with EU candidate-countries up until the end of the first half of 2002, leaving open the possibility to complete negotiations with the best-qualified candidates in the middle of 2002.
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