Malta to close two Chapters today

by Ivan Brincat

Another two chapters of the acquis communautaire will be provisionally closed today during the second meeting of deputies. The latest closures bring the number to 12.
The chapters to be closed are European Monetary Union and Company Law and an agreement on their closure is expected to be signed by the deputies representing Malta, the European Council Presidency and the European Commission.
Under the French Presidency, Malta will have closed five chapters in all.
Another two chapters were closed earlier this month under the same Presidency – Culture and Audio-visual Policy. These had been opened in the first six months under the Portuguese presidency.
The other two chapters closed under the French Presidency were Statistics and Consumer Health Protection.
During the first phase of the negotiations earlier this year, Malta had opened eight chapters of which seven had already been provisionally closed.
The European Union launched the first accession negotiations based on the differentiation principle last Tuesday in a bid to break with the division of candidates into two distinct groups.
The leaders of the Fifteen decided at the European Council in Helsinki in December 1999 to introduce the principle of differentiation into the enlargement process, whereby each candidate would be assessed on merit. However, this principle has never been practised in the accession negotiations.
This is the first time that negotiations will not be conducted in two groups of candidates: the Luxembourg group, which started negotiating in March 1998, and the Helsinki group, which started negotiating in February 2000.
In essence, this means the end of the division of the 12 candidate countries into a first wave and second wave group, as created by the previous Commission.
Negotiations will take place with Malta, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Hungary and Lithuania during today’s session.
The chairman of the core negotiating group, Richard Cachia Caruana, earlier this month said that during the French presidency Malta wanted to continue moving forward at a pace which will, over the next 12 months, help Malta achieve its objective of catching up with those candidates that had made the most progress in order to ensure Malta will be included in the first enlargement.
During the first meeting under the French presidency, the director general for enlargement at the European Commission Eneko Landaburu described the closing of another three chapters by Malta as “spectacular progress”. He went on to state that: “The gap is closing and Malta will soon catch up with the first group of candidate countries.”