European Commission: Strategy Paper and Report 2003

How to deal with new acquis and the revisiting of chapters

Acceding countries will be required to apply fully the acquis of the European Union in force by the date of accession, except in those areas where transitional arrangements will have been granted.

All the acquis adopted and published by the end of the first semester of 2002 has been transmitted by the Commission to the negotiating countries. The latter have been called upon to take a position on that acquis, including any possible need for transitional arrangements, and to communicate the technical adaptations that may be needed. Positions of the candidate countries on all new acquis transmitted so far have been taken into account in the negotiations. In some cases, such as recently for the chapter ``environment'', positions taken by the candidates on new acquis can make it necessary to revisit a chapter.

In line with a practice followed in previous enlargements, it will not be possible to go beyond a certain point in time when considering new acquis in the negotiations. The Commission has proposed to limit the scope of the negotiations as such to all acquis adopted and published up until 1 November 2002. For the new acquis adopted between 1 July and 1 November 2002, such as in the field of telecommunications, negotiating countries are requested to transmit their positions as well as any necessary technical adaptations by mid November. This would allow to deal with any additional requests for transitional arrangements which might lead to possible revisiting of chapters in the negotiations in the second half of November.

The Accession Treaty will, as in previous enlargements, include provisions that will permit decisions on the necessary adaptations and temporary arrangements to the acquis adopted between 1 November 2002 and the date of signature of the Accession Treaty to be taken at a later stage, upon duly substantiated requests from the future Member States. Such provisions may be necessary in fields where important parts of the acquis are in the process of being adopted, such as transport, energy or Justice and Home Affairs.

© European Commission; Last modified: 2003-04-09