Future admission to the EU will be on a one-by-one basis, agree leaders

THERE will be no more big bang enlargements of the European Union and in future countries will be admitted one-by-one, EU leaders have agreed.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern ruled out holding a referendum to ask the Irish people to agree to a new country joining the bloc in future.

The head of the 25 EU countries tightened the rules on membership in an effort to dampen down the fierce controversy surrounding enlargement in many EU countries, and especially about Turkey’s candidacy.

But before they had finished their two-day summit in Brussels yesterday, there were signs that the divisive debate will not go away.

French presidency hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy insisted that Turkey should have something less than full membership, while the Polish presidency said Ukraine and Georgia should be eligible to join along with Serbia.

The Taoiseach welcomed the new rules that include keeping citizens better informed about any future enlargement.

“It will have to be not just a matter of diplomatic discussions with the [EU] commission but enlargement is going to have to be sold in the member states better than in the past,” he said.

But he did not support the idea of a referendum.

Despite the reservations of several countries led by France, 10 new members joined together in May 2004 and on January 1, Romania and Bulgaria will do so.

But this will be the bloc’s last enlargement for some time, although negotiations are ongoing with Croatia and Turkey. The EU is also committed to extending membership to Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania.

The Taoiseach said that while there was a total commitment to have the Balkan states joins the EU, there were huge differences between Kosovo and Serbia and those that had recently joined in terms of their national development.

Croatia is not expected to join until 2010 at the earliest, while Turkey could wait even longer.