EU ENLARGEMENT commissioner Olli Rehn has asked the Irish people to ratify the Lisbon Treaty to enable Croatia and other countries in the western Balkans to join the EU.
He made the appeal as he published the commission's annual report on enlargement, which predicted that Croatia could conclude its accession talks with Brussels next year. "We need the Lisbon Treaty now . . . to make the EU function better and give us a stronger voice in the world to defend European values and our citizens' interests," said Mr Rehn, who added he hoped EU states would not use the Irish No to delay Croatia's accession.
Both France and Germany say they will not allow any more states to join the union until the EU institutions are strengthened through the ratification of the treaty. This has raised fears in Brussels that some candidate states could become disillusioned with the accession process and balk at making tough reforms until the Lisbon problem is solved.
Mr Rehn predicted that the Lisbon Treaty would be ratified before Croatia was ready to join the union but he also pleaded with the Irish public to change their minds on the treaty. "I would very much want to see that the Irish people would be able to decide to ratify the Lisbon Treaty as well as the other countries that have not yet ratified the treaty," he said. "The point here is that the slowest possible scenario foreseen for the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty is faster than the fastest entry date for Croatia accession to join the EU."
When asked why he was so confident the treaty could be ratified given that the Government has yet to decide how it will respond to June's No vote, Mr Rehn said EU heads of state would discuss this in December.
"We will hear then from the Irish leaders how they envisage how to go further as regards the ratification of Lisbon," he added.
Croatia is the first candidate country that could potentially face a delay in its accession to the union if the governments can't ratify Lisbon, and Paris and Berlin carry out their threat to veto enlargement. But other volatile states in the western Balkans, such as Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo also want to join the EU.
The commission report gave a generally positive verdict on Croatia's progress towards EU accession and provided a roadmap for the conclusion of accession talks in 2009.
But it said Croatia needed to step up its fight against organised crime and corruption after a wave of mafia-style violence, while overhauling its subsidised shipyard and steel industries and improving management of EU funds.
"It is not a blank cheque for Croatia. The ball is firmly in Croatia's court," said Mr Rehn, who gave no target date for when the country would actually become an EU member. EU diplomats predict that, if all goes well with the remaining accession talks and the Lisbon Treaty is ratified, Croatia could join in 2011.
"We now have a defined timeframe and are entering the final stage of a process we started almost two decades ago," said Croatian prime minister Ivo Sanader in response to the report. "We need to be persistent and focused on achieving our strategic goals."
The report said other EU candidates - Turkey, Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo - were making only limited progress on required reforms. "Their advance towards EU membership can be accelerated, provided they meet the necessary conditions," said Mr Rehn.
The commission said Turkey was now a functioning market economy, a crucial step towards eventual EU membership. However, it also said reforms there had stalled due to a political crisis linked to a constitutional case against the governing party.