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stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities; |
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the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union; |
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the ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union. |
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the conditions for its integration through the adjustment of its administrative structures, so that European Community legislation transposed into national legislation is implemented effectively through appropriate administrative and judicial structures |
Review procedure - Regular Reports
Following the publication of the Commission’s Opinions on the progress of the candidate countries in 1997 , the Commission submits regular reports to the Council on further progress achieved by each country. The reports serve as a basis for the Council to take decisions on the conduct of negotiations or their extension to other candidates on the basis of the accession criteria. The Commission submitted the first set of these Regular Reports, covering the ten associated countries in central Europe, Cyprus and Turkey, to the Council in November 1998 .In line with the decisions of the Cologne European Council, the Commission adopted on 13 October 1999 its regular reports and a more general composite paper on the progress made by each of the candidate countries towards accession (COM (1999) 500-513 19/10). At the subsequent Helsinki European Council meeting, the Council noted relative to Ukraine:
I.ii. Support for the economic transition process in Ukraine
13.The EU is committed to supporting Ukraine's efforts in establishing an environment that is conducive to economic activity and will support Ukraine in its economic and social reforms.
14.The EU encourages Ukraine to establish macro-economic policies aiming at price stability, sound public finances and a sustainable current account position. In order to proceed further to price stability it is important that the central bank is allowed to operate independently of political interference. Existing prudential regulations for financial sector supervision need to be strengthened. Tax collection must be improved, and ad hoc tax amnesties and tax exemptions for specific sectors of the economy should be avoided.
15.The EU strongly encourages Ukraine to intensify its efforts to build a functioning market economy through greater structural, economic and administrative reforms in the context of a comprehensive reform programme agreed with the International Monetary Fund. This should include establishing and enforcing clear property rights, further privatisation, further liberalisation of prices, the raising of communal tariffs for energy, water and rents to full cost recovery levels, restructuring of business, and encouraging the growth of small and medium size enterprises. The overall pace of these reforms needs to be accelerated. As far as sectoral reform is concerned, the agriculture, energy and transport sectors deserve particular attention.
16.The introduction of a land reform process is required to facilitate, inter alia, the long term lease of land as collateral for loan s, paving the way for more investment in the agriculture sector.
The above mentioned regular reports from 1999 contain a detailed analysis of the progress made by these 13 candidate countries since november 1998. They show that all countries except Turkey fulfill the political criteria for accession and that only Cyprus and Malta fully meet the economic criteria. Regarding the adoption of the acquis, the situation varies between countries : while good progress was made by Hungary, Latvia and Bulgaria the pace of transposition in Poland and the Czech Republic was slow. The full 1999 Regular Reports can be found here
For example, in the report for Latvia, in section
D on Accession Partnership, subsections on .. Assessment of short and medium
term priorities, .. Short-term priorities ..Economic
criteria you find: Establishment of medium term
economic policy priorities ... .. ... modernization of the
agriculture sector and establishment of a land
and property register . The subsequent assessment states
that
Land registration continues, with the State Land Cadastre almost complete, but with registration in the Legal Register still relatively low. Therefore, this priority has been partially met.
Similarly, in the report for Slovenia mentioning
is
made
that
The land market has been liberalized and 92% of the agricultural land is in private hands. Former state farms, which were all by 1998, arprivatizede constrained in their investment decisions by uncertainties about the property rights on the land which they use. Only 28% of this land has been officially restituted.
An alternative or supplement to browsing through the reports is
to use a search machine, e.g. www.google.com, with search criteria like:
There seems to be - more or less detailed - information on the following countries: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovenia
The European Parliament, in an Opinion of 25. June 2001, repeatedly comments on the progress of land reform in accession countries.
The Council of Europe (not to be mixed up with the European Council) has organized work on Legal Affairs . Our field is just mentioned (under Civil and Commercial law):You should be aware, however, that property issues often refer to intellectual property rights (copyright) and not to real property rights.Finally, specific activities are organised to assist Central and Eastern European States in reforming their legislation on property issues, for instance in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldavia, Romania or in Kosovo (FRY).
Background papers on the European change process:
Bogaerts, Williamson and Fendel (2001) THE ROLE OF LAND ADMINISTRATION IN THE ACCESSION OF CENTRAL EUROPEAN COUNTRIES TO THE EUROPEAN UNION (2001).
Riddell, Jim and Fritz Rembold (2000) Farm Land Rationalisation and Land Consolidation: Strategies for Multifunctional Use of Rural Space in Eastern and Central Europe .
The inventory (as of april 2000) has
the following content
Part 1 . Land and land administration Part 2 . Part 3 . |
3.3.1 | Geodetic Survey Functions |
3.3.1.4 | Cadastral and Boundary Surveying: the determination and interpretation of boundaries and demarcations on the surface or in space from or into verbal, cartographic or mathematical description together with the abstract legal concept thereof. |
3.3.2 | Geodetic Survey Applications |
3.3.2.7 | Cadastral Management (which includes the legal, economic and fiscal definition of real estate): the compilation, management and revision of land registration records, land terriers, remembrement archives, and other such legal references and archives whether public or private. |
Qualifications/Overview |
The rights of EU citizens to establish themselves or to provide services anywhere in the EU are fundamental principles of European Community law. Regulations which only recognise professional qualifications of a particular jurisdiction present obstacles to these fundamental freedoms. These obstacles are overcome by new rules guaranteeing the mutual recognition of professional qualifications between Member States. These rules include the seventeen main directives, which fall into two categories: the three 'General System' Directives and the other sectorial Directives dealing with some individual professions, particularly in the health sector. The Commission service concerned is responsible for the day-to-day management of mutual recognitionand, as necessary, up-dating this area of Community law in regular contact with the competent authorities of Member State and relevant professional associations. |
a public consultation on how to improve the EU regime for recognition in all Member States of professional qualifications. The results will be taken into account when the Commission presents a proposal for a new Directive, due before the Spring European Council in 2002, to create a more uniform, transparent and flexible regime in this area. The objectives of this forthcoming proposal, as announced in the Commission’s new European labour markets Communication (see IP/01/276), are to simplify and consolidate existing legislation, to improve the conditions for professional recognition and to liberalise service provision within the EU, whilst ensuring a high level of health and consumer protection |