European Union (Accessions) Bill

I am not sure whether the Minister is giving way or has finished. [Interruption.] Given that he has finished, I hope that he will respond in due course to the point that I was about to put to him—I shall raise it later—had he accepted an intervention from me. The Minister was commendably brief and I shall seek to be likewise. He knows, given the nature of our debate on Second Reading, that there is broad agreement across the House on the desirability of Romanian and Bulgarian accession, and, indeed, a broad welcome for enlargement of the European Union. As has been touched on in some interventions, accession is beneficial to the new member states, and the process itself brings benefits, as we are seeing in Romania and Bulgaria and in other places. It also benefits the EU as a whole, helping to lock in the benefits of democracy and the rule of law, and the importance of tackling corruption, fraud, and organised crime. All such efforts have been redoubled in recent times during the accession process. However, there is still a long way to go, as the Minister accepted. The Minister spoke throughout his speech about Romania and Bulgaria as though they are proceeding in parallel, with no difference between them. It would help the Committee to know the Government’s and the Minister’s own assessment of the two countries’ separate progress toward accession, and the extent to which each has met the required criteria.