WRITTEN QUESTION No. 3821/98 by Concepció FERRER Lithuania's accession to the European Union
C 325/30 Official Journal of the European Communities EN 12. 11. 1999 Details of the ESF programmes for Catalonia (1994/1999): Programme 940230ES2 Plurirégional (1994/96) 940233ES2 Objective 2 (1994/96) 970230ES2 Plurirégional (1997/99) 970233ES2 Objective 2 (1997/99) (in euros) 8 982 160 107 413 794 17 995 283 129 271 000 940311ES3 Plurirégional: Instituto Nacional de Empleo (INEM) 256 415 540 Total Objective 2 263 662 237 940312ES3 Plurirégional: Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia (MEC) y migraciones 940313ES3 Plurirégional 940314ES3 Plurirégional: varios ministerios 940323ES3 Objective 3 402 294 3 794 725 46 456 710 96 712 924 940401ES4 Objective 4 940503ES5 Objective 5b Total Objective 3 403 782 193 133 801 800 23 850 154 For further details about the European Social Fund in Catalonia, the Honourable Member may contact Joseph Ma. Puig I Vidal, Cap de Servei de Planificació I Ocupacional, Sepùlveda, 148-150, E-08011 Barcelona, tel. + 34 93 228 57 57, fax + 34 93 228 57 38. For projects funded under other budget lines in the social policy area, information by region is not available. (1999/C 325/036) WRITTEN QUESTION E-3821/98 by Concepció Ferrer (PPE) to the Commission (22 December 1998) Subject: Lithuania’s accession to the European Union The assessment reports drawn up by the Commission on the progress made over the past year by the countries applying to join the European Union conclude that Latvia might begin the accession process at the end of 1999 but that Lithuania will have to continue its efforts to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria. Is the Commission aware of the possible economic and political repercussions if Lithuania is the only one of the three Baltic countries to be excluded from this process, despite the progress made, which the Commission itself recognises? Answer given by Mr Van den Broek on behalf of the Commission (19 January 1999) The Commission’s regular reports on the candidate countries’ progress towards Community accession have been prepared according to the conclusions of the Luxembourg and Cardiff European Councils which asked in particular the same criteria to be applied to all candidate countries. The Vienna European Council confirmed that each country would continue to be judged on its own merits. The conclusions of the 1998 Commission’s regular report on Lithuania do not prejudge the possibility of proposing by the end of 1999 the opening of negotiations with Lithuania. This, however, will depend on Lithuania’s commitment to address the issues identified in the report rapidly and effectively