The Pieper report assesses the likely consequences of the EU accession of Turkey, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the Western Balkan states (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia, including Kosovo).
Assess integration capacity
The report takes EU "integration capacity" to mean inter alia that it must be able, in the light of budgetary realities, to pursue the aim of social, economic and territorial cohesion. The EU should assess whether it is capable of integrating a given candidate country at the time of accession, it says.
Under current rules and conditions, Turkey's accession to the EU would increase the EU-27 area by 18.3% and its population by 14.7%, but reduce its per capita GDP by 10.5%, says the report. This would lend an entirely new scale to EU cohesion policy, which has never yet been applied to a country of such a size, with such a low level of economic development and such large regional disparities, it adds.
By contrast, Croatia's accession would increase the EU-27 area by 1.3% and its population by 0.9%, but would decrease its per capita GDP by only 0.6%. That of the other Western Balkan states would increase the EU-27 area by 4.8% and its population by 4%, but decrease its per capita GDP by 3.5%. For comparison, the EU accession of Romania and Bulgaria increased the EU-25 area eligible for EU structural funding by 9% and its population by 6%, but decreased its per capita GDP by 5%.
To enable accession candidates to get effective support for regional development, subject to their political progress prior to possible EU membership, the report urges the Commission to propose a "graduated model" for cohesion policy.
Compare instruments
To enable appropriate budgetary decisions, a comparison needs to be made of the effects on EU-27 development of the key funding instruments (European Regional Development Fund, European Social Fund, Cohesion Fund, European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development)
Finally, the report notes that the success of cohesion policy is linked to national economic policies and that in this connection the implementation of the National Action Plans for the Lisbon jobs and growth strategy has a particular influence on the success of cohesion policy.
Go European
Finally, the report urges the Commission to ensure that in future regional competitiveness and territorial co-operation programmes, funding is concentrated more closely on the "Europeanisation of the regional economy and on infrastructures of European importance".
