Romanian membership of the European Union

Politics of Romania
Romania acceded to the European Union on January 1, 2007 along with Bulgaria. They were the 26th and 27th members of an EU with nearly 500 million citizens.

Background

Romania's European Commissioner

Following its accession to the European Union on January 1 2007, Romania has been represented in the European Commission with one Commissioner.

According to Article 45 of the protocol to the Accession Treaty of Romania and Bulgaria:

cquote
A national of each new Member State shall be appointed to the Commission as from the date of accession. The new Members of the Commission shall be appointed by the Council, acting by qualified majority and by common accord with the President of the Commission, after consulting the European Parliament(...) [ [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2005/l_157/l_15720050621en00290045.pdf Treaty of Accession of Bulgaria and Romania] , "Official Journal L 157 of 21 June 2005"] .

The present Romanian European Commissioner is Leonard Orban, an independent, Commissioner for Multilingualism in the Barroso Commission, from January 1 2007 until 31 October 2009. He was nominated in 2006 the current Romanian Prime Minister Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu.

:"See Also: Romanian Commissioners"

Romanian MEPs

Upon accession Romania's 35 observer MEPs became full members and they have been directly elected on the 13th of May 2007 to the European Parliament.:"See Also: MEPs for Romania 2007-2009

Romania's accession

The accession of Romania to the European Union took place on January 1, 2007. This date was set at the Thessaloniki Summit in 2003 and confirmed in Brussels on June 18, 2004. The country reports of October 2004 also affirmed the January 1, 2007 date of accession for both Bulgaria and Romania. The Treaty of Accession was signed on April 25, 2005 at Luxembourg's Neumünster Abbey. The 26 September 2006 [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/26_09_06_fullreport.pdf monitoring report] of the European Commission confirmed the entry date as 1 January 2007. The last instrument of ratification of the Treaty of Accession was deposited with the Italian government on December 20, 2006 thereby ensuring it came into force on January 1, 2007.

ee also

* Bulgarian membership of the European Union
* Enlargement of the European Union
* Romania since 1989

References