CANDIDATE STATES: Two states - Bulgaria and Romania - hope the passage of the Nice Treaty will ultimately facilitate their entry to the EU. Denis Staunton reports
If the destruction of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 was the most glorious image of the fall of communism, the execution of the Romanian tyrant, Nicolae Ceausescu, was its most gruesome.
On Christmas Day 1989, a few days after the revolution which toppled his government, Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were tried by a military court and sentenced to death by shooting.
Thirteen years on, Romania remains one of the poorest countries in Central and Eastern Europe and it will not be joining the EU in the first wave of enlargement.
Over the past decade, economic restructuring has lagged behind most other countries in the region. Consequently, living standards have continued to fall - real wages are down over 40 per cent.
Corruption too has worsened. The EU ranks Romania last among enlargement candidates and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development rates Romania's transition progress the region's worst.
Although it fulfils the political criteria for EU membership, the European Commission concluded in its report last year that the country did not yet fulfil the economic criteria for membership.
Romania emerged in 2000 from a punishing three-year recession thanks to strong demand in EU export markets. A new government elected in November 2000 has improved political stability and promises to promote economic reform.
Romania has made a great deal of progress in improving human rights. Reform of the notorious childcare system is well under way, homosexuality has been decriminalised and important new legislation has been passed regarding the restitution of property and the treatment of asylum-seekers and refugees.
Like Romania, Bulgaria has been left out of the current wave of enlargement. Once again, the problem is economic rather than political. Bulgaria has experienced economic stability for the past four years and the commission concluded last year that the country is close to being a functioning market economy. But economic growth has slowed in recent months and some economic sectors require further reform.
The commission's 2002 enlargement report, which will be published next week, is expected to point to Bulgaria's advance in the judicial system's reforms and fight against corruption and to recognise the economic achievements. Negotiations between the EU and Bulgaria are proceeding rapidly and Bulgaria hopes to join in 2007.
Last year, Bulgaria's King Simeon became the first eastern European monarch to return to power since the fall of communism. Rather than regaining his throne, however, he has returned after more than 50 years in exile as prime minister in a democratically elected government. He has promised to stamp out corruption and bring his country into the EU and NATO.
Bulgaria's parliament removed one obstacle to EU membership this week when it agreed to close the third and fourth units of an old nuclear power station at Kozloduy by 2006.