Groeiende druk op Roemenië om regelgeving inzake staatssteun te hervormen (en)

The pressure on Romania to reform state aid and competiton rules is mounting ahead of this month's EU summit, where the country wants to conclude accession negotiations.

The European Commission this week told EU member states that Romania has made insufficient commitments to reform its system of subsidies, particularly in the steel sector, according to media reports.

"Schedule cannot overrun substance", enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn was quoted saying by the FT.

One major concern is the debts Romanian companies owe to the state and to one another, amounting to some 35 percent of gross domestic product, according to Reuters.

Romania still needs to complete the Competition and Justice and Internal Affairs chapters of its accession negotiations before the European summit in Brussels, in just two weeks time (17 December), is able to give Bucharest the green light.

If an accession treaty is signed at the beginning of 2005, Romania will come into the EU by 2007.

One option is to make the signature of the accession treaty conditional on further reforms, according to the Financial Times.

With 21 million inhabitants Romania would become the seventh largest country in the EU.

A former communist country, Romania has been plagued by corruption. The political opposition claimed elections last Sunday were tainted by fraud and called for a repeat of the vote.

The European Commission, however, said on Thursday (2 December) that it saw no problems at present with the conduct of Romania's presidential and parliamentary elections and it would not affect the conclusion of Bucharest's EU membership talks.