The CoR Civex commission appointed yesterday the EA member
Dr. Stanislaw Szwabski, Chairman of the municipality of Gdynia (Poland) as rapporteur on the enlargement package.

The CoR will issue an opinion on the European Commission recently published progress reports on the candidate and precandidate countries to the EU.

This is a crucial moment for the EU integration progress as we will soon welcome Croatia as a new member state and other countries are gradually meeting the necessary criteria and conditions to become at some stage members of the EU, Dr Szwabski said.The CoR will give its opinion on the current situation in the different countries concerned (in addition to Croatia, Fyrom, Turkey, Montenegro, Iceland, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo)  and will make concrete recommendations as to enhance the role and the contribution of LARs in the enlargement process. The first discussion will take place at the next CIVEX commission meeting on the 1st December.