All 10 countries joining the European Union in May are behind with preparations with just six weeks to go before they enter the bloc, a spokesman for the EU's executive Commission said on Tuesday.
Fabrizio Barbaso, acting director-general of the Commission's Enlargement department, wrote to the 10 countries due to join earlier this month highlighting shortcomings.
"There was a letter sent. In general it identified two serious outstanding issues," Jean-Christophe Filori, spokesman for Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen, told Reuters.
These are the establishment of payment agencies to enable farmers in new member states to receive subsidies under the EU's Common Agricultural Policy; and food safety at businesses such as meat processing plants.
"On both issues, it's in the interest of the accession countries to get ready as quickly as possible," Filori said.
"The line of the European Union remains clear: no food products which are not up to standard can come into the member states."
He said the letter was not a warning, but a standard part of the monitoring process designed to make sure the countries were ready by May 1, and more may follow.
"At this stage I cannot exclude it. Formally nothing is foreseen but the monitoring process goes on, of course," Filori said.
The 10 accession states - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus - have all spent years bringing their economies, political systems and infrastructure bases into alignment with EU standards, a requirement for admission to the bloc.
Six weeks before the EU expands to 25 countries with 450 million people, they have reached these standards in most areas.
But as well as the agricultural payment agencies and food safety issues, there are also problems outstanding in some states with veterinary standards and mutual recognition of professional qualifications in the health sector, Filori said.
Most of the accession states are former communist countries in central and eastern Europe, but even Mediterranean Cyprus and Malta do not have payment agencies fully ready.
But Filori said the new member states should not be measured against perfection, "as perfection doesn't exist," pointing out that there were currently 2,200 cases of infringements of EU regulations in existing member states.
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