EU to set May 1, 2004, for biggest enlargement

The European Union is poised to agree today that the biggest enlargement in the bloc's history will take place on May 1, 2004, and set parameters for the endgame of negotiations.

The 15 EU foreign ministers will meet their counterparts from the 10 leading candidate countries to review the state of accession talks less than a month before negotiations are due to conclude at a Copenhagen summit.

Diplomats said current EU president Denmark will propose a May 1 accession date, rather than January 1 as in all past enlargements, to give member states longer to ratify the treaty. In federal Belgium, no less than seven assemblies have to agree.

"Please, please don't write that we are delaying enlargement," an EU official pleaded. "We never committed ourselves to January 1. We always said our aim was for them to participate in the June, 2004, European Parliament elections as members."

The candidate countries carved out a common demand last Friday for better entry terms, particularly on farm spending and budget aid, ahead of what the Danes bill as a final negotiating package.

Poland led the call for the EU to improve a proposal to phase in direct payments to farmers over 10 years, starting at 25 per cent of EU levels.

If there is a delay to full farm payments, candidates' financial contributions to the EU budget should be capped accordingly, the countries argued.

EU officials reckon the candidates can expect at most between two and 2.5 billion euros extra in concessions, some of it to help strengthen their borders and adapt their ports and airports to qualify for the Schengen passport-free travel area.

One EU diplomat joked that the aspirants want three things: "Money, things that cost money and things that cost money indirectly."

In the "money" category is more direct income support for farmers and lump sum payments to ensure all new member states are better off after they join than before, when they received aid but did not have to contribute to the EU budget.

Allowing the start date to slide by four months should ease the new members' cash flow, as they will receive EU payments for the whole year but only contribute eight months' worth of dues.

The main item in the "things that cost money" category is farm production quotas. The candidates are demanding to change the reference years for calculating how much milk, cereals and other food they will be allowed to produce.

Diplomats say the toughest area is milk quotas, and the hardest case is Poland, by far the biggest candidate in this wave of enlargement and the most agrarian society.

In the "indirect" category are sometimes emotional national issues such as Latvia's request for its hunters to be able to go on shooting bears and lynx, Baltic fishermen's wish to be allowed to fish smaller herring than EU fisheries regulations permit, and the reluctance of EU member Italy to stop using the white wine appellation Tokay, which the bloc has agreed will be exclusively Hungarian from 2007.

The ministers are also expected to debate European Commission proposals for a road map for laggards Bulgaria and Romania to prepare for possible accession in 2007 by increasing EU aid to them.

However, Denmark is proposing to delay discussion of the next step in Turkey's politically sensitive EU bid until ministers meet in early December just before the Copenhagen summit.

Diplomats say that will leave more time to see whether Ankara's new government cooperates in the search for a political settlement to the division of Cyprus, accepts a long-delayed deal on EU-Nato relations and speeds up human rights reforms.

The leader of the party that swept this month's Turkish elections, Tayyip Erdogan, will visit Brussels on Wednesday to sound out prospects of winning the eagerly sought prize of a date for starting EU accession negotiations. (Reuters)