Malta 'unaffected' by row over enlargement funding

A row over the funding of European Union enlargement does not affect Malta, Foreign Minister Joe Borg said yesterday.

The European Parliament has complained to the European Council that the council, made up of EU leaders, fixed the enlargement budget figures unilaterally, without consulting the parliament.

A spokesman in the office of parliament president Pat Cox said yesterday there was a discrepancy of €600 million between what had been agreed with some of the candidate countries at the Copenhagen Summit and what actually appeared in the annex of their draft treaty.

The parliament is now encouraging the council to discuss the matter and find a solution, the spokesman said.

However, Dr Borg told The Times the amount of funding committed to Malta in Copenhagen has appeared in the annex of its treaty.

He said the problem related to a budgetary adjustment which would have to be made by the EU internally.

The parliament is due to approve the Accession Treaty on April 9 and it would then be signed by the 10 candidate countries, including Malta, in Athens six days later.

But Reuters reported yesterday that because of the row, the parliament could hold up the signing.

This delay would not, however, affect the wider enlargement timetable of May 1, 2004.

"We are now in a situation where there is a real problem... in the way the Council has unilaterally fixed the (budget) figures without consulting parliament," Mr Cox's spokesman was quoted as saying.

"It is a problem which can be solved, thereby obviating any need for the European Parliament to delay its vote on assent. But certainly the right of the European Parliament to do that is there," he told Reuters.