European Union foreign ministers yesterday tentatively set May 1, 2004, as "E-day", the date for the accession of 10 mostly ex-communist candidate countries, diplomats said.
The choice of date reflected the time needed to ratify the accession treaty after it is signed, probably in April 2003 in Athens, one diplomat said.
"The general view among the 15 foreign ministers was that it would take about a year to ratify the treaty," the diplomat told Reuters.
The 10 frontline candidates - Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia - plan to wrap up their complex accession talks at a summit in Copenhagen on December 12-13.
They are all expected to hold referenda during the course of 2003 on whether to join the wealthy bloc.
The EU had never previously spelled out an accession date, saying only that the candidates would take part in the European Parliament elections set for June 2004 as full members.
Previous EU enlargements have taken place on January 1, but the candidate countries said May 1 was acceptable, provided they did not lose out financially and that it did not prevent them taking a full part in plans to draw up a new EU constitution.
Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz said: "We can accept a later date (than January 1) on condition that we have equal status in the European Parliament elections and the Intergovernmental Conference and that an adjustment is made in our contribution (to the EU budget)."
The EU is due to hold an Intergovernmental Conference in 2004 to finalise a new constitution for the enlarged Union that is designed to make it more transparent and efficient.
"We could explain to our electorate that we lost four months (as EU members) but that we gained millions of euros," said Hungarian Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs, referring to money the candidates expect to save by deferring their accession.
A May entry date should ease new members' cashflow, since they will receive most EU payments for the whole year but only contribute eight months' worth of dues into the budget.
Earlier, EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen urged the candidates to drop their demands for more farm aid to prevent the final negotiations getting bogged down.
"I would like to underline that the room for negotiations is limited," Verheugen told the candidates' foreign ministers.
"We are truly on the verge of a historic reunification of Europe. It is now time for the endgame of what I hope will be constructive and fruitful negotiations," he added.
Verheugen signalled that the EU could not budge from its plan to offer farmers in the candidate countries only 25 per cent of what current member states get in the first year of accession, rising gradually to 100 per cent over a decade.
The candidates say this offer is unfair and discriminatory. The EU says they do not have the capacity to absorb the full amount of funds from day one and, besides, member states such as Britain and Germany want to phase out the subsidies altogether.
After lunch with the EU foreign ministers, Cimoszewicz said he was still hopeful that a compromise could be found.
"Everybody spoke about realism but also flexibility. We hope that means some concessions," he told reporters.
EU officials say candidates can expect up to 2.5 billion euros extra in concessions, partly to help strengthen their borders and adapt ports and airports to qualify for eventual inclusion in the Schengen passport-free travel area.