4-5 September: Foreign ministers’ informal

Date: 09/09/1999

EU foreign ministers approved a new 600-million-euro loan to help Turkey with the costs of reconstruction in the wake of the earthquake, but Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou stopped short of lifting Athens' opposition to treating Turkey as a normal candidate for EU membership.

PAPANDREOU maintained that Greece had not made a U-turn in its policy towards Ankara. He insisted that all EU aid would have to be directly linked to helping the country deal with the damage caused by the earthquake in August which has killed more than 14,000 people. He said that Greece would also drop its opposition to a €150-million aid package originally designed to help Turkey make better use of the four-year-old customs union, provided that the money was only used for reconstruction projects. But he stressed that Ankara would have to meet a number of conditions on human rights before it could be treated as a normal candidate for EU entry. “There will be certain issues which will need to be resolved and accepted by all sides,” he added. Papandreou mentioned the future of the divided island of Cyprus as one example. EU officials said that the h600-million loan needed to be approved by the European Investment Bank's board and EU finance ministers before the money could be released.

FOLLOWING a discussion on the best way to encourage democratic political forces in Serbia, ministers failed to agree any easing of sanctions on President Slobodan Milosevic's regime. Some EU governments had been arguing for an easing of the bans on supplying fuel oil to municipalities controlled by anti-Milosevic forces, but they could not come up with a way of guaranteeing that Milosevic's regime would not benefit from any loosening of sanctions. 'Everyone knows it is a very complicated issue,” said Acting Foreign Affairs Commissioner Hans van den Broek, “but the last thing we want to do is to help the leadership in Belgrade.” Ministers did, however, agree to lift the oil ban on the Yugoslavian republic of Montenegro and Kosovo. The embargo will be lifted once the Commission has prepared the necessary legal documents.

AFTER a discussion on the important decisions on Union enlargement due to be taken at the Helsinki summit in December, Van Den Broek said that it was still too early to set target dates for the applicant countries to join the EU. He said existing member states wanted to accelerate the enlargement process, but negotiations on the most difficult areas of Union legislation would have to be opened before a clear picture of the progress of applicants could be established. Talks on the most difficult sectors, including agriculture, environment and the free movement of people, are not expected to begin until next year.