5-6 October General Affairs Council

Date: 08/10/1998

EU FOREIGN ministers agreed to start formal negotiations on Union membership with the six leading applicant countries next month. Formal talks covering seven areas of EU legislation will begin at a ministerial meeting in Brussels on 10 November. “There will be real substantial discussions.

It's not just a formal debate,” said Austrian Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schüssel, who chaired the meeting. In the wake of a European Commission report on the negotiating positions of the six leading candidates (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia and Cyprus) member states will now try to agree a common negotiating position on the seven chapters in time for the November meeting. The seven areas are science and research, telecom and information technology, education and training, culture and audio-visual policy, small and medium-sized enterprises, and Common Foreign and Security Policy

MALTA's renewed bid to join the EU after the election of pro-Union Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami was also welcomed by ministers. “We see it positively and there will be a new assessment carried out,” said Schüssel. The Commission has been asked to update its 1993 opinion on the readiness of Malta to become a member of the Union. Valletta is hoping that EU leaders will decide to let the Mediterranean island join the first wave of applicants at the Vienna summit in December.

MINISTERS discussed the situation in Kosovo against the backdrop of threatened NATO air strikes against Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. Reacting to the discovery of mass graves in the Serbian province, ministers agreed to send a team of Finnish forensic experts to examine sites where Serbian forces are alleged to have killed dozens of ethnic Albanians. The Finnish Foreign Ministry said that a team of 15 criminal science experts was ready to travel to Kosovo. Finns have already been involved in similar investigations taking place in areas of former Yugoslavia.

A PROPOSAL from the Commission to impose anti-dumping duties on imports of cotton from five developing countries was rejected by ministers without debate, after a working group meeting revealed that a majority of member states was opposed to setting penalties for five years on imports of grey cotton from China, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Pakistan. British Minister for Europe Joyce Quin said she was pleased that the government's firm stand against the duties had been successful. “This is very good news for UK industry. The proposal to impose anti-dumping duties could have cost tens of thousands of jobs in the United Kingdom,” she added.

ON THE second day, EU ministers joined their counterparts from 11 countries applying to join the Union (the six front runners plus Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia) as well as Switzerland. The meeting took place under the banner of the European Conference which was launched in May this year principally to offer a forum for dialogue with Turkey. A number of international crime issues were discussed, including a report on organised crime and the drugs trade prepared by a working group. Ministers asked for a special group to address the problem of child pornography. They also discussed illegal immigration and environmental cooperation.