Commission outlines strategy for handling formal negotiations with leading applicants

Date: 01/10/1998

By Simon Taylor

THE European Commission will next week recommend that enlargement negotiations should go ahead with the six leading candidates for EU membership, while stressing that final deals on specific dossiers cannot be agreed until closer to the actual accession date.

Diplomats say that this approach represents a way of reconciling the varying attitudes of different member states to the process.

While some are anxious to see talks on relatively straightforward dossiers kick off by next month, others would have preferred to delay negotiations until officials were ready to tackle all the sectors together.

One EU diplomat described the Commission's tactic as "a kind of three-card trick", designed to keep all sides happy. "The approach follows the principle of 'nothing is agreed until it is all agreed'," he said.

If the procedure outlined by the Commission's Enlargement Task Force chief Klaus van der Pas in a report to be presented to EU foreign ministers at their meeting next Monday (5 October) is endorsed, the Union could start formal negotiations with the six countries by the end of November.

The report notes the "good progress" of the six leading candidates towards meeting EU legislation in seven areas, stating: "All applicants declare, with few exceptions, that they will fully accept the acquis on the date of accession." Nevertheless, the Commission warns that "none of the negotiating chapters can be concluded at this stage" because EU legislation is bound to be further changed before the applicant countries join the Union, even if this happens as early as 2002.

The Commission says it will continue to monitor the candidates' progress towards meeting the requirements of membership and make further assessments of the applicant countries' progress before any final decisions are taken.

But it argues that starting formal negotiations in November "will allow the European Union to give a positive political signal to the applicant countries by moving the negotiations towards a concrete stage".

Diplomats say that the Commission's strategy reflects its recognition that EU governments' attention will be focused on proposed reforms of the agricultural, regional aid and budget policies in the run-up to the March 1999 deadline for a deal.

Ministers will therefore be too busy to tackle the big political questions raised by the enlargement process until these internal issues are settled.

By the end of September, the Commission's Enlargement Task Force had screened 13 of the total of 31 chapters of EU legislation with the six leading candidate countries. Screening of the remaining 18 areas is expected to be completed by July 1999.

Reports leading up to the first substantive negotiations on enlargement beginning 10.11.98.